Fonda/Lemmon,a few words about the two sides of a coin

Rating: Null/10 (11 January 2007)

The real themes of 12 Angry Men (1957) are overlooked.This film is about a distant and glacial intellectual,a man who is not at all "popular" and "approachable",and it is not the "nice",ordinary and popular guys who take the truth's side.The ordinary people seem ready to vote without thinking;not so with the architect.
The architect is an intellectual,and a man of thought;Fonda was ideal for characters of men with a deep and rich interior life.It is very significant that the script chooses this architect to stand for the thought and for the mind's vigor.This intelligent man has a cultural identity,he is an architect.In a certain sense,he is the only character to have a biography:his biography is this strength of his mind.Fonda takes his character above the script,and gives an intense and compact life to this architect that began by being so distant and cold towards the other 11 angry men.
12 Angry Men (1957) has a profound signification,and some of its moral themes remind of those Sidney Lumet treated in The Hill (1965) also (the strength of the individual,the freedom not to conform,etc.)."12 ..." is much better than "The Hill".12 Angry Men gave Henry Fonda one of his several wonderful roles (he was wonderful in Fort Apache,1948,in C'era Una Volta Il West,1968,and a man of urban charm).The main merits of Lumet's "12 ..." are:Fonda (an actor of fineness and distinction) and a very unconventional and courageous conception that goes against the cheap populism).This is not a movie that flatters the average man (as do so many directors from Capra to Ramis);on the contrary,it affirms the right and value of the lonely and thinking man.Lemmon made the architect to be a reasonable,phlegmatic and experienced fellow,and a consummated gentleman ;instead,Fonda's architect is much more than that.In other words,Lemmon's creation is lacking the metaphysical depth and charm that only Fonda knew to give his character.Lemmon made a slick oldster,a little exhausted.Fonda made an intellectual of an ardent fascinating force.Lemmon made an average bourgeois,while Fonda made a humanist intellectual.Lemmon is humane and reasonable,an oldster in reason,distinguished by his urban charm and reasonableness;Fonda is a humanist,and a subtle reasoner.
The William Friedkin remake missed entirely what Sidney Lumet's movie had to say:the story of a honest and gifted intellectual that stands against the waves of imbecility.Lemmon chosen an erroneous path,and his role is therefore mistaken:he made the architect to be a "popular" man,a politically correct generous;this is not the case with Fonda ,who seized exactly the characters peculiarities.In Lumet's film,the architect is from the beginning a lonely and somehow enigmatic man,not at all a "popular" figure.I don't know how Lemmon managed to misunderstood completely his part,especially that he had before him Fonda's amazing example. Lemmon made a huge final error:when his adversary is "defeated",Lemmon has a victorious smile.This is awful.Now this makes Lemmon a triumphant Pitecanthrope,and this is extremely wrong and proves that he did not understood his beautiful role.The movie was not about personal triumphs,as Lemmon seems to have thought.So,Lemmon made his character a "popular" man,and allowed himself a wicked,triumphant smile at the end,when his enemy is defeated.It was not a very good idea to remake "12 ..." with Lemmon,who did strive to make a character with popular appeal,in a movie that no one of those implied seems to have enjoyed.
The elegance is lacking from William Friedkin's movie. Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men is a movie that each actor looks pleased to be in,while William Friedkin's film is one that none of the actors seemed happy to be in;this is the difference between the two movies.So,the Fonda version deserves the praise also for deftly avoiding several mistakes that the uncouth ulterior version made.
I have seen first the Jack Lemmon/George C. Scott/Mueller-Stahl/Hume Cronyn version,then Lumet's film,and I can tell that,although the subject is poor,the script is excellent,and the lines extraordinary.