"Innocent unless proved guilty" IS a founding father principle

Rating: 9/10 (6 December 2015)

The Film "12 Angry Men" is an amazingly written classic film from the year 1957. This wonderfully created suspense drama is about a jury of 12 men that must come to a unanimous decision to either send an 18 year old boy to the electric chair or to let him free. The young man was placed on trial after supposed evidence was found and eye witnesses saw him murder his father with a knife. At the beginning of the jury meeting, 11 jurors immediately vote to send the boy to the electric chair, while the twelfth is simply hesitant to send the boy to his death without talking about it. Angrily and almost against their will, they discuss the murder case and all the events that take place, and slowly but surely find reasonable doubt in all aspects of the "Evidence." For example, 2 witnesses were brought to the court to testify against the boy. One witness saw the murder from across the street as a train was passing by, and the other was in a room below and heard the scream as someone yelled "I'm going to kill you!" As the Jury discussed both aspects of the witnesses, they decided that it was impossible for the witness below to hear the murder taking place as a train was going by right outside the window. As more and more doubts filled the room, one by one, the jury members started changing their votes to not guilty. Each member of the jury has a different back ground and each seem to find a personal connection to a different member within the trial. One Juror has glasses and identifies with the eye witness who also wears glasses but realizes that when she saw the murder from her bed while looking out the window, she probably wouldn't have been wearing her glasses which would have made it very difficult to see. Another Juror is a father with a bad relationship with his son. He identifies the most with the murder victim who was stabbed "supposedly" by his own son. He tends to be more ruthless with the young man on trial and is the very last Juror to change his vote to not guilty. I think that this strategy naturally makes the audience try to identify with one of the characters. We tend to ask ourselves, if I were in this situation, who would I be? Would I vote guilty or not guilty? We all like to think that we would be the first one to vote not guilty. Compassion wins the star role in this film. There may be many different kinds of moral statutes that the film makers lead the audience to believe, but they all tie back into this one simple concept. One of our greatest and most noble examples of compassion is the biblical reference to Jesus Christ. In some ways, this movie can be related to that seeing as the main character can be seen as a savior for the young man on trial, but because of the very real human element in the film, this is clearly the exact opposite. The first juror may have all the compassion in the world but that just simply doesn't do it justice. He must also convince his fellow 11 apostles to have this same kind of compassion which eventually saves this young boys life. Compassion is what makes the audience identify with the main character, not justice. If all 12 jurors had walked into the room, quickly voted that the evidence was good and that this boy was without a doubt the killer then it wouldn't have been in justice or ruthless in the least. After all in the minds of 12 imperfect people, this was a case where the killer was proved guilty. Granted the movie would have no plot and it wouldn't have been nominated for 3 academy awards, but it would have been just in the eyes of the legal system. So why does the audience vote for this random act of compassion? Is it just? This film has been numbered among the great drama classics in history. Not because of its amazing CGI ability to make super robots fight aliens, nor its Megan Fox type lead female role, but because of the film makers ability to creatively persuade its audience to be morally upright. We as Americans are always trying to better ourselves. It's in our blood. However, sometimes we try to focus more on the qualities that will benefit ourselves, instead of helping other people. We try to lose weight, we try to be funnier, be interesting. All of these things are great to a certain extent, but what these brilliant film writers are doing is trying to help us realize is that being American is not about us. It's about helping us to become our best selves in order to help other people. Sure, being determined, skilled compassionate, etc. can help us personally, but how can we take these personal strengths and apply them to be the best Americans we can be? The main character said it best when he announced, "wouldn't you want someone to do the same for you if you were in his position?" The room may have been silent, but the audience already knows the answer to that question. The "anger" portion of this movie is not so much anger as it is a character development struggle to become a better more compassionate individual. The argument in this film is one that we lack in today's modern cinema. If the new and upcoming film makers want to learn from history, then they need to take a blast to the past because films like these teach us to be American, be just, but more importantly, to be compassionate.