Twelve Angry Men Analysis
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Twelve Angry Men was first broadcast as a television play in September of 1954, just three months after the Army-McCarthy hearings. Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy was the leader of a campaign targeting rumored communists in the United States. Rose draws a parallel between the injustice of the McCarthy hearings and the jury's deliberation.
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Rose makes use of the Aristotelian unities, which state that: the action of a play should take place in a period of less than twenty-four hours, the play itself should have only one setting, and the plot of the play should not diverge from the central action.
Historical Context
Live Television Drama in the 1950s
The decade of the 1950s is sometimes known as the golden era of television, largely because thousands of live dramas were broadcast during that time. These dramas supplemented the standard television fare of variety shows, westerns, and soap operas. It was during this period that television replaced radio and film as the chief medium of entertainment for the American family.
The live programs were in the form of drama anthologies, such as NBC's Kraft Television Theater and Goodyear Television Playhouse and CBS's Studio One. It was Studio One, which ran from 1948 to 1958, that aired Twelve Angry Men and other plays by Rose. Rose recalled in an interview the challenging but rewarding nature of television drama in the 1950s: "It was a terrifying experience, but very exhilarating. But there were always mistakes…. I don't recall a show I ever did when something didn't go wrong" (quoted in "Reginald Rose: A Biography," in Readings on "Twelve Angry Men," edited by Russ Munyan). Rose recalls cameras breaking down and shows that ran either too long or too short to fill the exact time slot allocated.
There was great variety in the content of these dramas. Some were adaptations of stage plays by such playwrights as Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller as well as Shakespeare. Most, however, were original dramas. The constant demand for new plays provided a fruitful creative outlet for writers, directors, and actors in the new medium. Television drama offered actors who were not well known in movies their first national exposure. In 1949, Marlon Brando, then only twenty-four years old, starred in I'm No Hero, a television drama produced by the Actors Studio. Paul Newman and Steve McQueen made appearances on the Goodyear Television Playhouse. Directors such as John Frankenheimer, Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet, and Sidney Pollack, who would later become known for their work in film, began their careers directing television dramas in the late 1940s and 1950s. Live drama died out in the early 1960s, because new technology enabled productions to be filmed. This produced higher-quality technical work, since mistakes could be edited out and scenes could be reshot, but many of the pioneer actors, writers, and directors bemoaned the loss of the excitement and intimacy of live drama.
McCarthyism and Fear of Communism
In the 1950s, during the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, Americans were apprehensive about the spread of Communism around the world and at home. The Communist takeover of China in 1949, as well as the U.S.S.R.'s first test explosion of an atomic bomb that same year, followed by the Communist invasion of Korea in 1950, had all intensified these fears. In the late 1940s, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began to investigate people who were suspected of being Communists. Their focus was on Hollywood and the entertainment industry. In October 1947, nineteen witnesses called before HUAC refused to cooperate with the committee; as a result, ten of them, who became known as the Hollywood Ten, were sentenced in 1950 to between six and twelve months in prison. During the 1950s, many people who worked in film, theater, radio, and television were blacklisted for alleged ties to Communism. They were prevented from working again in the entertainment industry.
The 1950s also saw the rise of Joseph McCarthy, a Republican senator from Wisconsin and a fierce anti-Communist. In 1950, McCarthy claimed that he had a list of 205 Communists who worked in the U.S. State Department. The following year, McCarthy became chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, which gave him even greater authority to pursue suspected Communists. Many people lost their jobs as a result of admitting that they were members of the Communist Party. Some, in order to show they had renounced their left-wing views, gave information about others who were Communist Party members.
Having created an atmosphere of hysteria regarding Communist infiltration and conspiracies, McCarthy overreached himself when he began to investigate Communist infiltration of the U.S. military, which angered military leaders as well as President Dwight Eisenhower, a retired general. From April to June 1954, the Army-McCarthy hearings were televised and watched by an estimated twenty million viewers. When Twelve Angry Men was shown only three months later, on September 20, 1954, viewers could hardly fail to see the contrast in the play's theme of fairness and justice with the witch hunt led by McCarthy. In December 1954, McCarthy was censured by the U.S. Senate, and the McCarthy era essentially came to an end.
Literary Style
Limited Setting, Claustrophobic Atmosphere
The play has only one setting, the jury room, though both films and later stage productions added a washroom. Props are minimal, consisting mainly of a long conference table and twelve chairs. The room is hot and humid, since there is no air-conditioning and the fan does not work. The atmosphere is claustrophobic, and the men are understandably short-tempered. This confined setting helps produce the basic rhythm of the play: a juror or several jurors will provide exposition, reviewing some of the details of the case, and this will be followed by a flare-up, in which jurors express sharp disagreements and engage in bad-tempered exchanges. These, in turn, are followed by a quieter phase as tempers calm, before more exposition sets the rhythm in motion again. In this way, the static setting, in which no one comes or goes, is overcome by the dramatic rhythm inherent in the dialogue. The static setting is also mitigated by the way the director has the actors move around the stage as the arguments ebb and flow.
In the 1957 film version, the heat of the room is conveyed by the jurors shown with their shirts visibly stained with sweat. This also contributes to characterization, since Juror Four, who remains calm and rational throughout, does not sweat. After the thunderstorm cools the room a little, the sweat dries up, except in the case of Juror Three, which conveys something about his tense, emotional state of mind.
Film provides opportunities a stage director does not have; in the film, the director Sidney Lumet achieves movement and variety by frequently varying the camera angles. The changes in camera angles multiply as the dramatic tension increases. Also, Lumet progressively lowers the level from which the movie is shot. The first third is shot from above eye level, the second third at eye level, and the last third from below eye level. In the last third, the ceiling of the room begins to appear, giving a sense that the room is getting smaller.
Lumet's use of progressively longer lenses also contributes to the seeming diminishment of the room. Lumet began with normal-range lenses of 28 to 40 millimeters and then progressed to 50-, 75-, and 100-millimeter lenses. (The length of the lens refers to the focal length, or the distance from the focal point to the lens.) The longer lens alters the relationships of subject and background, giving the impression in the film that the walls are closing in and also making the table look more crowded, thus adding to the atmosphere of claustrophobia.
Compare and Contrast
- 1950s: In 1953, 55 percent of American households possess a
television set. In 1955, the figure jumps to 67 percent. In this year,
7,421,084 television sets are sold in the United States. NBC is the first
network to have a regularly scheduled color program on the air (Bonanza,
starting in 1959).
Today: More than 98 percent of households have television sets, and many have more than one. In 1999, 68 percent of households with television have cable television. On average, Americans watch four hours of television a day.
- 1950s: Support for the death penalty in the United States drops. In
the 1940s, there were, on average, nearly 130 executions a year, but in the
1950s this figure falls to an average of 71.5 executions. The most famous cases
are those of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who are put to death in New York in
1953 for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. In New York in 1954, the
year Twelve Angry Men is first televised, nine people are executed. Two
of the condemned are teenagers; a total of three more teenagers die in New
York's Sing Sing in 1955 and 1956.
Today: Although the United States is one of the few countries to retain the death penalty, the number of executions is falling, from 71 in 2002 to 65 in 2003 and 59 in 2004. In New York, Governor George Pataki reinstates the death penalty in 1995, but, as of 2005, New York had not executed anyone since 1963. In 2005, the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for those who commit murder when younger than age eighteen. This decision affects not only future sentencing but also approximately seventy prisoners on death row who were under eighteen when they committed their crimes.
- 1950s: The cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union
dominates global politics in the era, as does the Korean War, from 1950 to
1953. Fear of Communism leads to the McCarthy era in the United States.
Television drama during this period often includes patriotic sentiments, such
as those expressed by Juror Eleven in Twelve Angry Men. There is a
perceived need to reinforce U.S. citizens' belief in the virtues of American
democracy in contrast to the totalitarian Communist states of China and the
Soviet Union.
Today: The cold war is over, leaving the United States as the sole superpower. U.S. and, to an extent, global politics are dominated by the "war on terror." The Islamic terrorist group al Qaeda has replaced the Soviet Union in the minds of Americans as the prime source of evil in the world. Politicians regularly exploit people's fear of terrorism to gain support for their policies.
Media Adaptations
- In 1957, Twelve Angry Men was made into a film starring Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb and directed by Sydney Lumet, with a screenplay by Rose (produced by Orion-Nova Productions/United Artists). It is available on DVD through MGM/UA Video.
- In 1997, the cable channel Showtime released the made-for-television movie of Twelve Angry Men, directed by William Friedkin and starring Jack Lemmon as Juror Eight, with George C. Scott, Hume Cronyn, James Gandolfini, and Tony Danza. Rose produced an updated screenplay for this production. The videotape, put out by MGM/UA Video, has limited availability.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Sources
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "Inadequate Representation," http://www.aclu.org/DeathPenalty/DeathPenalty.cfm?ID=9313&c=62 (posted October 8, 2003).
Cutler, Brian L., and Stephen D. Penrod, Mistaken Identification: The Eyewitness, Psychology, and the Law, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 12.
Ellsworth, Phoebe C., Review of Twelve Angry Men, in Michigan Law Review, Vol. 101, No. 6, May 2003, pp. 1387-1407.
"Inside the Jury Room," in Newsweek, April 15, 1957, p. 113.
Loftus, Elizabeth F., Eyewitness Testimony, Harvard University Press, 1979, pp. 1-7, 9-10, 171-74.
"Reginald Rose: A Biography," in Readings on "Twelve Angry Men," edited by Ross Munyan, Greenhaven Press, 2000, p. 19.
Rose, Reginald, "Author's Commentary," in Six Television Plays, Simon and Schuster, 1956, p. 156.
―――――――, Twelve Angry Men: A Play in Three Acts, Dramatic Publishing Company, 1955, pp. 4-5, 15, 16, 21, 22, 44, 45, 60.
Simon, John, "No Doubt," in New York, Vol. 37, No. 39, pp. 71-72.
Smith, David Burnell, "Twelve Angry Men Presents an Idealized View of the Jury System," in Readings on "Twelve Angry Men," edited by Ross Munyan, Greenhaven Press, 2000, pp. 97-101.
Traube, Leonard, "The 1954 Production Was Excellent Television Drama," in Readings on "Twelve Angry Men," edited by Ross Munyan, Greenhaven Press, 2000, p. 108; originally published in Variety, September 24, 1954.
Walsh, Moira, Review of Twelve Angry Men, in America, April 27, 1957, p. 150.
Wolf, Matt, "The 1996 London Stage Version Is Timely," in Readings on "Twelve Angry Men," edited by Ross Munyan, Greenhaven Press, 2000, p. 122; originally published in Variety, May 20-26, 1996.
Further Reading
Abramson, Jeffrey, We the Jury: The Jury System and the Ideal of Democracy, with a new preface, Harvard University Press, 2000.
Abramson, who is a former prosecutor, describes the history and function of juries in democratic society. He discusses such issues as mandatory cross-section representation for juries and scientific jury selection and advocates mandatory unanimous verdicts. He concludes that the jury system works well and serves the interests of democracy.
Burnett, D. Graham, A Trial by Jury, Vintage, 2002.
Burnett, a historian of science, was the foreman of the jury in a murder trial in New York City, and in this book he discusses the responsibilities and frustrations of jury duty. The result is an excellent account of what really goes on in a jury room. Reviewers made comparisons between this book and Twelve Angry Men.
Hans, Valerie P., and Neil Vidmar, Judging the Jury, Perseus, 2001.
The authors discuss the performance of juries and conclude that on the whole, they do a competent job. Other issues discussed in the book include jury selection, the effects of prejudice, and the significance of whether the verdict is unanimous or a majority decision. They also cover the history and development of the jury system.
Yarmey, A. Daniel, The Psychology of Eyewitness Testimony, Free Press, 1979.
Yarmey presents the psychological and legal aspects of eyewitness identification. He also discusses the implications for criminal justice of the scientific literature on memory, perception, and social perception.
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