I want to preface this by saying that I found 12 Angry Men to be an excellent film. The rise and fall of the juror’s opinions was extremely carefully planned – each juror’s change of opinion was very carefully written and filmed. Each close shot perfectly set up the changes of opinion, and at no point did I find any of the decisions unbelievable. I was, halfway through, even expecting to find certain turns unbelievable, so that the turns felt so natural seems even more remarkable since I was looking for them to be otherwise. The movie is worth being regarded as one of the greats in my view. And, before I go on, because I think it’s relevant – I think the boy was not guilty.

This, however, leads me into what I found most interesting in the film – the character of Juror number 8. I am reminded of the standard Randian archetype in a hero – Strong willed, morally stalwart, calm, intelligent, attractive, male, white. An architect, just like Howard Roark from Fountainhead. Perhaps we can throw onto this list the concept of Ubermensch – “the ideal superior man of the future who could rise above conventional Christian morality to create and impose his own values” according to the Oxford Living Dictionary (Rand’s objectivism is not totally in line with Nietzsche’s nihilism, but I think that the anti-Christian, strong intellectual is a common hero to both). What strikes me here is the concept of the individual. Juror number 8 has his moral conviction (arguably justified) and sticks to it. We are meant to critique the other jurors for their stubbornness – look at how they rage at the calm, unwavering juror number 8. See them shout! Surely they are irrational, low-lives. They don’t have the stalwart sureness of juror number 8, and his dedication to the notion that the boy must be found guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt” or else found innocent. This is a principle I agree with – and I certainly think the writers intend for juror number 8 to be convicted of it to. But to my eye juror number 8, despite his claims to the contrary, strikes me as entirely convicted of the innocence, or at least entirely convicted of his own principles leading to the innocence (principles I do agree with). In this sense that the writers clearly want me to admire Juror number 8 is what turns me against him – each man in that room is equal in my view, except maybe the prejudiced man, but that’s for another time. I do not see Juror number 8 as somehow more clear headed – he leads his own personal crusade based on his own principles as much as any of the other stubborn jurors.

Juror number 8 parades onward, carefully, perhaps even (falsely?) humbly. He provides genuinely good evidence, though it’s hard for me to empathize since I find the other jurors far more sympathetic. There are very reasonable arguments for the guilt of the boy, and it’s perfectly understandable why the jurors believe he’s guilty. It’s convincing and satisfying testimony to his guilt – the details that provide substantial doubt to his innocence are subtle, and I fully sympathize for the other jurors for not noticing it. Particularly Juror number 3, the last juror to be turned. We see him as impassioned, rude, even violent, and we are meant to contrast him, I think, with the cool confidence of Juror number 8. Yet at the very end, as he stares at the photograph of his son, I have nothing but sympathy for his cause. I do not think he is right, but I understand his position completely. Cue the moment my distaste for Juror number 8 peaked; Juror number 3 is crying, admitting defeat and humiliation at the hands of Juror number 8. Juror number 8 serenely grabs him his coat, and touches him pitifully on the shoulder. I do not see this move as sympathetic – Juror number 8 surely knows he is the cause of this man’s grief in a lot of ways – if he understood that, truly, he would have just let Juror number 3 in peace. But instead he deepens Juror number 3’s humiliation, offering a “sympathetic” hand while cementing his and the audience’s view of his strength, calmness, and intellectual and moral stalwart-ness. My sympathy for Juror number 8 has left me at this point. I empathize with the other jurors far more, except maybe the prejudiced man, but at least he overcame to some small extent his prejudices. Juror number 3, in admitting defeat, has done something titanically difficult, and I have far more admiration for that than for Juror number 8’s convincing the others of his cause. Juror number 8 remained stalwart – or stubborn – until the end. The other Jurors were the ones who had to overcome true difficulty.