Last Saturday I attended Rose House’s showing of Twelve Angry Men. I am not a movie buff—so much so that it wouldn’t be entirely unfair to call me uncultured because of it. There are plenty of classic movies that I haven’t seen (Lord of the Rings, The Godfather, The Breakfast Club… the list goes on and on). I tend to be fidgety and impatient, and unless there’s someone else pushing me I don’t have any drive to sit down and watch a film on my own. I’ve made an effort this semester to attend the majority of Flora’s Friday Films for this very reason. Even so, Twelve Angry Men was a film I initially had zero desire to see. I mean, it was a black and white film made over sixty years ago—how “important” could it really be?

The only appropriate answer to that rhetorical question is “very.” Even despite its age, it still feels like an incredibly fresh take on the courtroom drama genre. The whole film takes place inside a single room. The viewers get none of the context of the trial, and are only revealed information in small pieces through the characters’ dialogue. This, in a sense, makes the viewer part of the jury; you are discovering different perspectives of the case along with the other jurors. This focus on storytelling through dialogue genuinely plays to the films strengths, and is what I believe makes it such a timeless film. This movie is not about grandiose special effects, or impressive cinematography. It’s about the story of a young man on trial for the murder of his father, and that’s what is most important.

Because of this, almost nothing about the film lost to time. Unlike other films, such as Blade Runner or IT, a remake of this movie with modern day technology would add almost nothing. This fact in and of itself is fascinating to me. With Hollywood’s current focus on larger-than-life action/superhero movies, I can’t help but wonder which films will stand out above the rest in sixty years time the same Twelve Angry Men does today.