12 Angry Men
This essay will compare & contrast the protagonist/antagonist's relationship with each other and the other jurors in the play and in the movie versions of Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men. There aren't any changes made to the key part of the story but yet the minor changes made in making the movie adaptation produce a different picture than what one imagines when reading the drama in the form of a First off, the settings in the movie are a great deal more fleshed out. In the play, the scene begins with the jurors regarding the judge's final statements concerning the case in the courtroom and then walking out into the jury room. In the movie, the audience is placed in the role of the invisible casual observer, who for perhaps the first 5 minutes of the movie, walks throughout the court building passing other court rooms, lawyers, defendants, security officers, elevators, etc. Not able to remember much about this particular part of the
One thing irked me however: all the jurors seemed at least 10 years older that I had imagined them. I think that the change in the ending was for the better because it clarified Juror 3's motives greatly. Concerning the characterization of the cast and their conflicts with each other, the movie holds true to the play's guidelines. He tells us that Juror 3 was an abusive and uncaring father who, because he caused him to run away, has not seen his son- very similar to the defendant- in over 2 years. In analyzing the differences in the antagonist's and protagonist's relationship with each other and the other jurors, it too held to the play's guidelines with the various alliances and verbal sparring making sense in light of each juror's moral alignment and personality. Yet he is portrayed as such a man but balding and smoking a pipe. The director with his poetic license makes a very obvious change only hinted at subtly earlier on and the impact it has on the audience's conclusions at the end of the movie and the differences between that and those garnered at the end of the play are great. Detached from the ending, Juror 3 being more humanely portrayed in the movie than in the play was a minor change. Finally the endings are to be discussed. The conflicts in the movie, while also being more fleshed out than in the play, did match up essentially but there was one point- I thing just before Juror 8 asks for the diagram of the apartment- that the movie's directors took the liberty to take dialogue from later in the play and put it there, greatly confusing me and hampering my ability to follow along. We come away from it with a greater feeling self-satisfaction at the resolved trial. Of final note in this summary of points concerning the differences in setting, the jurors all mention the heat wave affecting the city when they begin, and as it agitates them, it serves to heighten the tension between each other and their resentment or other feelings towards jury duty. Seen in relation to the movie's ending, Juror 3's inner conflicts and humanness is a very a major change. Which jurors are from which boroughs is easily obvious and yet I'm hesitant to say that the defendant could be from any of them- slums were persistent in those times. For instance, I had seen Juror 8- the protagonist of the play and Juror 3- his rival, the antagonist as being perhaps 30-ish or so and spirited and vibrant in their arguments.
Common topics in this essay:
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juror 3,
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Acceptance Essays
