ANAYLSIS OF 12 ANGRY MEN 1 12 Angry Men

13 Pages·2016·0.19 MB·English

Running head: ANAYLSIS OF 12 ANGRY MEN 1

12 Angry Men: A Case for Resolving Difficult Conversations
Leslie N. Fountain
Claremont Lincoln University
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12 Angry Men presents a situational case study for dialogue, discussion and
difficult conversations. The film consists of twelve men of different backgrounds, ages,
personalities and assumptions analyzing a case that can determine whether a young,
Spanish teen will be acquitted of killing his father, or face life in jail with the possibility
of the death penalty. Watching a film of pure dialogue engulfs the viewer in the roles of
each of these men and the influence their position makes on the jury as a whole. Before
they were dismissed to begin deliberations from the court, the judge instructed that the
jury was to return unanimously with a vote of not guilty if there is a reasonable doubt, or
with a vote of guilty as charged. This instruction emphasized the criticality of the
conversation to serve as a moral obligation and a legal duty.

Key Characters. Having a cast exclusively of men in this film creates an
expectation for gender-conventional bravado and dominance. This sets the stage for each
juror’s variable range of emotions to be provoked. While there were several critical
moments in the film, this paper will select four exchanges as examples of difficult
conversations. Five out of twelve of the jurors played a role in these examples. Juror #3
was a hot-tempered senior-aged father who indicated very early with the jury that he had
a chip on his shoulder about teens that was instigated by the profile of the defendant. He
was sure the defendant was guilty and was the last to hold to his certainty until the end of
the film. Juror #4 was a well-dressed, senior-aged man who had a calm and firm
disposition. Juror #7 was a restless, middle-aged man seeking to get to a baseball game
and had every intention on making it on time, regardless of what it meant for the
defendant or his fellow jurors. Juror #8 was the contrary juror in the room of a senior age,
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seeking to convene the jury to think critically about the case. Juror #10 is a middle age
man with a confrontational behavior. He is vocal about his biases of people and is
aggressive about defending his position on the case.

Role of Time. Jurors in this case were locked into an uncomfortable environment on an
extreme weather day of sweltering heat and a rainy storm. The men were not the only
ones to watch in the film, as they were co-starred with the concept of time and the
environment in which they debated. William Issacs discusses the role of time through
“kronos” and “kairos” in Dialogue and The Art of Thinking Together. Kronos is defined
as the structural sense of time, which is measurable and explicit. Kairos is defined as an
internal reference for the “right” timing or natural timing. It is more implicit and evasive.
In dialogue, kronos is a field of conversation that people are often trying to reason with
and ration. When they feel slighted by the disregard or dominance of kronos or are left
without a concept of sequence, people get anxious and then they get angry (Issacs, 1999)
as was the case for Juror #7 and other men in the room.

Critical Conversations. The first critical conversation happened when Juror #8 and
Juror #7 had an argument about kronos. Juror #7 needed to defend his sense of kronos,
while Juror #8 made a case for allowing kairos to evolve through a proper discussion of
the trial given the weight of the situation at hand. Using the shape symbolism as a context
from Making Social Worlds: A Communication Perspective (pp. 88-95, Pearce, 2007),
patterns in the exchange are identified, including it’s critical moment in Figure 1.
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Figure 1. 12 Angry Men, 1997
¢ Juror #8: Look, 11 men voted guilty. I just don’t find it easy to raise my hand
and send a boy to prison for life or maybe even to
be executed without talking about it first. Legend: ¢- Position 1
★ - Critical Moment
★ Juror #7: Who says it’s easy for me? n- Postion 2
u- Position 3
n Juror #8: No one.
★ Juror #7: What? Because I voted fast?
n Juror #8: No.
u Juror #7: I honestly think the kid’s guilty. You couldn't change my mind if
you talked a 100 years!
¢ Juror #8: I’m not trying to change your mind. We're talking about a person's
life here. We can't just decide in 5 minutes. Suppose we're wrong?
n Juror #7: Suppose we’re wrong! Suppose the whole building fell on my head!
You could suppose anything you want.
u Juror #8: That’s right.
n Juror #7: So then what difference does it make how long it takes? If we
honestly think the kid's guilty, suppose we finish in 5 minutes, so what?
u Juror #8: Suppose we take an hour, your game doesn't start till 8 o'clock.
¢ Juror #7: Ok slugger, be my guest.

The first turn, marked by the circle, intended to encourage fellow jurors to give a better
perspective to the responsibility of their duties as it pertains to the life and death decision
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for the young man on trial. However, the impact did not match Juror #8’s intentions and
Juror #7 reacted defensively. This is an example of a challenge described in Difficult
Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Stone, Patton & Heen, where
Juror #7 felt like he knew what Juror #8 intended by implying that the room didn’t care to
ensure justice and was cavalier about taking a young man’s life. Furthermore, there is
another challenge at play with the assumption of juror’s feeling like they have all the
information they need between to the two diverging perspectives. Neither juror was
willing to acquiesce to the others point of view until the end of the exchange. In the
context of this movie, this conversation is important because it establishes permission for
the deliberation to even occur thus creating the basis of the entire movie. While it was a
complicated exchange, it still managed to move into a learning space. Juror #8 negotiated
with Juror #7 using time as a mutual interest. This particular point was pivotal because
Juror #8 was able to strategically gain opportunity that wasn’t there.

The second critical conversation was the exchange between Juror #8 and Juror #3
where once again, Juror #8 passes a seemingly self-righteous judgment on Juror #3. Juror
#3 is enraged and Juror #8 continues to agitate Juror #3 calling him a “sadist”. What
results is a death threat from Juror #3 that only serves the point of a previous argument
that played a role in the case that the two were having with each other. The pattern
identification is featured in Figure 2.

Figure 2. 12 Angry Men, 1997
¢ Juror #8: God, I'm sorry for you...
Legend: ¢- Position 1
★ - Critical Moment
n- Postion 2
u- Position 3
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★ Juror #3: Don't start with me now!
n Juror #8: Ever since we've walked into this room, you've acted like a self-
appointed public avenger.
★ Juror #3: Shut up!
n Juror #8: You want the boy to die for your own personal reasons, not because
of the facts! You're a sadist!
★ Juror #3: I'll kill him! I'll kill him!!
n Juror #4: You don't really mean you'll kill me, do you?

The diversity of the conversation is lacking and a battle of messages is taking
place. The limited conversation escalates emotional tension between the two jurors. Once
again, Juror #8’s self-righteous, judgmental perspective has become a factor and they are
in the midst of a feelings conversation (Stone, Patton & Heen, 1999). In the first
conversation, Juror #8’s insulting impact was relieved by a battle of wit with Juror #3,
which deescalated potential of an emotional rage. Here, Juror #7’s intention to be
insulting carried in the impact. Feelings conversations can have two extremes, and in this
case Juror #8 needed to let Juror #3 know that his feelings of “pity” for him were Juror
#3’s fault (Stone, Patton & Heen, 1999). The opening set the conversation on a path to be
malicious, and reflects what Pearce identified as a serpentine model of conversation (pp.
70-71, Pearce & Cronen, 2006). Although Juror #8 was accurate about his assessment of
Juror #3’s feelings, it was addressed the wrong way.
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Another critical exchange in the film was a scene from Juror #10. The script is
excerpted in Figure 3.

Figure 3. 12 Angry Men, 1997
Juror #10: We got him!
That's one at least!
I say that we get him, before his kind gets us!
I don't give a damn about the law!
Why should I? They don't!
- Now, I'm telling you...
- I've heard enough!
Won't you just stop all of this!
Come on, wake up man!
We can make a difference here!
Juror #4: Sit down...and don't open your filthy mouth again!

Juror #10 is having dialogue with the jurors, however, his verbal message is being
responded to with non-verbal communications of body language and listening until Juror
#4 intercepts the dialogue. The critical factor here is that Juror #10 has fully abandoned
objective rationale and the law for which he is to maintain as a juror. This is crucial, as it
is clear he has a bias that would not serve the young man a fair trial. He essentially
advocates for the jury to lynch the defendant much to their disgust as evident by the
juror’s turned backs, silence and distancing from the deliberation room. He is having an
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identity conversation where he is feeling threatened by the thought of the defendant being
given any consideration for his freedom. Seeing that he made no headway with his
appeal, he excused himself from the proximity of the group to return the silence from the
jurors with his own silence for the rest of the deliberation. It is likely Juror #10
experienced the first field of silence from the group. Issacs identifies group silence as
socially awkward, unnerving the speaker who is not being reciprocated in his attempt to
have verbal dialogue. (Isaacs, 1999)

Lastly, Juror #8 and Juror #3 have one last exchange in dialogue. However, Juror
#3 discovers himself in the same place as Juror #10. He his exploring and discovering his
bias as it unfolds in front of the jurors. The script of Juror #10’s feelings reveal is
excerpted in Exhibit 4.

Exhibit 4.
Juror #3: This whole... case...the whole thing about the boy...yelling out...the phrase
was......"I am going to kill you”...and he said it to his own father!
I don't care......what kind of a man he was, it was his father!
God damn rotten kid!
I know what it's like, I know what they can do, I know how they can....kill you... every
day! My god....don't you see?
Why am I the only one who sees?
Jesus... I can feel the knife going in...
Juror #8: He's not your boy...
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He's somebody else...
Let him live.

This dialogue encompasses traces of all three challenging conversations from
Stone, Patton & Heen. Juror #3 assumes he knows everything there is to know and is
certain that the defendant did it. He anticlimactically concludes his dialogue by realizing
the feelings charged in this situation are challenging his identity in this room. He is no
longer certain that the defendant is guilty despite his established position through the
film. Previous attempts from Juror #8 to distance Juror #3 from his emotions prevail in
this conversation. He has strived to establish a learning conversation to shift guilty
verdicts into considering the possibility of a reasonable doubt. This is an example of
exploring each other’s stories and addressing feelings in a difficult conversation (Stone,
Patton & Heen, 1999).

Priority of conversations. With the full context of this movie in consideration,
the first conversation has the most the priority for three reasons. First, Juror #8 solidifies
his intention to get the group to discuss the case, thus creating the entire basis for the
movie and its critical moments to be able happen. Second, he negotiates time in order to
get the conversation started. The majority of the jury was against reviewing the details
considering the time they spent in the court, the lack of comfort in the room and the
solidarity of opinion established with the first vote. The odd juror out over came the
challenge of moving the group to a learning stance. Third, Juror #8 had the opportunity to
insert the weight of the decision into the room. The vote should not have been arrived at
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without the critical thinking and analysis that eventually occurred. He had to convince the
jury to be a jury and consider facts for the sake of a man’s life. This conversation
involves the jury as a whole. It no longer was about individual motives and beliefs.

Two Solutions for Creating a Learning Conversation.

The first exchange was essentially about moving the entire jury towards a learning
stance despite strong opposition. Juror #8 positioned himself as a convener in the group
and solutions will be explored from this perspective. There are two ways to go about
shifting a difficult conversation towards a meaningful dialogue. Stone, Patton & Heen
suggests that a convener of a group reframes the conversation, ensures the group that he
or she is listening and understands the group, and lastly, makes the trouble in the dialogue
explicit. The conveniences about this approach are in the reframing and active listening,
which creates opportunities to change the pattern of an anticipated serpentine model (pp.
70-71, Pearce & Cronen, 2006). The disadvantage is in the last step of making the
trouble explicit. Within this step, the conversation can be misdirected from achieving the
reframed intentions and backfire by increasing the tension (Stone, Patton & Heen, 1999).

Another approach is offered from Issacs through “Leadership for Field I” (Issacs,
1999). This is similar to the approach Juror #8 took in the film. The steps include:
clarifying intentions, being careful about how the convener enters the conversation,
joining each person differently and creating a container. The plus side to this approach is
the amount of empowerment the convener is offering to the participants in the