visual analysys essay

Acevedo 1

Oswaldo Acevedo

Patricia Carpenter

English 1301

November 30, 2016

12 Angry Men Visual Analysis

“12 Angry Men”, a film directed by Sidney Lumet, is about a jury that needs to decide unanimously whether a boy who allegedly killed his father is guilty or innocent. It begins with the trial, in which they state all the facts and witnesses they have. After the trial, the 12 men who are on the jury are put in a room to discuss and decide whether the boy is guilty or innocent. They discuss all the facts, and they all decide he is guilty except for one juror. The juror has reasonable doubt, and he believes the boy is not guilty. He discusses his valid points and ideas, and they slowly sway the other jurors. Throughout the movie, there are many moments were people have epiphanies and they change their mind, but there is also a lot of arguing that comes with overcoming others ideas. There is a great deal of discussions occurring during the entire movie to try to convince those who believe the boy is guilty to not guilty. At the end of the movie the jury decides unanimously that the boy is indeed not guilty. The director uses the visual and film elements of value and sound to create a dramatic and argumentative tone, while appealing to logos, pathos, and ethos. Comment by Patti Carpenter: The film is punctatued with italics, not quote marks. MECH Comment by Patti Carpenter: Possessive—others’ or singular—other ideas? MECH

In the first place, the director, Sidney Lumet, perfectly uses the visual element of value to create a sense of psychotic and eschew. Value is the lightness or darkness of a color used in the film. In this film, value is used in certain ways to emphasize a certain feeling or problem. There is a certain scene where juror #8 recreates the actions of the crime in real time. It was said that the kid yelled “I’ll kill you!” and then a loud thud afterwards. The witness then got up and out of his room and saw the kid run down the hallway and out the building. They act it out, and they conclude that the story that was told during the trial could not have been possible. The timings that were given from the witnesses were off, and the story told seemed unreasonable. Juror #3, who believes the kid is guilty, thinks that the other jurors are being dishonest and foolish for believing he is not guilty. He becomes enraged and tries to attack juror #8, as the other jurors hold juror #3 back. Juror #3 then says “I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!” (Quotes) Juror #8 responds with, “You don’t really mean you’ll kill me, do you?” When he says this to him, juror #3 backs off and ponders on it. He realizes that he said “I’ll kill him” as the kid said, without intent. During the moment where juror #3 was lunging at juror #8, the face of juror #3 was darker as he snarled at juror #8. The darker face shown during this scene gave a feeling of hatred and ravage towards juror #8. This scene gives an appeal to logos by looking at the logic behind the truth of the story. An example that causes emotion is, in the scene were juror #10 goes on a rant discussing how all kids are alike, and why he believes the kid is guilty. As he is ranting on about why he thinks the kid is guilty, all other 11 jurors turn away from him in a certain way. As the 11 jurors are facing away, their faces are darkened as if they were not even there. The other jurors ignore him as he talks about nonsensical reasons as to why the kid is guilty. The darkness in all the jurors faces gives off an action of shunning. They shun him until he stops ranting which at this point, the rest of the jurors turn back and face him. This scene shows pathos by appealing to the audience’s emotions as we see the jurors turn around in darkness. Comment by Patti Carpenter: Are you intending to say an avoidance that is psychotic in nature? LANG/STY. Comment by Patti Carpenter: This is a verb which means to shun or avoid. The noun form is eschewal—avoidance of shunning of an event, emotion or person. MECH. Comment by Patti Carpenter: What type of feelings or problems? DEVELOP Comment by Patti Carpenter: Good analysis and interpretation of the use of color to bring out a persuasive appeal. INTERPRET. Comment by Patti Carpenter: Begin new paragraph. MECH. Comment by Patti Carpenter: Strong analysis through the explanation of the combined uses of the visual element and the persuasive appeal. INTERPRET.

Secondly, the director uses the film element of sound to give an argumentative tone. Dialogue, a part of the film element of sound, was mainly used in this film. The dialogue was what created and molded this great film. As William Thomas, a well-known film critic, said, “No action, no effects, no wizzy camerawork, just powerful dialogue…” (Thomas). The dialogue in this film is very powerful and creates a great film without the heavy visual effects, sound effects, and editing. If picked at random, almost every dialogue was spoken well. For example, there was a scene where juror #8 said the kid was too bright to say “I’ll kill him!” out loud, and juror #10 said “Bright? He’s a common ignorant slob. He don’t even speak good English” (Quotes). Juror # 11 then says “He doesn’t speak good English” (Quotes). This shows juror #10’s ignorance and obliviousness to the fact that the kid may not be guilty. This appeals to ethos because juror #10 loses credibility since he seems ignorant. Another example where dialogue was well done was, when juror #8 recreated the scene and made juror #3 realize that the kid may not be guilty. Juror #3 yelled at juror #8 “I’ll kill him”, as the kid did to his father. They discussed earlier that people say “I’ll kill you” all the time and it holds no true threat, and the juror who thought the kid was guilty proved himself wrong, and later changed his vote to non-guilty. This shows the logos appealed in the film. Comment by Patti Carpenter: Use present tense when discussing the film. LANG/STY. Comment by Patti Carpenter: Good analysis—it seeks the deeper significance of words. INTERPRET. Comment by Patti Carpenter: Recreated which scene? Be specific. DEVELOP.

Ultimately, the film encompasses appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos. When all the jurors are discussing whether the kid is guilty or not, they are appealing to logos. They are looking at all the facts given and they are making logic and reason out of the facts and their own knowledge. They closely examine all possibilities and point of views of the story to decide what best fits the logic. Juror #8 has reasonable doubt which is why he originally said the boy was not guilty. In the court system, it has always been said “innocent until proven guilty”, and that is exactly what juror #8 discussed. M. Faust, a well-known film reviewer, said “The movie stresses that the most crucial issue is not whether the jurors think the accused is guilty but, according to the law, whether that has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt” (Faust). Faust points out that they focused on reasonable doubt. If the jurors had reasonable doubt, they had to discuss it further. The dialogue is great at showing and exposing all the appeals to logos throughout the film. Logos is greatly used to create the story and give a mysterious feel to the viewer by wondering what is the truth. Pathos was included when the visual element, value, was accentuated. The value portrayed feelings and emotion without words. It shared emotions through value that was shown on the jurors face as they became furious and as they ignored each other. Ethos was shown when certain jurors would prove themselves wrong and defame themselves. The dialogue showed this as jurors defamed themselves by saying something ignorant, like when Juror #10 was rude to juror #11. They lost their credibility and ethics by being uninformed and ignorant. Comment by Patti Carpenter: Comma + conjunction. MECH. Comment by Patti Carpenter: Present tense. Comment by Patti Carpenter: Present tense. Comment by Patti Carpenter: Possessive form. MECH Comment by Patti Carpenter: Present tense.

The film “12 Angry Men” uses value and sounds to convey logos, pathos, and ethos. It uses value to show many emotions like hatred, drama, and shunning. It also uses dialogue to show logos, pathos, and ethos. This film accurately portrays the issues of our court system and prejudice. This film uses many elements to appeal to the audience and show them the issues that are occurring in our system of justice. Comment by Patti Carpenter: Good explanation of the greater significance of this film to society as a whole.

Works Cited

Faust, M. “12 Angry Men.” Movie Review, Common Sense Media, 10 July 2003, www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/12-angry-men. Accessed Nov. 28, 2016.

“Quotes.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/title/tt0050083/trivia?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu. Accessed Nov. 28, 2016.

Thomas, William. “Twelve Angry Men.” Empire, Empire, 14 Oct. 2015, www.empireonline.com/movies/twelve-angry-men/review/. Accessed Nov. 28, 2016.