12 Angry Men
...into a characters personality. The film 12 Angry Men
relies more heavily on the use of characterization than any other movie I can
think of. Due to the lack of special effects and because the film takes place
almost entirely in a small jury room the development of characters was key.
This star studded cast of actors included such names as: Henry Fonda, Lee J.
Cobb, and Ed Begley, even the guy from The Odd Couple was in the movie.
An important part of characterization deals with how characters are
revealed. There are four major methods of revealing characterization:
actions, appearance, dialogue, and thoughts. The film 12 Angry Men makes
strong use of all of these methods, but the use of appearance seems to be the
primary method used in revealing characterization. As we are introduced to
the characters we can make fairly accurate assumptions of their personality
based on the court room scene at the beginning of the film. For instance,
juror number two looks like the prototypical nerd; wearing glasses, looking
very awkward and small in stature. Also, juror number six looks very rough
and presumably unintelligent; very large in stature with a strong jaw line
and wearing his shirt unbuttoned at the top without a tie. We can also make
assumptions about Henry Fonda’s character(juror #8) based on his
appearance. He looks very intelligent and almost angelic in his all white
suit and with his tall and slender build. Later in the movie these ideas are
reinforced by the other three methods of characterization. However, there is
one character whose appearance is misleading. Juror number five appears
to be the average middle class citizen, but in fact he hails from the slums.
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