The man was a giant and many pixels have been displayed on the web this week celebrating him. Everyone has their own remembrances, most focused on Network or Dog Day Afternoon. And rightfully so.
For me, my love of older movies starts with the man.
As I was growing up, I ate a steady diet of current family and adventure movies, but (like most kids) I had an allergic reaction to anything black and white or dramatic. I'm turning through channels one weekend afternoon and on comes 12 Angry Men. I'm about to dismiss it when my mom offers that I should give it a try, I may like it. This is of course the standard approach to having a child try a new vegetable, but for whatever reason, I started watching it.
For those unaware, 12 Angry Men is a drama about a jury's deliberation during a murder trial. Twelve men enter a room, all but one of them convinced of the defendant's guilt. That's it.
I was totally transfixed.
The thing that staggers me about the movie is how opposite it is of everything I knew about Hollywood. Instead of color, it's black and white. Instead of being shot in a series of locations, it's all in one room. The characters don't even have names, being identified only by their juror number. And most importantly, within minutes, I knew where the movie was going, but the ride is so captivating, you don't care. You need to see how they get there.
While I had seen black and white film and television, this was the first time I was aware of the lack of color as a positive thing. The shadows and light of that jury room become a character in a way you could never have in a color film. When Lee J. Cobb is making his pitch for the defendant's guilt toward the end, the way the other faces sit in judgment... it's an effect you never see anymore, with an impact that stays with me.
The movie was originally a play of course, but Lumet makes this completely cinematic. We explore every corner of the deliberation room and every emotion on our characters' faces. I have never seen a stage version, but I cannot imagine this as anything but a film.
For example, check out the scene below. Lumet uses a long take to make us as uncomfortable as the other 11 jurors during the diatribe. He pulls the camera back both to show us the room, but also to make the prejudiced juror smaller; his camera alienates the man the same way the rest of the jury does.
There are so many moments that stay with me. The look on Henry Fonda's face before reaching into his pocket for the knife. Jack Klugman fretting about getting to the baseball game. E.G. Marshall's coolly analytical visage melting as he realizes he may be wrong.
12 Angry Men was a gateway drug that pulled me away from the New Release section of our local video store. I started watching older B&W and color movies. I became hooked on Sean Connery's Bond and Rod Serling's Twilight Zone.
More than any other movie, 12 Angry Men means something to me not because of what it is, but because it showed me what movies could be. And once you get that feeling of euphoria, you are always looking for your next fix.
Godspeed, Mr. Lumet. Thank you for setting me on my cinematic path.
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