12 Angry Men (1957) Film Showing

Discussion of the film will be led by Jacob A. France Professor Emeritus of Equality Jurisprudence Taunya Lovel Banks, one of the country’s leading scholars on the depiction of law in film, and Professor Emeritus of Law Robert Condlin.

12 Angry Men tells the story of a jury of 12 white men deliberating the guilt of an Hispanic teenager charged with murdering his father and illustrates the difficulty of building consensus among people with strongly conflicting morals, values, prejudices, experiences, and beliefs. It has been described variously as a “tribute to the single individual of principle holding out against the prejudice of the crowd,” “a definitive rebuttal to the lynch mob hysteria of the McCarthy era,” and a depiction of “the fault lines of age, education, race, socioeconomic level, and temperament” that appear inevitably when even seemingly homogenous groups discuss conflicts.” The film continues to spark debate among legal scholars even to the present day over the accuracy of the Jury’s decision and the legitimacy of its procedures. See e.g., Symposium: The 50thAnniversary of 12 Angry Men, 82 CHI-KENT L. REV. 711 (2007), and Rennard Strickland, Teree E. Foster, & Taunya Lovell Banks eds, The Transformative Power of Jury Deliberations in SCREENING JUSTICE – THE CINEMA OF LAW 157 (2006).

The film has been described as the second-best American courtroom drama ever made (after To K*ll a Mockingbird) by the AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE; is included in the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS’S NATIONAL FILM REGISTRY of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" American Films; was nominated for every major film award in the United States and Europe when it was first released in 1957; has been adapted and remade in seven different languages and countries throughout the world (including Russia and China); and even been parodied in episodes of FAMILY GUY (“12 and a Half Angry Men”), KING OF THE HILL (“Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men”); and Comedy Central’s “INSIDE AMY SCHUMER (“12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer”). As of 2021 it had a 100% approval rating on ROTTEN TOMATOES. It was remade for television in 1997 with four Black jury members and a woman judge.

PIZZA AND REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED.

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