July 2024
Last Sunday, a day of dizzying downpour, I had my first training session on snake rescue.
I experienced two phenomena up close: monocled cobras, kraits and Russell’s vipers, three of India’s venomous Big Four; and in their midst, our trainer, a man who emanated authority while treating with remarkable respect and care all the creatures in that emotionally charged room – 11 hissing and darting serpents, 21 scared and awed humans.
The snakes, that’s understandable. It is a dramatic event.
But why were we all so struck by the man, Amrut Singh of Animal Rescue Squad? Why did he remind me of Juror number 8?
Juror No. 8
Henry Fonda is Juror No. 8 in 12 Angry Men (actually 11 angry plus one not), a 1957 movie that encompasses all that I valiantly – and futilely – try to teach: identity, self-esteem, emotional agility, cognitive acuity, communicative wisdom, conflict management.
This classic movie, one of the finest ever made, does a much better job (and in only 96 minutes; my course lasts 30 hours).
In a clautrophobic little room, 12 jurymen are gathered to decide the fate of a murder accused, a fate that seems to have already been indicated by a bored judge: guilty as charged.
Within minutes, 11 vote guilty. The 12th man, Juror No. 8, is an outlier. He disagrees. The air in the room instantly becomes thick and taut.
Arguments, much of them speckled with annoyance, apathy and sarcasm, frequently crescendo to exasperation and rage.
Juror No. 8 navigates these choppy waters calmly yet firmly, gradually stewarding towards a different verdict.
How does he do that?
Dissent: He dares to go against the flow not as a compulsive contrarian but a conscientious seeker. He says he is not convinced the man is guilty. All seven before him and the four after are desperate to go with guilty, and then go home. Since the verdict has to be unanimous, this is when the other 11 begin to get very angry.
Listening: He encourages others to talk, and he accommodates uneasy silences.
Ignoring: He refuses to engage with taunts and threats. While he simply lets them slide, his demeanor indicates that he won’t be bullied.
Persistence: However shrill and united the opposition, he keeps the focus on finding the truth.
Rationality: He strips down stereotypes, examines biases, unravels assumptions by using equally compelling counter-assumptions. He demonstrates the perils of confusing correlation with causality.
Though no one discovers any incontrovertible truth – because there rarely are any in real life – he demolishes the convenient and dangerous non-truths.
Non-partisanship: As the winds shift in the room, one by one others begin aligning with him. Juror No. 8 though stays non-aligned all through, refusing to join any clique. This provides his detractors space to shift.
Equanimity: While others trade labels viciously, once escalating to fisticuffs, he avoids calling anyone any names. He questions only reasoning and conduct. In a space fraught with aggressive one-upmanship, he seems to pursue neither messiahship nor martyrdom – that one big pitfall of most leaders.
Truthfulness: This one takes real courage, particularly when you are in a leadership position – to admit that you don’t know. Juror No. 8 does that without apology or awkwardness. This is hard when you are being coerced into taking positions and announcing your loyalties, when honest neutrality is perceived as weakness.
Equilibrium: While all others are impatiently announcing their conclusions, Juror No. 8 balances advocacy with high-level inquiry. He rarely has the best arguments. He does always have the most piercing questions.
Points of Inflection
Every few moments in the movie, a little something changes the trajectory of the group dynamic. Here are a few.
Indifference: The bored judge briefs the jury while fidgeting with his pencil. In a way, he is saying: The verdict is a given, isn’t it?
Aberration: Right at the outset, the one dissenting vote by Juror No. 8 creates sudden disruption in the room.
Drama: To prove that the switchblade knife needed to be thrust at a certain angle, Juror No. 8 brings out one and simulates the murder.
Humanness: “No one knows him … It’s sad to be nothing,” says Juror No. 9, a withering old man. He is explaining why one witness, also an old man, might have provided a certain version of the crime – just to be noticed for once in his life.
Juror No. 9 is revealing how he identifies with that mortifying sense of insignificance.
Assertiveness: Juror No. 2, perhaps the most timid of the lot, drawing strength from Juror No. 8, refuses to give his cough drops to a bilious juror. No. 2’s caustic tone, with an undercurrent of passive aggression, hits hard: “They are all gone, my friend.”
Isolation: Juror No. 10, a restless bully who is constantly sniffling and shuffling, has been going on and on about “these people”, the low-income neighbourhood the accused comes from. His stereotyping is stoutly challenged. When he gets isolated, he starts pleading for allies. The bully runs out of ammunition and is left depleted.
Breakdown: The irascible Juror No. 3, played by the redoubtable Lee J. Cobb, is the last man standing, steadfast in his ‘guilty’ verdict. He finally crumbles when he talks of his own son, and how he hasn’t seen him in a long while. The angriest man there turns out to be the saddest.
At the last moment, his vote is the one that makes it a unanimous verdict. In his breakdown comes the breakthrough.
Ways of Seeing
The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.
- Ways of Seeing, John Berger
Boris Kaufman, the masterful cinematographer of this Sidney Lumet movie, uses several points of view to suck us into that clammy room and build tension.
Unwittingly, we start seeing our own temperaments reflected in the different jurors and that’s the true genius of this movie.
Tracking shots introduce us to each character one by one.
Close-ups spotlight, even exaggerate, emotions running high in that room. The sweat feels stickier, the room stuffier.
Low-angle shots make characters loom. They become even more menacing, pathetic, obnoxious.
High-angle shots give us the larger map, showing how each juror is placed in relation to the others.
Lines That Linger
Juror 9: Do you think you were born with a monopoly on the truth?
Juror 9: Well, it’s not easy to stand alone against the ridicule of others, even when there's a worthy cause.
Juror 6: I'm not used to supposing. I’m just a working man. My boss does the supposing.
Juror 9: Nobody knows him, nobody quotes him, nobody seeks his advice after seventy-five years. That's a very sad thing, to be nothing.
Juror 11: Facts may be colored by the personalities of the people who present them.
Juror 10: Bright? He's a common ignorant slob. He don't even speak good English.
Juror 11: I don't believe I have to be loyal to one side or the other. I am simply asking questions.
Juror 10: Ah, don't give me any of that! I‘m sick and tired of facts. You can twist 'em any way you like. Know what I mean?
Juror 11: If you want to vote not guilty then do it because you're convinced the man is not guilty... not because you've had enough! Or don't you have the... the guts to do what you think is right...
Juror 8: It’s very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And no matter where you run into it, prejudice obscures the truth.
Juror 8: Because I don’t really know what the truth is. No one ever will, I suppose. Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we're just gambling on probabilities. We may be wrong.
Juror 8: Did you ever see a woman who had to wear glasses, and didn't want to because she thinks they spoil her looks?
Juror 3: I don't care whether I'm alone or not. It's my right!
Seven Angry Questions
1. Why are we constantly running into angry men?
2. Are men angrier than other sexes or is it just that men more readily appropriate the social license to exhibit anger?
3. Does being testy have anything to do with having testicles?
4. Is the world generally angrier today than, say, 20 years ago?
5. What makes Juror No. 8 an endangered species?
6. Can we persuade others by simply out-shouting them?
7. In our constant struggle between autonomy and alliance, can we ever achieve balance?
(Feel free to ignore question 3.)
~*~