\u00b4But theatricality can too easily be confused with dramatic strength\u2026 the jacket, for example, that passes from one crucified figure to another. Such devices do not give meaning, they only give dramatic effect, the look of meaning\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms. Babb tells us that the above line is taken from Pauline Kael\u00b4s book I Lost It At The Movies, which I have to admit I had to research as it wasn\u00b4t a book I had heard of until now. I turned immediately to Goodreads and there I found it, to be informed that Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker<\/em> magazine from 1968 to 1991. She was known for her “witty, biting, highly opinionated, and sharply focused” movie reviews. She approached movies emotionally, with a strongly colloquial writing style. She is often regarded as the most influential American film critic of her day and made a lasting impression on other major critics including Armond White and Roger Ebert, who has said that Kael “had a more positive influence on the climate for film in America than any other single person over the last three decades.”<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In one of the many excellent reader-reviews Goodreads invite for their titles, \u00b4David\u00b4 said<\/p>\n\n\n\n My copy of “I Lost it at the Movies” is itself a tribute to my love of Ms. Kael’s writing: purchased when I was a teenager, the binding has come apart completely so often has it been opened, and what was once a book is now just a stack of loose sheets of paper. To read it one must pick up each individual sheet from the right-hand stack of papers, read it, turn it over, read that, then place the sheet atop the opposite left-hand stack. I will not – I cannot – part with it; it is one of the building blocks of my adolescence, and it contributed greatly to my lifelong love of old movies. Now over fifty, I don’t take her word as gospel as I did when I was twenty – I have my own views these days – but no other critic could so ruthlessly and entertainingly pan a movie the way she could, and no one could explain why a great movie was great like her. She died a few weeks before 9\/11, and, in the answer to where were you when the planes hit the Trade Center, I was in my office at my old job, reading some of the online tributes to her, when the phone rang. Eight years after her death, she remains a controversial figure – a lot of people loved her, some hated her – but what is also true is, though she has thousands of imitators, she remains the greatest movie critic of them all\u00b4.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tiffany Babb (left) <\/em><\/strong> is a poet, cultural critic, and comics writer. She’s a regular contributor to and co-editor of the Eisner Award winning PanelxPanel Magazine and has bylines in The AV Club, Paste Magazine, and The Comics Journal. You can find her poetry in Rust + Moth, Third Wednesday Magazine, and Cardiff Review. Her first collection of poetry A LIST OF THINGS I\u2019VE LOST is currently available for purchase from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press<\/a> and can be ordered wherever books are sold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She is looking to write feature-length articles on film, comics, theater, and genre literature with a particular interest in story structure and queer themes. You can contact her at tbabb0621@gmail.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n photo 4 Tiffany told Paste on-line readers that When I first read the above line from Pauline Kael\u2019s I Lost It at the Movies<\/em>, my mind was not fixated on On the Waterfront<\/em>, the film she was referring to, but on another film which also features a quasi-symbolic jacket: Sidney Lumet\u2019s 12 Angry Men<\/em>. 12 Angry Men<\/em> is one of the great films in cinema history and possibly the greatest film from one of my favorite directors\u2014and yet, whenever I watch it, the final scene does not fill me with satisfaction but with a (perhaps silly, but wholly deep) feeling of frustration. This frustration is inspired by what I consider to be one of the poorest narrative costume decisions in the history of great film. I am, of course, referring to the white suit that Juror Number Eight (played by a wondrous Henry Fonda (left) <\/em>wears throughout the movie.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Adapted from a teleplay of the same title written by Reginald Rose, 12 Angry Men<\/em> tells the story of a jury deliberation. Twelve men sit and hear a trial of a young man (implied to be an immigrant) from the slums who is being accused of murder. They are then rushed off into a room to take a vote on whether or not the boy is guilty and thus deserving of the death sentence. The first vote comes quickly; the men are ready to get out of the sweltering room and back to their real lives. The case seems pretty cut-and-dried anyway.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n One by one, each juror votes. Eleven agree that the defendant is guilty. The one holdout is Juror Number Eight, who is slower to judgment than the rest of the men. Unlike the others, he is not in a rush to go home, he seems uninfluenced by the oppressive heat, and he is unaffected by the impatience and frustration directed at him by his eleven peers. Instead, he seems to be the only man in the room paying attention to the weight of what they\u2019re voting to do.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The film doesn\u2019t immediately frame Juror Number Eight as a hero. In fact, he stands out as a bit of an impractical nuisance in a room full of real<\/em> men who have better places to be, especially since the kid was clearly guilty anyway. It\u2019s the brilliance of the filmmaking that the transformation of the jury mostly remains subtle and feels earned as Juror Number Eight asks questions until each of the jurors shifts\u2014coming to the conclusion that not only is there not enough evidence to convict the defendant, but that there is no possible way that the testimony against him could have been accurate at all.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n From a bird\u2019s eye view, the plot of the film can seem a bit hokey and even a little message-y. But the film is exhilarating, drawing a pure, uncomfortable and very physical (it may be the sweatiest drama of the period) reality out of a fairly simple story. This is why it\u2019s so frustrating when\u2014as each juror pulls on his jacket to leave the deliberation room a changed man\u2014Juror Number Eight puts his white jacket back on.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, why, you might ask, would a simple white suit cause me so much frustration? And why, even though Fonda wears the suit throughout the film, does it only really annoy me at the film\u2019s ending (right)<\/em>? Well, at the beginning of the film, the white suit is rarely a focal point, as Fonda is almost always surrounded by men in white shirts. During the course of the deliberation, Fonda too removes his jacket, thus matching the other jury members who are mostly in shirtsleeves because of the heat. It\u2019s only at the end of the film, when all the men leave the room, pulling on their dark suit jackets and exiting the courthouse, that it becomes so clear that Juror Number Eight is set apart visually, indicating a message completely at odds with the greater argument that the film has just spent the bulk of its time making.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where Kael\u2019s disparagement of the \u201clook of meaning\u201d comes into my argument, because the jacket\u2019s white symbolism doesn\u2019t fulfill any real narrative purpose. Instead, it plays a symbolic role, imbuing Juror Number Eight\u2019s character with angelic or even Messianic symbolism (Juror Number Eight sat in a hot room with cranky men to absolve them of their sins). What is the effect of Juror Number Eight being set apart actually supposed to do except garner a look of knowing recognition from the audience? And if we do take the meaning of the jacket into our reading, that reading pulls away from the weightiness of the movie.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 12 Angry Men<\/em><\/strong> is about the complexity of human behavior\u2014how flawed we are, how our impatience, our biases and our own actions can have disastrous effects if we leave them unchecked. It\u2019s also a film about one man making an impact on eleven others (twelve, if you count the defendant) by remaining steadfast and becoming an obstacle to an injustice.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For most of the movie, 12 Angry Men<\/em> is a wholly realistic film, but with the focus on Juror Number Eight\u2019s white suit, the reality of the film fades. The film becomes allegory. Juror Number Eight becomes symbolic, and his role is not one to be filled by a mere mortal (like the viewer), but one that we must wait to be filled. We have been saved by Henry Fonda; we have not been saved by (nor will we save) ourselves. Fonda\u2019s white jacket sets him apart from the regular men, making him a myth, inserting the magic of an angelic being and, in doing so, destroying the magic of humanity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To make matters even worse, when looking at a contemporary DVD of the film, the poster image features Henry Fonda standing out in the front of the pack, shining in his bright white suit. The image is at extreme odds with the subtle movement of the film, the slow reveal of his character\u2019s significance. The image makes Fonda special in a movie that is meant to remind us that we are not special\u2014that our selfishness and our belief that our interests are more important than the interests of others leads to the breaking down of community and the birth of tragedy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 12 Angry Men<\/em><\/strong> is about the complexity of human behavior\u2014how flawed we are, how our impatience, our biases and our own actions can have disastrous effects if we leave them unchecked. It\u2019s also a film about one man making an impact on eleven others (twelve, if you count the defendant) by remaining steadfast and becoming an obstacle to an injustice.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For most of the movie, 12 Angry Men<\/em> is a wholly realistic film, but with the focus on Juror Number Eight\u2019s white suit, the reality of the film fades. The film becomes allegory. Juror Number Eight becomes symbolic, and his role is not one to be filled by a mere mortal (like the viewer), but one that we must wait to be filled. We have been saved by Henry Fonda; we have not been saved by (nor will we save) ourselves. Fonda\u2019s white jacket sets him apart from the regular men, making him a myth, inserting the magic of an angelic being and, in doing so, destroying the magic of humanity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To make matters even worse, when looking at a contemporary DVD of the film, the poster image features Henry Fonda standing out in the front of the pack, shining in his bright white suit. The image is at extreme odds with the subtle movement of the film, the slow reveal of his character\u2019s significance. The image makes Fonda special in a movie that is meant to remind us that we are not special\u2014that our selfishness and our belief that our interests are more important than the interests of others leads to the breaking down of community and the birth of tragedy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 12 Angry Men<\/em><\/strong> is about the complexity of human behavior\u2014how flawed we are, how our impatience, our biases and our own actions can have disastrous effects if we leave them unchecked. It\u2019s also a film about one man making an impact on eleven others (twelve, if you count the defendant) by remaining steadfast and becoming an obstacle to an injustice.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For most of the movie, 12 Angry Men<\/em> is a wholly realistic film, but with the focus on Juror Number Eight\u2019s white suit, the reality of the film fades. The film becomes allegory. Juror Number Eight becomes symbolic, and his role is not one to be filled by a mere mortal (like the viewer), but one that we must wait to be filled. We have been saved by Henry Fonda; we have not been saved by (nor will we save) ourselves. Fonda\u2019s white jacket sets him apart from the regular men, making him a myth, inserting the magic of an angelic being and, in doing so, destroying the magic of humanity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To make matters even worse, when looking at a contemporary DVD of the film, the poster image features Henry Fonda standing out in the front of the pack, shining in his bright white suit. The image is at extreme odds with the subtle movement of the film, the slow reveal of his character\u2019s significance. The image makes Fonda special in a movie that is meant to remind us that we are not special\u2014that our selfishness and our belief that our interests are more important than the interests of others leads to the breaking down of community and the birth of tragedy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider the impact of an alternate ending, in which Fonda has not been wearing a white suit, but a darker one, one just like those all of the other men in the film wear. I like to imagine him walking off into the crowded street, towards his own life that exists outside of the jury room, a life that holds his interests and desires, but one that he felt he must set aside for a few hours because he understood that his perspective, his words and his actions could save an innocent man\u2019s life. Fonda isn\u2019t special. He isn\u2019t set apart. He\u2019s just a man like any other man. And he still made a difference. That\u2019s the film that I want 12 Angry Men<\/em> to be, and we would have gotten it too, if it wasn\u2019t for that white suit\u2019s mere look of meaning.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tiffany\u00b4s piece had me thinking back to an evening, when I was still a pre-teen I think, that my dad and I sat together and watched Twelve Angry Men. I was watching a film, perhaps too adult in theme for my age group, simply to be with my dad, who was watching the film because he was a huge fan of (cowboy) Henry Fonda and perhaps because he had heard the film had something important to say. What impacted on the fullness of my understanding of the film was that my dad was part of that generation who were immediately suspicious and jealous of the immigrant population that was arriving in Britain \u00b4to take our jobs.\u00b4 In truth, I had never met or even seen any of these newcomers, and at the time I think my dad had only ever seen one coloured person, and that was a player for Leeds United (much beloved by his team\u00b4s fans, playing at Old Trafford against Manchester United.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless I think both dad and I learned something about ourselves and others through watching the film,\u2026.though we perhaps couldn\u00b4t have articulated that we now had an understanding of stereo-typing and the dangers it presents. It was our first small step on the road to understanding and tolerance (although even that word can be misconstrued as being pejorative, surely?).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n No, several decades later, in the times of Black Lives matter and watching the footballers of Manchester United and Leeds United taking the knee (before kicking lumps out of each other) I feel compelled to read (for what will be the first time) the novel that inspired the film.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Twelve Angry Men was written by <\/strong>Reginald Rose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n photo 8 He was an American film and television writer, most widely known for his work in the early years of television drama. He wrote about controversial social and political issues. His realistic approach was particularly influential in the anthology programs of the nineteen fifties. <\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tiffany Babb is an essayist, cultural critic, and comics obsessive. She\u2019s a regular contributor to The AV Club\u2019s Comic Panel and the Eisner Award winning PanelxPanel Magazine. You can follow her on Twitter <\/em>@explodingarrow<\/em><\/a> and sign up for her <\/em>monthly newsletter<\/em><\/a> about art.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nevertheless I think both dad and I learned something about ourselves and others through watching the film,\u2026.though we perhaps couldn\u00b4t have articulated that we now had an understanding of stereo-typing and the dangers it presents. 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