591 12 Angry Men

[cdnchris]

I don't think it matters at all what race the defendent is, but it is important you know his race is different than that of the majority of the jurors as it does in either small ways or big ways play into some of their decisions throughout the film (Begley's juror's racist breakdown being the biggest moment of course.)

[Tribe]

When I first saw this on TV in the 60s, the PR community was fairly monolithic in NYC when it came to the Hispanic population (that's not the case today). So it really wasn't a stretch to view the defendant as Puerto Rican (or perhaps, inasmuch as I'm Puerto Rican, I and my peers were quick to identify with the defendant). After all, the capital of Puerto Rico wasn't San Juan, it was the Bronx!

[TotheLastShot]

Hey guys, I actually just watched this film the other night for the first time. They actually show a close up of the boy just before fading to the room where the rest of the action takes place.

[Feego]

I agree with others that the teenager's racial ambiguity was a strong virtue in this film. The actor in that screenshot could definitely be Puerto Rican, but he could just as easily be Sicilian as someone else suggested, or even Jewish. The fact that we never hear his name or his voice (accent) only strengthens his ethnic ambiguity.

On another note, I'm surprised Criterion didn't carry over the Drew Casper commentary from the MGM edition. Perhaps there were rights issues? I don't have the DVD. Is it worth getting for the commentary?

[PillowRock]

I thought one of the jurors was black?

Not in the Fonda film. Looking at the IMDb page for the Showtime remake (which I've only ever seen clips of): three of the jurors were black in that one, including the racist Juror #10 (the other two being the Martin Balsam and John Fiedler roles, relative to the Fonda version).

[willoneill]

It also had Armin Mueller-Stahl, who can pretty much play any race, it seems.

[dx23]

On another note, I'm surprised Criterion didn't carry over the Drew Casper commentary from the MGM edition. Perhaps there were rights issues? I don't have the DVD. Is it worth getting for the commentary?

I found the commentary pretty good as it was insightful. The DVD right now is pretty cheap and I imagine is going to be cheaper once the Criterion is released. Still, you could probably find the commentary on mp3 around the net instead of double dipping.

[Perkins Cobb]

On another note, I'm surprised Criterion didn't carry over the Drew Casper commentary from the MGM edition. Perhaps there were rights issues? I don't have the DVD. Is it worth getting for the commentary?

Speaking as one of his former students, Drew Casper is an idiot.

[matrixschmatrix]

Can you elaborate?

[Perkins Cobb]

Little knowledge of or interest in anything except mainstream Hollywood cinema of the 1930s-60s, and not a whole lot of insight into that. For instance, on Hitchcock, Casper made a point of running down Donald Spoto -- but seemed to borrow most of his ideas from him. And when a student called him out for omitting Hammer Films from his syllabus on horror cinema, Casper didn't seem to know what the hell he was talking about and dismissed Hammer in its entirety with a mocking remark. One of those profs who's popular with undergrads (and presumably DVD producers) just because he runs around the room and yells a lot.

On the other hand, the rumor was that his TAs ghost-wrote all his lectures, so if he had some good ones that semester maybe the 12 Angry Men commentary is worth listening to....

[movielocke]

oy, rumor and grudges, "I'm smarter than my professor, haha!" condescension. Casper's flamboyant performance-lecture style is certainly polarizing. His lectures tend to be dense on information and content in between the performance moments, he is very old, and at times struggles to keep his lectures together. But he has a joy in teaching, and a passion for film that is admirable and well suited to 400 person classes. I can't imagine him in a small class environment. However, I made the effort in his classes to ask to skip the 'required' papers that everyone wrote and instead write a single, longer research assignment of my own choosing. I found him insightful, quickwitted and extremely knowledgeable one-on-one and he definitely aided my research process throughout the semester. You only get as much out of a class as you're willing to put in, and assuming he's incompetent because he didn't answer a question about what he was not teaching in the middle of an opening lecture in a 400 person class seems a rather silly justification (as do your other unfounded accusations).

[Perkins Cobb]

Yeah, I always ran into people in the film school who fell for Casper's song and dance routines back in the day. If you got something out of Casper, then I'm glad for you; but there are a number of tenured faculty at USC who are quite brilliant, like Todd Boyd (also an arrogant guy who I disliked personally, but respected professionally) and Rick Jewell, and Casper -- the man who showed Young Sherlock Holmes and Addams Family Values in a general history-of-cinema course and consistently referred to Leonardo DiCaprio as "Leonardo DiCrappio," holding for applause from his adoring audience each time -- is not in their league. Yes, he is good at entertaining 400 freshman ... and also at not challenging them with difficult films or difficult ideas about film. The "I'm smarter than my professor" crack is a cheap shot because I never said that, although, since you bring it up, I am confident that I'm more curious and serious about engaging with movies than Drew ever was. I also didn't blame his failings on his age (which is not "very old" anyhow); now that's condescending.

Anyway, sorry to get off track here; I probably shouldn't have commented in the first place, since I haven't listened to this commentary. But in general I do think Casper's work can be safely skipped.

[Gregor Samsa]

DVD Beaver

[aox]

Excellent!

[The Narrator Returns]

Blu-ray.com

[stwrt]

The Blu-Ray has a good feature on Boris Kaufman by John Bailey (some might say even better than the main feature). I wasn't aware of Kaufman's pedigree before, inter alia brother of Dziga Vertov and cameraman on all Vigo's movies. The movie has a fiercely good PQ on Blu, they must have kept the master in good condition.

[Perkins Cobb]

Kaufman was a great DP. The light in All the Way Home and the very chiaroscuro Baby Doll are amazing; when I was at USC I ran into a cinematographer, Judy Irola, who was trying to find the then-rare Baby Doll to show to her class, and I loaned her my tape from AMC. I forget where Lumet said this, but he dumped Kaufman when he switched to color -- he thought Boris could only light for black & white.

[weinmanj]

I forget where Lumet said this, but he dumped Kaufman when he switched to color -- he thought Boris could only light for black & white.

It was the 2003 interview with Joanna Rapf: "Boris Kaufman -- whom I loved and we did many pictures together -- wasn't terrific in color. He was a great black and white cameraman. But he was fighting color all the time. It wasn't natural to him."

Though Kaufman did a couple of color features for Lumet -- The Group and Bye Bye Braverman. Pauline Kael in her big piece on the making of The Group implies that the color processing of the era didn't do justice to what Kaufman was going for. But he was one of many great older cinematographers who didn't get much work after the late '60s.

[Perkins Cobb]

Elsewhere Lumet was more diplomatic about Kaufman, as he was about everyone; I can't remember, didn't he actually replace Kaufman on one of the color films though (presumably Bye Bye Braverman)? Lumet gave credit to Carlo di Palma on The Appointment for his breakthrough on how to work in color, the implication being that he sought out a great color cinematographer after his frustrating experiences with Kaufman.

I love the way some of Kaufman's other color films look (Splendor in the Grass; Up Tight!; Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon), so it's interesting to speculate as to why only Lumet seems to have had this issue with him.

[mfunk9786]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned just how noisy this transfer is. Grain is one thing, but jeez

[Jeff]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned just how noisy this transfer is. Grain is one thing, but jeez

Well, one person did.

[John Edmond]

I clicked. He normally has sharpness turned up to 8? stupid, stupid, stupid

[mfunk9786]

Yeah, I have sharpness all the way off, but this is quite grainy. I was just expecting better from this transfer considering the fact that it's a well-liked, Library of Congress-preserved major studio classic. But it's still probably one of the top 10 films in Criterion's canon and a worthwhile disc, I'm just surprised that the picture has so much noise (especially in shots with a fair amount of light, or light-colored shirts (the Juror 2-6 side of the table)

[mfunk9786]

Watching the feature followed by the teleplay has driven home the realities of being an old man in the 1950s. I cannot imagine talking down to Joseph Sweeney, could you even imagine giving a guy born in the 1880s grief about anything?! He's unspeakably excellent in both the teleplay and the film - and much like the reaction during the screening we had in high school English class, I straighten up and listen whenever the script gives him his moment in the spotlight!

[knives]

Is he the one boring old guy or that one old boring guy? [/jk]