Running head: 12 ANGRY MEN WITH A PENDING DECISION 1

12 Angry Men with a Pending Decision

BIBIN VARGHESE

BITS PILANI HYDERABAD

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12 Angry Men with a Pending Decision

Creativity is often seen as the ability to “get ideas”; it is often considered as the first step
of an innovation cycle (Lubart, 1999). So in today’s competitive world people with great creative
potential are highly valued. This article focuses on the movie “12 Angry Men” and its Hindi
remake “Ek Rukha Hua Faisla” and how the director of the latter succeeds or fails to be creative
on remaking the movie.

12 Angry Men is a 1957 courtroom drama written by Reginald Rose and directed by
Sidney Lumet. It is an all time classic that cinema lovers around the world cite as a milestone in
moviemaking. It is a drama concerning the jury of a homicide trial. The jury consisting of twelve
different men decides on the fate of an eighteen year boy convicted of murdering his own father.
The convict and the courtroom in which the trial takes place are shown only during the first two
minutes of the movie. The rest of the movie takes place in a single room. So describing the
movie as a courtroom drama is not exactly right. Still the movie is renowned as one of the
greatest courtroom dramas of all time.

Eleven of the twelve judges are convinced that the convict is guilty and the only
dissenting voice is of the twelfth man Davis whose name is revealed only at the end of the
movie. The particulars of the trial and the charges against the convict are alien to the audience in
the beginning, but all that comes to light during the course of the movie through the discussion
between the jurors.

Initially the majority of the jurors are convinced of the boy’s guilt but the lone man Davis
manages to make them realize that their own personal biases and prejudices highly influenced
their conviction. But the transformation was very gradual and was the result of painful discussion
and reasoning which was carried out in spite of the other jurors who were expecting to finish the
deliberation quickly and go to their own commitments, which was more important for them than
a person’s life. The debates amongst the jury are in the manner of satirical presentations touching
upon various aspects like corruption, bureaucracy, poverty, class and communal discrimination.

The directors brilliance lies in the fact that he manages to keep the tension alive till the
end of the movie. This is especially difficult when the movie is set in a single room and
progresses only through the dialogues between the characters. The tension between the people in
the room is also realistic and is built up well. The claustrophobic room and the extreme weather
cleverly incorporated into the plot also add to the strain of an already difficult situation. The
movie ends with the jurors altering their judgements because of reasonable doubt regarding the
boy’s guilt. The question of whether the boy was actually innocent still lingers in the minds of
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the audience. But the aim of the movie was not to clarify that and the director leaves it to the
audience’s imagination.

The movie subtly discusses so many other ideas. One of the most interesting things about
the movie is that it does not divulge the names of any of the characters including the convict.
This is in fact a hint at how a democratic system should work. In a democracy all individuals are
equal before the law irrespective of who they are in society. It also discusses how our decisions
are based on our preconceived notions and how a clearly thinking individual (Davis in the
movie) or a group of individuals who are brave enough to face the ridicule of society in the quest
of truth can open our eyes. It also shows the rarity of objective thinking in our times and how it
can make a huge difference. 12 Angry Men is surely a masterpiece and so can be subjected to
numerous other discussions and interpretations.

The movie had such an huge impact worldwide that it was remade in numerous
languages. The Hindi remake of the movie named “Ek Rukha Hua Faisla”, which translates to
“A Pending Decision”, was released in 1986. The movie was directed by veteran director and
musician Basu Chatterjee.

The duration of the Hindi remake is much longer than the original movie. But it is indeed
a faithful adaptation of the original. The eleven jurors and their specific characters, their
professions and even the order in which they sit around the discussion table are same as the
original. Even some humorous situations and many dialogues in the Hindi remake are the literal
translations of the ones from the original.

Flexibility and risk taking are crucial elements in making your work more creative.
Flexibility allows a person to move from one line of ideas to another and thus explore a topic
more widely (Mednik, 1962). Risk taking on the hand involves breaking from habitual ideas
(Prabhu, 2011; Sternberg and Lubart, 1995). So in the context of the Hindi remake the director
instead of blindly copying the English classic scene by scene could have introduced some new
ideas of his own that fit the Indian context.

Although the remake is by and large similar to the original the director has introduced
some subtle and clever changes that help set the story in India. In the original movie some jurors
are prejudiced against the convict because he is a Hispanic and a slum dweller. While in the
Indian version the convict belongs to a lower caste and the prejudice stems from the jurors upper
caste bigotry. Also the commitments to which the jurors are eager to go vary in the two movies.

The beauty of the English classic lies in the fact it manages to create interest even though
there were no scenes outside the deliberation room other than the courtroom scene at the
beginning. The other characters and the evidences are introduced to the audience only through
the dialogues between the characters. In spite of being a black and white movie it also manages
to convincingly bring out the claustrophobic nature of the room and the warm weather (atleast
for the most part of the movie). On the hand the Hindi version needed shots of the railway track
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and the witnesses to recreate the same atmosphere; this is indeed a shortcoming of the director.
Also the deliberation room in the Hindi movie is much bigger and airy. So the statement by the
characters about the warm weather seems unconvincing.

The jury system in India was abolished in 1969 in the aftermath of the Nanavathi case
(The LAWblog), but the movie which released in 1986 does not give any explanation on why the
case was still decided by a jury. Also till 1986 only less than 50 people were given capital
punishment in Maharashtra so giving an 18 year old boy death sentence for killing his violent
and abusive father seems a little farfetched.

The director who is also the music composer uses a background score in some scenes to
escalate the tension. But the original movies long silences and sudden outbursts were much more
effective in doing the same. The acting in the Hindi remake is also slightly dramatic compared to
the realistic and subtle acting of the original. For instance the posture and the mannerisms of the
third juror who was the last to be convinced seemed to be overtly contrived. Also in the original
only two jurors were really “angry” all the others only got annoyed occasionally. But in the
Hindi remake almost everyone was highly strung and seemed to be ever ready for a fight. An
older actor should have been cast as the 9th juror because he was also highly unconvincing.

In conclusion “Ek Rukha Hua Faisla” was a copy of a much superior movie and the
director was not creative enough to make it as exceptional as the original. But viewed as an
independent movie it was one of the best movies of that time made in India. It faithfully told the
story of 12 Angry Men with a Pending Decision.
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