Elective Affinities / Affinités électives
Psychic Barriers to Truth in Twelve
Angry Men
Ely Garfinkle
This paper describes salient events in the film Twelve Angry Men to illustrate some basic psychoanalytic issues. Included are such topics as the
unconscious and emotional factors that interfere with the complex human
effort involved in the search for truth. Unconscious defensive forces aligned
against genuine acknowledgement of suffering over deprivation, loss, conscious awareness of guilt, and eventual remorse over destructive actions are
also explored. Other themes important to psychoanalysis, such as patricide
and filicide, care and concern, ridicule and shame, prejudice, indifference,
and the need for the respect and the attention of others also play an important role in the film.
At first glance, Twelve Angry Men may appear to be a fairly straightforward and conventional drama—albeit with a powerful message about
doubt and uncertainty. The action is almost completely contained within
the confines of one room—the stuffy and unbearably hot jury room of a
murder trial. Underneath the seemingly boring and stilted atmosphere that
suffocates the early scenes of the film and ever-present in the background
lies seething anger that gradually gives way to revelations of uncontained
fear and rage. Largely under control, these uncontained emotions are always
threatening to break through. A sophisticated exploration of human psychological complexity emerges in which the role of unconscious mental life is
brilliantly highlighted through contrasts in the characters’ actions and statements at different points in the narrative.
Keywords: film, fear, rage, prejudice, indifference, shame, doubt
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Cet article décrit les événements saillants du film Douze hommes en colère
afin d’illustrer certains enjeux psychanalytiques de base. L’article traite de
divers thèmes, dont les facteurs affectifs et inconscients qui entravent l’effort humain complexe de la quête de la vérité. L’auteur propose aussi une
réflexion sur les forces défensives qui s’alignent pour mettre en échec la
reconnaissance sincère de la souffrance liée au manque, sur la perte, sur la
conscience de la culpabilité et sur le remords ultime à l’égard d’actes destructeurs. D’autres thèmes psychanalytiques importants, tels que le parricide et
le filicide, l’attention et le souci de l’autre, le ridicule et la honte, les préjugés,
l’indifférence et le besoin de respect et d’attention de la part d’autrui sont
aussi mis en scène dans le film.
À première vue, Douze hommes en colère peut paraître comme un drame
relativement simple et conventionnel, bien qu’il véhicule un message pénétrant sur le doute et l’incertitude. L’action est presque entièrement confinée
à une seule pièce : la salle étouffante de délibération du jury, où règne une
chaleur insupportable. Derrière l’ambiance fade et guindée qui suffoque les
premières scènes, et en arrière-plan tout au long du film, filtre une sourde
colère qui finit par céder le pas à des révélations de peur et de rage mal contenues. Bien qu’elles soient relativement contrôlées, ces émotions menacent
sans cesse d’exploser. La réflexion élaborée sur la complexité de la psychologie humaine qui se dégage du film met en lumière le rôle de la vie psychique
inconsciente à travers les contrastes entre les actes et les affirmations des
personnages à différents moments du récit.
Mots-clés: film, la peur, la rage, les préjugés, l’indifférence, la honte, le doute
Twelve Angry Men is a 1957 American film directed by Sidney Lumet produced by Henry Fonda and Reginald Rose, with story and screenplay written originally for TV by Reginald Rose. At first glance it appears to be no
more than a simple film, albeit one with a powerful message, about the
legal concept of “reasonable doubt.” But the film is not only about doubt
and uncertainty; it is also about unconscious motivations, including patricide and filicide. It is about prejudice, indifference, care and concern, ridicule and shame, and the need for the respect and the attention of others—
all of which make important appearances in the film. As a backdrop to
all of this we also find anger and rage, usually well controlled, but always
threatening to break through. It is also a film that reveals the many pit-
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falls inherent in humanity’s search for truth anywhere—something that is
clearly relevant to psychoanalysts in the consulting room.1
The film has only one main venue—the jury room, where almost all of
the action takes place. The action begins outside the courthouse. The camera takes in a shot of enormous Romanesque pillars making up its facade.
On the frieze is written, “The Administration of Justice Is the Firmest Pillar
of Good Government.” We then slowly zoom into a drab courtroom presided over by a bored judge, ill with a cold, who gives his final directions to
the jury. We hear his disembodied words speak of a need to separate fact
from fantasy, and we note words of direction from the judge stating that
if there is a reasonable doubt, the jury must render a not-guilty judgment.
But we also pay attention to the indifference in the judge’s tone—especially
when he intones that there is a mandatory death penalty and that the court
cannot entertain a commendation for mercy if the accused is found guilty.
The only hint of genuine affect in the entire scene is in the decidedly and
desperately sad face of the accused.
The same tone of indifference continues into the jury room with a light
jocularity among most of the twelve men who seem to have concluded that
the defendant is guilty as charged and that even the trial itself had been a
waste of time. One juror, a baseball fan, is eager to get it over with so that
he can get to his baseball game on time.
At first glimpse, the jury room appears to be a stark, bare room with
a long table, wooden chairs, and a fan that doesn’t work during what is
the hottest day of the year. The door is locked from the outside. The only
escapes from the confinement of the jury room are into the bathroom, by
way of a hung jury, or through a unanimous verdict. Few cuts are used in
the film, keeping the audience also confined in real time and space. Here
time and space are important interpersonally (mostly through the psychological effects of time and physical space on individuals and the group),
and later they are important intrapsychically.
The first order of business is to open the windows—to cool things down.
The foreman asks people to sit in accordance with their jury numbers and
takes an initial vote: eleven guilty, one innocent.
Juror #1 is the foreman, a high school football coach.
Juror #2 is a mousy character, a bit of a milquetoast with a high voice
who we later discover is a bank teller.
1. Bion (1970) asserts the paradox that you cannot know the “truth” of an object
through a knowledge relation to it, only through a “being/feeling” relationship with it.
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Juror #3, a loud, angry, and offensive man, is a self-made businessman/
owner of a messenger service.
Juror #4 is a cool, collected, logical, and unflappable stockbroker. Only
reason sways him. Conspicuously, he never sweats—except for one clearly
documented moment under the stress of a cross-examination by the architect—Juror #8.
Juror #5 is a man who lived in a slum all his life.
Juror #6, a house painter and Baltimore Orioles fan, coaches kids’ baseball in his spare time.
Juror #7 is a loudmouth salesman and an ardent baseball fan.
Juror #8 is an architect. He is the lone juror who, from the beginning,
expresses doubts about convicting the accused and is the one who step by
step, block by block, builds the case for acquittal.
Juror #9 is an old man on pension who suffers prejudice and ridicule
because of his age but is emboldened by the brave stance of the architect
and is the first to join the architect’s side.
Juror #10 is a loudly, openly, and deeply prejudiced individual who
eventually alienates almost every other juror.
Juror #11 is an immigrant who understands prejudice well and is
attacked in the jury room simply for being an immigrant watchmaker who
grew up in a poor neighbourhood like the one in which the accused lived.
He had left the slums years before, resisting the pull of violence, crime, and
poverty that was prevalent all around him.
Juror #12 is an advertising executive without firm convictions.
All bring their respective personalities, talents, and prejudices to the
deliberations, which begin with the group deciding to try to convince Juror
#8, the architect, to change his mind so they can quickly leave their current
sense of confinement. The architect just wants to talk it out. Unsure about
a verdict, he underlines the burden of responsibility of the collective in
taking a man’s life. But the baseball fan (#7) just wants to go to the game.
This enlivens the old man (#9) to appeal to the other jurors’ compassion so
that they talk it out, whatever their initial conclusions, and thereby give
the accused a fair shake. The other jurors are flippant, but eventually they
start talking. Through their talk we begin to understand the case.
The facts are that an 18-year-old boy is accused of murdering his father.
His mother died when he was 9 years old, and he spent a year and a half in
an orphanage while his father served time in jail. His father beat the boy
regularly from the age of 5. The boy has a history of many arrests and is
very handy with a knife. He acknowledged in court that he left the apartment after his father punched him twice, then went to a nearby pawn shop
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Psychic Barriers to Truth in Twelve Angry Men
and bought a switchblade, which he later showed to his friends. The boy
alleged that he then went to a movie but had forgotten the name of the feature when interrogated at the scene of the murder. He also claimed that he
returned home at 3 a.m., whereupon he was arrested and thrown down the
stairs by police. He also alleged that his knife had fallen through a hole in
his pocket. His father was killed at 12:10 a.m., with an overhand blow to the
chest with a knife identical to the one he had purchased, just as an empty
“L” train (a train on elevated tracks) passed by his father’s window. An old
man with a limp who lived in the same building identified the boy’s voice
as the one shouting, “I’ll kill you,” just before his father was stabbed. The
knife was left in his father’s chest. The old man testified that he ran to the
door and was able to see the boy running down the stairs. A woman, who
lived in the building across the “L” tracks, identified the boy as the person
she saw through the windows of the passing train stabbing a man with an
overhead blow. She had screamed and immediately called the police.
Several themes are interwoven. First, there is the uncertainty and reasonable doubt, introduced by the judge. Juror #8, the architect, underlines
this theme when he declares that he doesn’t know whether the boy is innocent or guilty and that it was the job of the prosecutor to prove guilt and
not of the defence attorney to prove innocence. Nevertheless, he says, the
defence was negligent in its duty. That his doubt is reasonable becomes
clear as not a single point of the prosecution, when carefully scrutinized,
can be verified.
Patricide and filicide are two prevalent themes that run through the film
like interwoven threads in a complex tapestry. After years of abuse and in
the absence of mother’s mitigating love, an 18-year-old boy is accused of
killing his father. A powerful sub-theme emerges in the jury room in the
real-life story of Juror #3, the businessman, and his own relationship with
his own son. Once, feeling so humiliated by seeing his young son run away
from a fight, the businessman swore he would “make a man out of him if I
had to break him in two trying.” Later, at 16, his son got into a fight with his
father and punched him hard on the jaw. The son, now 22, left home two
years ago, and his father hasn’t heard from him since. “Kids,” he says sadly,
“[you] work your heart out . . .” He shows a picture of father and son together in happy times. This is to be contrasted later with the last scene after a
unanimous not-guilty verdict is agreed upon, when the businessman says,
“Rotten kids. You work your life out . . . ,” and then, his face contorted in
anger, tears the picture of himself and his son into pieces. In this image, we
see an enactment of his murderous rage against his own son, which he had
unconsciously displaced onto the 18-year-old defendant—his statement
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early in the deliberations that he has “no personal feelings” about the case
illustrates the unconscious nature of this displacement of rage that now
returns to the original object, his son. Immediately thereafter he bursts out
sobbing in profound sadness and accepts a not-guilty verdict.
At another point in the proceedings, using the architect as his prop, the
businessman, holding the knife used in the murder, tries to demonstrate
how the boy killed his father. His face screwed up in anger, he raises the
knife and appears ready to plunge it into the architect’s chest. Many in
the jury room stand up in horror and concern, but the businessman gains
control over his rage. Here we see an example of displaced filicidal and
patricidal rage, as well as a series of multiple identifications and projections. One example of the latter is that of the businessman/child in an
unstable rage against the architect/father. The businessman identifies with
a son (the accused boy) enraged by a father’s unfair treatment and projects
onto the architect a fatherly attitude both benign and malignant. Earlier
in the film the businessman recounts that as a boy he had been required to
address his own father as “sir” and lamented that such forced respect was
no longer required. The film also makes evident that the businessman’s
own son was enraged with him for the unfair treatment he had received.
We occasionally observe the architect expressing anger with the businessman’s shenanigans and treating him like a child—at one point even
humiliating him openly by scolding him for playing tic-tac-toe during jury
deliberations (“This isn’t a game”) while he, the architect/father, makes an
“important” point. The architect may at times fit the projection (thereby
disguising the projective element of the bad/good fatherly depiction) and
may also appear to respond to it (in resonance with the projection). These
are not uncommon phenomena in life or in the analytical situation. Thus,
the businessman unconsciously identifies the father/architect with his
own “bad” father and identifies himself with his own son and the accused.
Here, the businessman is unconscious of—but nevertheless acts out, identifying with the boy—a murderous desire against the father/architect who
has incurred his wrath by creating the conditions that force him to get in
touch with the suppressed experience of his own humiliations at the hands
of his own father.
It could also be concluded that the businessman unconsciously experiences the architect/father as the “good” defender of the 18-year-old
accused/son. Here the architect would be experienced as a man (father)
who is ready to give the businessman (boy) another chance—the “good”
father the businessman tried to be but could not be with his own wayward
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Psychic Barriers to Truth in Twelve Angry Men
son.2 Finding this intolerable, he then enviously attacks this good father
aspect of himself through his invective against the architect on whom he
has projected this aspect of himself.
Near the end of the film, the businessman throws his pocketbook on
the table, saying, “I have all the facts here.” What is strewn on the table
can be understood as an externalization of his internal state, dominated
by the picture of himself and his son together in happier times that he then
tears up in a rage. We are to understand by this subliminal visual message
that the only pertinent fact in the case for the businessman is (and always
has been) his emotionally charged relationship with his son—a relationship now severed with serious emotional consequences. In the end, the
businessman is humiliated once more by his loss in the jury room. But this
is not the final humiliation. The businessman’s recognition (immediately
re-suppressed) of having damaged his own (now again beloved) child (by
unconsciously projecting his own unbearable humiliations onto his child
in the past whenever his son did not live up to his idealized image of the
perfect son) is more humiliating. Finally, to recognize that he had done all
of this in order to live up to the expectations of his own father so he could
gain what he could never find—his father’s love and respect—is a humiliation that is more than he can either contemplate or bear. As he leaves the
jury room, helped by the architect’s caring gesture of holding his jacket
and giving a gentle pat on the shoulder, the camera pans the table and we
can note that he has deliberately left the torn picture behind. Though we
can see he is sad when he leaves, appearing to have internalized the conflict somewhat, the audience is left in an ambivalent position—doubting
whether their parting hopes for this man are misplaced, feeling uncertain
about both his will and his capacity to repair the damage he has done
within himself in his torn relationship with his son.
Time and Space
The past is brought into the present most clearly in the film through the
psychic conflict of the businessman and his son. It emerges gradually as
a fundamental theme in the movie—becoming a driving motive for the
businessman’s desire of the accused boy to die for allegedly killing his
own father. But this theme is also touched upon as other jurors recollect
memories, which then subject them to emotional states that influence their
experience of the present, as vividly depicted during the examination of
2. It could be conjectured also that the businessman projectively identifies through
the container of the architect with the damaged good father aspect in himself.
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the topic of prejudice (or pre-judgment)—both as victims of prejudice and
as perpetrators of it.
Psychic space is depicted physically in the film through the airy or stifled atmosphere and the emotional experience created by the music. Being
a builder of spaces, the architect attempts to open a dialogue with the
other jurors, initiating the potential for entry into a psychic space different from the locked and closed one they had originally entered. Through
reverie,3 his non-rigid qualities of being a good parental container enable
possibility in the room where there had been none. In so doing, a holding environment,4 or a something akin to Ogden’s “third,” the subject of
analysis5 begins to emerge. One can describe this more concretely as the
open space of deliberation that is protected by confidentiality so that the
free thinking of the jurors can be communicated and shared.
The architect’s creation of a (psychic) space to think and feel freely, to
have thoughts and hypotheses separate from the dogma of the witnesses’
testimony and from the entrenched emotional dogma (including prejudice) of each juror also emerges. Thus the original introjections of the
3. Reverie is a term Bion (1962) coined to define a state of calm receptiveness to take
in (contain) the infant’s own feelings and give them meaning. The infant will evacuate
and unconsciously attempt to insert intolerable and unassimilated states of anxiety
and terror into the mother’s mind through projective identification. Once these states
are introjected by the mother, reverie is that process of the mother’s making sense of it
for the infant inside herself through alpha function. Then, through the infant’s subsequent introjection of a receptive and understanding mother, it can begin opening up
to its own capacity for reflection on its own states of mind. When the mother is incapable of this reverie for reflexive meaning, because she is preoccupied with other concerns or is innately fragile, or because the (“envious) infant makes too many (“excessive”) attacks on the containing object, meaning is not received by the infant, who
experiences instead a terrifying sense of the ghastly unknown called nameless dread.
4. The term holding is used by Winnicott to denote the total environment of the
mother–infant relationship—a three-dimensional space relationship with time gradually added (Winnicott 1960) and is similarly referred to in the analytic setting and
relationship (Winnicott 1963a, 1963b).
5. Ogden’s (1994, 1997) elegant concept of the “subjugating third” describes how
we take in the atmosphere of the analysand’s internal world and (as we cannot hold
it completely) create a space for it in the analysis (the analytic third), for this atmosphere to find expression and to enable an interaction with projected parts of ourselves. Ogden holds that the unconscious fantasy and the interpersonal event are “two
aspects of a single psychological event” (1994, p. 99)—a central paradox in which the
individuals engaged in this form of relatedness unconsciously subjugate themselves to
a mutually generated intersubjective third (p. 101).
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witnesses’ testimonial projections (the 45-year-old woman witness and
the 75-year-old forgotten man) give way to an empathic consideration of
their whole experience devoid of blame and encompassing understanding
and compassion with their unique situations, to arrive at a more truthful
depiction of events inclusive of the 18-year-old defendant’s situation.
Prejudice and Indifference
Prejudice and indifference play important roles in the film. and we are
introduced to both early on. Prejudice in the film is also seen as a premature rush to judgment. From the judge’s bored charge to the jury, to
the jurors’ small talk about the “open and shut” nature of the case, to the
baseball fan’s overriding concern that he get to his game on time, indifference bordering on flippancy hits us and throws us back like paper thrown
against a fan. Such indifference, the opposite of care and concern, is the
secular face of what some might call “evil.”
This turning away from awareness of knowledge of fact (Bion’s minusK) often appears as a consequence of the unbearable anxiety that emerges
in the individual through awareness. Often the individual’s need to protect
against such anxiety is used to defend the legitimacy of specific defensive
attitudes or actions taken or contemplated (aggressive, passive, destructive,
etc.).6 In a group experience, defensive action against such anxiety (which,
when seen in the individual, we might call “symptoms”) can become
re­inforced by others’ (group-sanctioned) supportive attitudes towards
such defensive reactions and in time may create what we call “culture.”7
At first only the architect, Juror #8, seems to be seriously concerned that
the life of a young man is at stake in this trial and that in good conscience
he cannot vote guilty without a serious discussion about the facts of the
case. Juror #10 says, “We don’t owe the kid a thing,” and that the trial itself
was more than the defendant deserved, and the jury shouldn’t work too
hard in its deliberations.
For most, this ambiance of indifference gradually turns to one of interest in the case as the arguments for and against unfold. For other jurors,
6. Henri Rey’s (1994) concept of claustro-agoraphobic anxiety is an example of the
latter that is physically depicted in the film’s treatment of the enclosed space (womb/
coffin) of the jury room and reactions to it.
7. Often the concept of “culture” to justify societal condoning of such (culturally sanctioned) actions can later elevate qualities that we define as negative—such
as indifference and prejudice (as it can also elevate or demote other constructive/
destructive, qualities/symptoms)—into untouchable status.
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what at first glance appeared to be a banal indifference emerges as prejudice. Prejudice against immigrants, prejudice against old people, prejudice
against slum dwellers, prejudice against young people—all these prejudices (or pre-judgments) are gradually exposed and confronted in the interest
of concern for a real person on trial for his life, as well as in the interest
of discovering something true about the events of the case by leaving prejudgments outside the jury room door.
The jurors’ early attitude of “easy indifference” is not easy for the viewer to
digest. On reflection, however, understanding emerges that jurors originally
see the accused as a non-person without right to their care and concern for
his plight precisely because to see the accused as a human like themselves is
too painful to bear. The appearance of a collective wall of indifference and
prejudice expressing manifest social stances in the group is revealed as collections of intrapsychic defences (fed by intolerable and dreaded “uncertainty”). While indifference and prejudice are reinforced at first by the group,
these attitudes are gradually challenged in each individual as a new group
culture of care and concern takes hold (both for people and for truth). The
psychic pain that each individual undergoes when he has to challenge his
own assumptions under the light of truth is clearly visible.
In a pivotal moment near the end of the film, the prejudiced Juror #10, in
a rant that alienates almost all the other jurors—many standing up showing him their backs—says, “These people lie . . . they don’t know what the
truth is . . . they get drunk . . . human life doesn’t mean as much to them as it
means to us . . . I know a couple who are OK but most of them . . . they’re no
good—not one of them . . . his type, they’re wild and dangerous.” The architect responds that it is “always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a
thing like this” and that “prejudice always obscures the truth,” and acknow­
ledges that neither he nor anyone else really knows what the truth is.
Shame and Humiliation
The power of humiliation in the theme of filicide and patricide has already
been touched upon. The film develops this theme further in another context. In the jury room itself various topics and various people are subjected
to quick ridicule. Occasionally the audience even appears to be invited not
only to sympathize with the victim, but also to offer a retaliatory judgment
against the transgressor (the transference relationship equivalent of what
might happen in a consulting room—we the audience taking the place of
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the psychoanalyst being pushed8 or nudged9 to react in resonance10 with
the analysand’s projections). The old man (Juror #9) is ridiculed subtly for
being old—comments about his having to take a long time in the bathroom at the beginning of the film herald the criticism that he is holding
things up (escape from the jury room) by offering support to the architect,
and by speaking his mind when he is just an old man who should probably
crawl into a hole somewhere and die.
This is counter-pointed with the old male witness with the limp, who
in fact does live in a hole. The old juror’s insights into the psychology of
the old male witness are pivotal to the understanding of the case, and
they take considerable courage for the juror to spell out, because he knows
that he is talking about himself. “I know this old man well,” he says at
one point. At another point, the old juror is insulted by Juror #3. Juror #6
defends him, saying, “You should have respect for an old man.” The old
juror recognizes and identifies with the poverty of the old witness dressed
in his torn jacket and the poor man’s desire to be noticed for once in his life.
He understands this “quiet, frightened, insignificant old man” who never
received recognition in his life: “No one seeks his advice after 75 years . . . A
man like this needs to be quoted, to be listened to . . . It’s hard to recede into
the background.” And he proffers the theory that rather than deliberately
lying about his reaching the door in 15 seconds, or that he distinctly heard
the accused say to his father, “I’ll kill you,” above the din of the “L” train
passing in front of his window, that the old witness “made himself believe
that he heard it” simply because his need for attention was so great (the
word unconscious does not pass anyone’s lips, but we hear it between the
lines). Immediately thereafter, the old juror is subtly ridiculed by another
juror: “What do you know about it?” And the old man is silenced.
8. Sandler coined the term actualization for a process in which the object is pushed
by a variety of subtle unconscious manoeuvres, both verbal and non-verbal, into playing a particular role for the patient.
9. Joseph also stresses the way patients attempt, often subtly and without conscious
awareness, to “nudge” the analyst into acting in a manner consistent with their projection (Joseph 1989; Spillius 1992).
10. Sandler (1976) however, describes a number of different pathways excluding
projective identification, through which the patient’s mental state is communicated to
the analyst. These would include persisting or recurrent primary identification (which
can be called mirroring or resonance). This is a function of the analyst’s receptivity,
not of the analysand’s unconscious intention. Grotstein (1994, 2005) reinforces this
view. Also see Garfinkle (2005, p. 224).
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But the old man does not remain silent. At another point in the
proceedings, he notices ridges on the sides of the stockbroker’s nose, after
the latter has taken off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. He recalls
that the woman in her forties living in obscurity across the “L” tracks, who
had claimed to have witnessed the murder, also had rubbed her nose at the
trial in the same manner as the stockbroker. She too had the same marks
on her nose that the stockbroker had earlier attested could only have come
from constant use of eyeglasses—eyeglasses that are always taken off at
bedtime. It was to be then understood that the woman must have not worn
her glasses during her testimony in order to give the appearance of youth
and beauty and was never challenged by counsel on her eyesight.
Group Dynamics
It is also important to note how the film also pays close attention to group
dynamics. Among other themes, being on a winning or losing side (and the
shame and humiliation of being all alone on the losing side) was important
to many in the group, and the tally was followed as closely as a baseball
game by all. The importance of the tally to the group also appeared to me
to be a form of group defence against the chaos of shifting perspectives
that threatened the cohesion of the two groups. The threat to each person’s
internal individual cohesion, now identified with the cohesion of each
group, especially when coloured by shame once the two groups (or teams)
had formed, was also highlighted. Once someone declared himself a team
member, it was difficult to switch teams, even when it was overtly stated
that allegiance to a side as an end in itself was not in the interest of truth
(the ad executive, an exception to the rule, who loved only “pitching” ideas
and having them saluted or lapped up but who was completely devoid of
loyalty, being the only one to switch back and forth).
The director, through control of the camera, makes clear that in the
initial vote, the old man had not looked to see how the architect was
voting but saw all the other hands going up and decided late to vote along
with the rest. Were it not for the architect’s no vote, the old man would
have had to live with his timid acquiescence to the lynching without any
deliberation. He knew he could not face the group on his own, and as we
subsequently observe, nor could most of the others. Only the architect on
one side and the stockbroker on the other were truly capable of honest
independent thought, devoid of personal interest, and showed the mettle
to stand alone (and in some way together) in a search for truth. Most could
not tolerate the prospect of humiliation at being the one—alone, isolated,
and abused. It was too much to bear. The architect, in contrast to most of
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the others, did stand up to envious attacks on his person and his ideas—
attacks also based on rigidly held certainty in spoon-fed beliefs—all this
while simultaneously acknowledging and tolerating both his own doubt
and uncertainty in his own cause. This architect/leader/(baseball team)
manager of the no side rallied people to his side, and most acknowledged
his leadership by a smile or a nod when they changed over. He supported
his arguments with logic and experimentation, all while appealing to each
juror’s humanity, usually but not always (imperfect human being that
he was) with humility and usually without using ridicule or shame as a
weapon against them.11
11. An understanding of Bion’s (1961) classification of different levels of functioning
in different group types may be useful. Specifically, the concepts of “working group”
and “basic assumption group” are relevant to the group of 12 in the film. The following
quotes from Bion (1961) illustrating his contribution to thinking on group dynamics
can also loosely define terms. While all these types of group mental functioning are
apparent in the jury room, describing the film from this vertex would make a paper
in itself.
Work group: “This (mental) activity is geared to a task, it is related to reality, its
methods are rational, and, therefore, in however embryonic a form, scientific. Its
characteristics are similar to those attributed by Freud (1911) to the ego . . . [and are]
directed to the solution of problems” (pp. 143–144). “Work-group function is always
in evidence with one, and only one, basic assumption . . . Work-group functions are
always pervaded by basic-assumption phenomena” (p. 154).
Basic assumption group: “The first assumption is that the group has met in order
to be sustained by a leader on whom it depends for nourishment, material and spiritual, and protection” (p. 147). “Emotions associated with basic assumptions may be
described by the usual terms, anxiety, fear, hate, love, and the like. But the emotions
common to any basic assumption are subtly affected by each other. All basic assumptions include the existence of a leader” (p. 154–155).
Bion describes three “basic assumption group” mental activities and regards them
as clusters of psychotic phenomena in the group. All three have in common “massive splitting and projective identification, loss of individual distinctiveness or depersonalization, diminution of effective contact with reality, lack of belief in progress
and development through work and suffering” (Menzies Lyth 1981, p. 663). They are
detected by the feeling tone in the atmosphere of the group.
• Dependent basic assumption. Group members hang onto words of wisdom of
the group leader as if all knowledge, health, and life are located there.
• Fight/flight basic assumption. Led by the leader, they will fight or flee an idea
that there is an enemy to be identified (inside or outside themselves).
•
Pairing basic assumption. The group is suffused with a mysterious hope—often
accompanied by a pairing within the group (two members or member and leader)—that some great new idea/hope (messiah) will emerge from such a pairing.
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Doubt
“How can you send someone to die with such doubt?” asks the old man.
The phenomenon of doubt—especially “reasonable doubt”—is explored
extensively in this film, from beginning to end. Throughout we see how
important it is to tolerate the experience of doubt, especially when coming to conclusions requiring relative degrees of certainty. One dramatic
instance was when the architect drove into the table a knife identical to
the murder weapon, which the architect had bought at a pawn shop in the
boy’s neighbourhood. This knife, which the prosecution had claimed was
unique, was dramatically and almost miraculously reproduced in the jury
room (deus ex machina)—one of many turning points in the film. The
doubt engendered thereby in the jury’s mind by this dramatic entrance of
either Chance or God for the other side (depending on your world view), in
what was until then an experience of bored and almost religious certainty
about the guilt of the accused, cannot be overemphasized.
We know from experience how doubt, uncertainty, and fear of the
unknown can lead to rigid beliefs in order to calm anxiety. A repeating
message in the film is how such beliefs need to be defended religiously
against all doubt, lest discovery of underlying truth unleash internal chaos,
which is experienced as catastrophic anxiety (Bion’s nameless dread). We
see this most clearly in the businessman who defended himself from
becoming aware of the damage he inflicted on his son over the years and
could not mourn his loss—the ensuing sadness becoming unbearable—
with the resultant regression to anger, rage, and denial of the loving ties to
his son as a separate other, rather than an omnipotently controlled aspect
of himself.
There could be no examination of truth in the end without a mutual
respect for the truth when it inevitably shows itself. Though some of the
members appear untouched by the experiences in the room, others seem
to use the opportunity to learn to live with themselves and with others
amid doubt, uncertainty, anger, love, prejudice, hate, indifference, shame,
and humiliation—all with their own vicissitudes. Psychic truths also have
a way of hiding from our view as we defend ourselves against the prospect
of inner chaos that might ensue if unconscious truth were revealed. This
also was brought out in this dated, black-and-white, powerful, and not so
simple film.
Later (Bion 1970; Menzies Lyth 1981) the paring assumption was remodelled to
make it basic to life and to the containing function of all groups (also see Hinshelwood
1989).
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Psychic Barriers to Truth in Twelve Angry Men
About the Film
Title
Year of release
Director
Screenwriter
Producers
Film editor
Art editor
Music composer and conductor
Director of photography
Associate producer
Distributor
Running time Twelve Angry Men
1957
Sidney Lumet
Reginald Rose
Henry Fonda and Reginald Rose
Carl Lerner
Robert Markel
Kenyon Hopkins
Boris Kaufman
George Justin
United Artists
96 minutes
References
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Garfinkle, E. (2005). Towards clarity in the concept of projective identification: A review
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Ely Garfinkle
72a Fourth Avenue
Ottawa, on k1s 2l2
egarfinkle@rogers.com
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