Five things to know about twelve angry men

Henry Fonda special evening, tonight on Arte. Sidney Lumet’s very first feature film will be followed by a documentary on his flagship actor.

The fruit of a bad memory

Twelve angry men tells the trial of a modest young man who, accused of the murder of his father, risks the death penalty. And it stages the long deliberations of the twelve jurors whose decision must be taken unanimously. This great classic of trial cinema strikes with the correctness of its words and the atmosphere that reigns in the exchanges between jurors. An impression that owes nothing to chance: this story was inspired by the scriptwriter Reginald Rose by his own painful juror experience in a fairly macabre case.

A story with multiple lives

Twelve angry men was not born in the cinema! Since the very first transposition of this scenario first took place in 1954 on television under the direction of Franklin J. Schaffner, the future director of The Planet of the Apes and Patton. Then in 1964, Twelve angry men will become a play on the London scene and will have to wait until 2007 to be played in Broadway with in the meantime, a French adaptation broadcast in 1970 as part of the theater this evening. William Friedkin will realize his own version on the small American screen in 1977. Thirty years before Nikita Mikhalkov transposes this story in Russia with 12selected at the Venice Mostra.

The first steps of a huge filmmaker

It was the actor Henry Fonda who was at the origin of the passage of 12 angry men On the big screen and thereby that of Sidney Lumet with a film feature film. Fonda indeed sought a director capable of working quickly and well with a more than modest budget … When he returned to the ears the reputation of an excellent director for the small screen (mostly live) that Lumet had Forged since 1950. A choice that Fonda will not regret.

The documentary Henry Fonda – Justice for motto is to be seen for free on Arte.tv

A speed filming V

Twelve angry men was shot in just 21 days for $ 340,000. And in order to respect the deadlines, Lumet submitted his actors upstream to two weeks of very intense rehearsals where he locked them in a room and makes exchanges – without the presence of a camera – to put them physically and morally in their condition of jurors who would fiercely defend their views at the start antagonistic.

A film freshly welcomed at the time

Like so many others, Twelve angry men – Considered today as a classic – has experienced a salT without drum or trumpets. Henry Fonda Jura, moreover, that he would no longer take him there to do the producer, annoyed by the bad distribution policy of the Paramount which released the film in a park of excessive rooms and removed it from the neck too quickly at the detriment of ‘A smaller and faithful screens policy. And if he obtained the gold bear in Berlin in 1957, Twelve angry men left stunned both by Golden Globes and Oscars, struck down by The Kwaï river bridge. Sidney Lumet had to wait until 2005 to receive an Oscar – honor – after four other unsuccessful appointments for One dog afternoon,, Network,, The Prince of New York And The verdict.

Juror n ° 2, a small legal thriller, but devilishly Eastwood (critic)