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Sometimes when a film has finished the credits have scrolled into history my mind ponders the next sequence of event for the characters. I am not speaking of sequel stories and further adventures but rather the immediate fallout of the events that just transpired.
67 years ago this week a classic of American Cinema was released to theaters 12 Angry Men, the story of a jury originally deadlocked 11-1 in favor of a murder conviction that grapples with prejudice and racism as they search for justice and their own souls. *spoilers* bit by painful bit the jurors uncover doubt in the prosecutions seemingly open and shut case until after conquering their own biases they reach an acquittal. The story ends with the jurors going their own way on a rain-soaked street as sunlight returns to the world.
I adore this film. Masterful writing, acting, and filmmaking in a tightly confined location. I do also ponder what the newspaper the next day looked like. The case against the young defendant looked so absolute, so solid. No one writing about the case or reading about would have been treated to the deep discussions and debate over evidence that in the public eye had seemed so certain and incontrovertible. I have no doubt that there would have been excoriating opinion pieces about an idiot jury that let a killer walk free, opinion pieces that might have proved quite popular.
Another movie that sparked fascination in what transpired after the final reel is the Cohen Brothers’ neo-noir Blood Simple.
A tale of lust, greed, and murder Blood Simple is a salute to classic film noir but one that isn’t like its predecessors constrained by the ‘Production Code.’
In the film one of the protagonists takes what he assumes is a corpse to a field to bury it. The person isn’t dead but gets buried anyways. Horrific. However, it’s not the gruesome nature of the killing that really set my mind wondering but rather the ‘hiding’ of the body. When I said it was in a field you might have imagined an open stretch of unused land, perhaps in a secluded forest. Nope. This is a farmer’s freshly plowed but not yet planted productive land. It’s a striking visual, the parallel lines of the plow interrupted by the stark unique rectangle of a grave, but what happens the next morning? I imagine a tired farmer ambling to his field to begin the daily work and stopping shocked at the sight of a grave in the middle of his future corn field. This ‘hiding’ isn’t going to last twelve hours as it’s almost certain that the county Sheriff is going to be involved very quickly.
It’s this sort of pondering that prompted me to write an epilog to my horror novel. Perhaps, if it sells, the editor will ask me to cut the epilog but I knew that had I read or seen my own story I would have been wondering how, with so many dead people scattered about the town, did the protagonist not spend the rest of his days answering very difficult charges.
