Leadership is an issue in the films Twelve Angry Men (1957) and Alive (1993). In each case, there is a small group with a specific leader. In the jury room, a foreman is selected as leader, though over the course of the story it is evident that this leader is not strong enough to guide the group. Various others vie for the leadership role, but the one who becomes the leader is one who embodies certain qualities of persuasion along with compassion and an inner strength. In the case of Alive, the group sets out with a traditional leader, the leader of the soccer team, and at first they accept him in that role once their plane has crashed. Later, though, as their situation becomes more desperate, they seek a different sort of leader, one less predictable, less controlled, and more appealing in an impossible situation.
In Twelve Angry Men, the characters are not given names but only numbers, their juror numbers, but they are individualized by their attitudes, their approach to the task at hand, and their prejudices as brought out during their discussions with one another. They represent various attitudes toward socioeconomic class and ethnicity which affect how they react to the defendant and to one another. They take a vote and elect a foreman, a mild-mannered conciliator. He may believe that the task at hand is simple and that the group will soon reach an accord, but this does not occur as Juror Number Eight wants to discuss the issues and needs to be persuaded to vote with the rest.
The Foreman is able to lead in some small degree only because there is some respect for the position he has been given rather than for him personally. In effect, he represents a free-rein leader, though this may not be his intent. This group consists of twelve men with minds of their own. They are also an ad hoc group created for one purpose--to make a decision on this case. They have a clear objective, another mark of the free rein style o...