Respect Your Authority
In August 1971, psychology professor Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment with select graduate students in the basement of Stanford University to explore the effects of prison life on the human psyche. To do this, he hires 24 male volunteers from on campus and splits them up into two groups: 12 prisoners and 12 prison guards. He converted his space into mock prison cells and a prison yard and then began his simulation, making sure the guards remembered the contract they signed that stated that they were not allowed to physically harm the prisoners. The results that followed shocked the public and is now referenced in nearly every textbook on psychology. Now in 2015, director Kyle Patrick Alvarez has assembled a group of promising up and coming actors and created a cold piece of film-making that is undeniably impressive but will most definitely alienate some viewers with its psychological brutality.
The film begins and ends with the experiment itself, with little to no introduction to each of the characters. We begin to understand them as the film progresses, which adds to the horror that we as an audience experience when we realize at the end of the film that the boys involved were just that: boys. They had no premeditation to be cruel or unjust to each other. When the experiment begins however, something dark comes out of both guard and prisoner alike and human decency is thrown out of the window once a power system is introduced. It also inspires indifference in many of those witnessing the events unfold. No one escapes from this unscathed, including the audience watching the film. It is all portrayed with a bluntness that hits with a brute force. The only thing that keeps this at all believable is the fact that it all actually happened. This is what makes the subject material most disturbing.
The ensemble assembled here is uniformly excellent. Stand outs include Ezra Miller (We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Perks of Being a Wallflower) and Michael Angarano (Almost Famous, Sky High) whose scenes together are intense and terrifying as "prisoner" and "guard" clash with pure venom that absolutely works on screen. They are very mature performances that should not go ignored.
The direction of the film gives the true sense of claustrophobia and hostility that is hard to shake but feels like necessary viewing. Because of this, the tone can often feel static and one note. It hits over the head with so much constant bleakness that it is not an easy sit. There is the occasional light character moment to shake things up every once in a while, but they are sparingly placed.
These sorts of films often go ignored because of their disturbing bleak nature which I feind understandable but disheartening. A film that I find very similar to this is Compliance starring Ann Dowd (The Leftovers), As with The Stanford Prison Experiment, it is a true story about the nature of authority and how we as a species bend over backward to appeal to it no matter how absurd it is in retrospect. We are afraid to say no to anything that appears to have more power than us. We want to look good in the eyes of those above us. Compliance explores the shock of the victims of this. In Stanford, the focus is more on the ones with authority and what animal instincts reveal themselves when no one tells them that their behavior is wrong. Humans crave the feeling of having authority like a drug, and like any drug it can drive people over the top into dangerous territories, This is portrayed well here and just like Compliance it will create some necessary discomfort and prove to be good education for those who wish to know more about this very real story.
The Stanford Prison Experiment is a riveting experience with little to no missteps in its direction or acting that is not for the faint of heart but is nonetheless very enlightening and telling of ourselves as a people. If you are up for it, I very much recommend watching both this and Compliance as they compliment each other thematically quite nicely, but only if you feel that you can stomach it.
The ensemble assembled here is uniformly excellent. Stand outs include Ezra Miller (We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Perks of Being a Wallflower) and Michael Angarano (Almost Famous, Sky High) whose scenes together are intense and terrifying as "prisoner" and "guard" clash with pure venom that absolutely works on screen. They are very mature performances that should not go ignored.
The direction of the film gives the true sense of claustrophobia and hostility that is hard to shake but feels like necessary viewing. Because of this, the tone can often feel static and one note. It hits over the head with so much constant bleakness that it is not an easy sit. There is the occasional light character moment to shake things up every once in a while, but they are sparingly placed.
These sorts of films often go ignored because of their disturbing bleak nature which I feind understandable but disheartening. A film that I find very similar to this is Compliance starring Ann Dowd (The Leftovers), As with The Stanford Prison Experiment, it is a true story about the nature of authority and how we as a species bend over backward to appeal to it no matter how absurd it is in retrospect. We are afraid to say no to anything that appears to have more power than us. We want to look good in the eyes of those above us. Compliance explores the shock of the victims of this. In Stanford, the focus is more on the ones with authority and what animal instincts reveal themselves when no one tells them that their behavior is wrong. Humans crave the feeling of having authority like a drug, and like any drug it can drive people over the top into dangerous territories, This is portrayed well here and just like Compliance it will create some necessary discomfort and prove to be good education for those who wish to know more about this very real story.
The Stanford Prison Experiment is a riveting experience with little to no missteps in its direction or acting that is not for the faint of heart but is nonetheless very enlightening and telling of ourselves as a people. If you are up for it, I very much recommend watching both this and Compliance as they compliment each other thematically quite nicely, but only if you feel that you can stomach it.
The Stanford Prison Experiment is now available on DVD and blu-ray.
Grade: A-.
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