MEDIOCREMOVIE.CLUB
  • Reviews
  • Side Pieces
  • Shane of Thrones
  • Podcast
  • About
  • Archives
  • Game of Thrones Fantasy

The Stanford Prison Experiment

1/29/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
By Jon Kissel

Famous psychological experiments invaded Sundance in 2015.  Experimenter was a biopic about Stanley Milgram and his work with obedience and authority, and Stanford Prison Experiment chronicles Phillip Zimbardo's demonstration of how quickly power differentials lead to abuse.  Where Experimenter takes a wider, cerebral view of Milgram's career, Stanford Prison Experiment lives in the few days the test was carried out, giving it a much more intense and claustrophobic feel.

Taking place in the early 70's, Dr. Zimbardo (Billy Crudup) and his subjects are the last students on the Stanford campus, as everyone else has left for the summer.  In their solitude, the young men are divided into guards and prisoners, and for $15 a day, they are told to buy as much into their surroundings as they are able. Forced to wear emasculating uniforms and referred to only by numbers, the prisoners' discomfort and close quarters makes it easy for them to surrender to the illusion.  The guards, dressed to look like something out of Cool Hand Luke and mildly agitated that the prisoners get to earn their money by just laying around, see the opportunity to spice up everyone's day.  One guard (Michael Angarano) dives into the opportunity to play a role, adopting a cartoonish Southern accent and arbitrarily withholding necessary items from the prisoners.  The other guards admire his gusto, and form a desire to top him, and a cycle of abuse and degradation is begun under the watchful eye of Zimbardo and his grad student assistants.

In response to the guards' abuse, prisoner 8612 (Ezra Miller) takes the lead in resisting.  Fed up with the guards' behavior, he rallies other prisoners to fight back, organizing barricades in cells and escape attempts.  While most of the prisoners are on his side, others just want to sit in their beds and earn their money.  Both types of prisoners present more chances for mishandling, as the challenging prisoners invite more drastic punishment while the compliance of the docile prisoners invites the guards to try and find their internal line.  Zimbardo is enamored with the results he's getting, and is unwilling to stop the experiment despite the protestations of his assistants, his girlfriend (Olivia Thirlby), and ex-con friend Jesse Fletcher (Nelsan Ellis), who he's brought in for verisimilitude.  The stress of the situation makes all parties, including Zimbardo and his staff acting as wardens, blur the line between their continued discomfort and the fact that they can leave at any time. 

Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez casts his film with seemingly every credible up-and-coming young male actor.  In addition to The Knick's Anganaro and We Need to Talk About Kevin's Miller, Mud's Tye Sheridan, Parenthood's Miles Heizer, Animal Kingdom's James Frecheville, Palo Alto's Jack Kilmer, It Follows' Keir Gilchrist, and other veterans of coming-of-age indies have roles to play.  The fraternal aspect that likely broke out on set amongst all these college-aged men lends a sense of realism to the guard-prisoner interactions, which bear striking resemblance to fraternity hazing.  Memorization under duress, repetitive chants, forced physical activity, and a little sexual humiliation for good measure all make appearances.  The dignity of the prisoners is never taken into consideration, including by some of the compliant prisoners themselves who assure their fathers that they are man enough to take the abuse while never wondering about the abuse's existence.

Of the adults in the room, Crudup and Ellis form a strong team.  After Glass Chin and Spotlight, Crudup is cornering the market on Faustian characters, and his Zimbardo is yet another.  He's acting in the part of Zimbardo who is also acting as the cold warden of the experimental prison, and Crudup is able to vacillate between these roles effortlessly.  The concentrated masculinity of his experiment makes Zimbardo more aggressive, at one point looming over a professor who has some concerns.  Ellis's Fletcher is a complicated character, a man affected by his stint in prison but willing to recreate the experience from the opposite side.  The point of the experiment becomes lost as the subjects get further into it, but its value becomes harsh and cruel for Fletcher.  Ellis gets at the pain of the character and steals the film from the deep cast.
​
Alvarez captures a feeling and transmits it to the viewer, a vital part of any successful film.  Shooting in close-ups as much as possible, it becomes possible to feel the Stanford Prison Experiment invade the viewer's space. It pushes one back into their seat with its stomach-churning cruelty, and the empathetic performances serve to further amplify that feeling.  The film is not a pleasant experience, but it is certainly a resonant one.  B


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Side Pieces

    Random projects from the MMC Universe. 

    Categories

    All
    Action
    Adventure
    Author - Bryan
    Author - Drew
    Author - Jon
    Author - Phil
    Author - Sean
    Best Of 2016
    Best Of 2017
    Best Of 2018
    Best Of 2019
    Best Of 2020
    Best Of 2021
    Best Of 2022
    Best Of The Decade
    Classics
    Comedy
    Crime
    Documentary
    Drama
    Ebertfest
    Game Of Thrones
    Historical
    Horror
    Musical
    Romance
    Sci Fi
    Thriller
    TV
    Western

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015

    RSS Feed