The Experiment (2001) – DVD
Das Experiment
**/**** Image B+ Sound B+
starring Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Oliver Stokowski, Wotan Wilke
screenplay by Don Bohlinger, Christoph Darnstädt, Mario Giordano, based on the novel by Black Box by Giordano
directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel
by Walter Chaw Midnight Express with pretensions, Oliver Hirschbiegel's The Experiment is based loosely on Zimbardo, Haney, Banks, and Jaffe's "Stanford Prison Experiment," conducted in 1971 to test the reactions of twenty-four ordinary college students–some cast as prison guards, others incarcerated in a mock prison–paid fifteen dollars a day for their participation in the study. Having to end the experiment after only six days because of pathological prisoner reactions and sadistic guard reactions, the "Stanford Prison Experiment" remains one of the more ethically shaky mindfucks in Stanford's proud tradition of such things (my favourite of them being the one where experimenters tested men's "performance anxiety" while urinating in public restrooms)–a topic dramatic enough to merit a cinematic treatment, without question, but a treatment served poorly by the formula embellishments favoured by The Experiment.