In 1961, Yale University researcher Stanely Milgram tests human willingness to obey to authority, with highly disturbing results…in The Experimenter. [Dir: Michael Almereyda/ John Palladino, Anthony Edwards, Jim Gaffigan/ 98 min/ Drama, Biography/ Working for government, Democide, Government as torturer]
External Reviews of The Experimenter
“Smart and unsettling exploration of Stanley Milgram’s questionable experiment testing people’s allegiance to malevolent authority, and potentially exposing the dark heart of mankind.”
–The Guardian
“Milgram was obsessed by the origins of genocide and the human capacity to rationalize violent behavior, and [he watched] with a mix of fascination and horror as some two-thirds of his nearly 800 test subjects administered the full range of electric shocks. The subjects believed they had no other choice but to obey the directives of Milgram’s lab assistants, that they were therefore ‘just following orders’.”
–Variety
“Mingling the performing arts with science and each other, Experimenter is a fantastically thought-provoking and entertaining inquiry into the human condition.”
–Eye for Film
“Heady, provocative entertainment. As Milgram, Peter Sarsgaard is perfectly cast as the analytical, emotionally reserved Bronx native who became interested in the theme of compliance during the trial of Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann.”
–Washington Post
“Experimenter is uncannily beautiful. Production designer Deana Sidney creates a palette of blue-grays and cool greens that’s like a Platonic dream of social science before the counterculture blew out the walls. Bryan Senti’s music finds a balance between scientific detachment and sorrow over the human capacity for cruelty, with a hint of Jewishness in the lachrymose violins.”
–Vulture
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Wikipedia: Stanley Milgram
Wikipedia: Milgram Experiment
Amazon Book: Obedience to Authority, Stanley Milgram
“By reflecting further on Etienne de La Boetie’s key insight about the politics of authority, the will to bondage, and the eager embrace of voluntary servitude, and by devising an ingenious test for their influence on the ordinary individual, Stanley Milgram made an important contribution to the libertarian tradition.”
–“The Milgram Experiment,” Mises Institute