Experimenter (2015) poster from IMDb
This film directed by Michael Almereyda is an interesting take on telling a true story of a famous individual. While it does hold true to Stanley Milgram's life, the way that Michael has filmed the movie made it beyond a dull, boring one-sided biography of a person. Instead, it became a very interactive film as Stanley Milgram is always engaging with the audience in the movie by looking directly at the camera, as if he was talking to the audience himself to narrate his own story. During scenes where he is narrating what happens to him in certain situations, such as his life after his paper on his obedience experiment is announced to the public, he tells the audience what happens to him from a first-person point of view, instead of communicating to the audience in a third-person point of view.
Michael Almereyda has also recreated Stanley Milgram's story in such a way that the audience can relate to Stanley Milgram on a more personal level. As a psychology student, I know Stanley Milgram as just a researcher who became famous the controversial study that he has conducted in the past. But upon watching this movie, I've realised that there is a more human side to him, as I am able to somewhat relate to his 'human' side by watching the hardships that he has to endure when his obedience study came under attack by the academic community and society in general. Despite the fame that he is getting for his breakthrough study, with the book of his obedience study translated into countless languages, Experimenter (2015) allowed me to watch as Stanley faces public scorn and pressure from the ethics board, as well as the strain in his relationship with his wife, Sasha. Even as the obedience study was ongoing, I get to witness the long hours and patience that he and his research team have to endure in order to get data from over thousands of individuals, with the numbers increasing even more as he carries out his study with different variables. In short, the movie has allowed me to feel empathy for Stanley Milgram for all the sacrifices that he has to make, in terms of his personal life and career, just to discover the more about the human kind.
Finally, the film is also symbolic in a way as it brings out knowledge about humans through the eyes of Stanley Milgram, which also gives us the audience a food for thought at the end of the movie. There were so many quotes by Stanley but this quote impacted me the most:
"I believe we are puppets with perception, with awareness. Sometimes we can see the strings. And perhaps our awareness is the first step in our liberation."
-Stanley Milgram, Experimenter (2015)
Even though this is just a film about Stanley Milgram's life during and after the obedience experiment, it does give me the impression that the film is also trying to teach us something from Stanley's own findings. The quote above is about how we, despite being aware of us adhering to orders from a superior, we still obey these orders even as these orders are harmful to other people. But through Stanley's eyes in this film, he is trying to teach us that if we are aware that we are aware, we can improve the quality of our lives.
At some scenes involving the experiment lab, Stanley is followed by a large elephant in the hallway while he narrates about himself to the audience. The fact that everyone else in the room is ignoring the elephant as it walks is a literal depiction of the 'elephant in the room' phrase. Having an elephant in the room means people are oblivious to an obvious issue, which is especially prevalent in groups where groupthink happens. I think Stanley is trying to imply here that this is the reason why he is carrying out the study in the first place; he wants to tell the world that if we obey our superiors all the time, we won't even notice an obvious problem that is happening. Hence, this serves as a life lesson as well, to speak up and stand firm to what you believe in, despite oppression from your group or superior, for the greater good of the group and perhaps, society at large.
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