Behind the Shock Machine and ‘The Experimenter’

My verdict : This film appears to pull off a near impossible feat – making Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments boring. Partly because the film portrays Milgram from the outset as a cold and seemingly heartless character it’s hard to engage with the figure of Milgram in this film. We know from archival research by a number of scholars that Milgram privately struggled with what he put people through and concluded at other times that what he was doing was more performance art than science. But that sort of nuanced characterisation is missing from the film, which is a pity. It’s also the reason that calling it a ‘bio-pic’ is a bit of a misnomer. ‘Bio-fic’ is a better term because it’s more fiction than fact.

Anyway, enough of my point of view. Tell me what you thought of it on Twitter or on my Facebook page.

 

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