The Stanford Prison Experiment

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Kyle Patrick Alvarez/Starring: Billy Crudup, Michael Angarano, Thomas Mann, Ezra Miller, Tye Sheridan, Johnny Simmons, Nelsan Ellis and Olivia Thirlby

The Stanford Prison Experiment, based on the actual experiment conducted in the early 1970s', isn't the first dramatization of the subject. A German film called The Experiment, released in 2001, was also based on Dr. Philip Zimbardo's infamous test. Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez's story may be the first film based directly on the experiment events. Alvarez's film, like the actual experiment, makes its point with the force of a hundred pile-drivers. It is riveting and nearly becomes unbearable to watch as the test subjects undergo and endure deprivation and humiliation. Zimbardo's quest to gauge test subject's behavior in a potentially combustible scenario; where participants assume the roles of prisoner or guard, forms the basis of the film's narrative. The results are shocking and extraordinary.

Dr. Zimbardo, professor of psychology at Stanford University in the 1960's and 1970s' conducted said experiment, hoping to gain insights into the psychology of prison life.

In the opening scenes, we see the recruitment ad for the experiment, which offers student subjects $15 a day for their participation. The prospective participants answer graduate student's basic questions to evaluate their psychological make-up. It is interesting to note that, on one of the key questions: would you rather be a guard or prisoner; none of the test subjects chose the former. When one student, Christopher Archer (Michael Angarano) is asked why he prefers to be a prisoner, he says "Because nobody wants to be a guard." The graduate students then determine, via a coin-flip, role assignments. Later in the film, the random designations take on a powerful significance Dr. Zimbardo is keen to recognize.

Dr. Zimbardo selects a basement in the psychology hall to erect makeshift prison cells. Guard uniforms, night sticks and sunglasses are provided for one group while degrading, dress-like uniforms, replete with numbers, are assigned to the prisoners.

It is understood among the subjects that Dr. Zimbardo and his group will monitor the proceedings by a semi-concealed camera in the "prison" corridor.

If you've seen any film or read any article on the subject, you know what happens next. Though the experiment is to be of a two-week duration, it yields immediate results as the guards inhabit their roles with uncontrolled zeal. The guards find creative ways to subject the prisoners to spirit-deadening ignominy, such as demanding each "inmate" call out his prison number in needless repetition. Some prisoners are naturally rebellious. Prisoner 8162 (a terrific Ezra Miller) makes a defiant stand against the guards, only to be placed in the Hole; a dark closet in the immediate jail vicinity. His repeated attempts to organize a rebellion is met with fierce resistance by guards and inmates alike, until a mental and physical breakdown is all but assured.

Archer, who affects the manner of the infamous prison guard in Cool Hand Luke, embraces his role with a passion. This is easily facilitated with his intimidating, night-stick baton twirling and the opaque sunglasses, which give the guards a menacing demeanor.

Before long, the prisoners suffer a dramatic loss of identity as their number designations become their only means of identification. This psychic debasement is one of Dr. Zimbardo's sought-after results.

Just as the experiment's unintended success affects both prisoner and inmate alike, Dr. Zimbardo and his staff are also affected in ways they couldn't anticipate. They too become players in the simulation; their stern, near-uncompromising attitude toward the prisoners begins to take on the scary verisimilitude of prison administration. A black consultant named Jesse (a marvelous Nelsan Ellis), whose connection to the experiment is at first nebulous becomes a unnerving presence. Later, during Prisoner 8162's tearful breakdown before Dr. Zimbardo and staff, Jesse's role becomes clearer when he reveals his penal servitude in San Quentin. Thrusting his face forcefully into 8162's,he counters complaints about the horrors "in the basement" with his disclosure about doing seventeen years behind bars.

And as we might expect, the experiment achieves a realism that spins out of Dr. Zimbardo and his staff's control, which leaves the audience wondering if the hostilities can be reigned in before full-scale violence erupts.

The film attains ferocious power, which is made possible by moving, ensemble performances. Billy Crudup is superb. We feel his fascination and revulsion but are repulsed by his morbid curiosity to keep pushing the experiment forward long after it yields sufficient data. Michael Angarano and Ezra Miller, two of the principal subjects, seize the opportunity to shine on camera as we've seldom seen before. The rest of the cast is no less startling.

What was initially a two-week experiment is stretched to an unbearable intensity only after six days.

The film stimulates much thought about the prison system and its inherent inhumanity, as well as the haphazard, social circumstances that make an inmate of one man and a prison guard of another. When Jesse and a graduate analyze Prisoner 8162's rebellious tendencies and his subsequent breakdown, Dr. Zimbardo offers a concise, devastating and scientific counter-assessment. He points out, quite correctly, that Prisoner 8162's and Archer's roles were determined by a coin flip; a chance occurrence that resonates with profound, social implications in the real world.
The experiment makes its point cogently and conclusively; the results undeniable. The same can be said for Alvarez's film.

The epilogue is as telling as the experiment, particularly when Archer and Daniel Culp (nee Prisoner 8162) discuss the experience. Daniel is dismayed to learn Archer was conducting his own mini-experiment. He tells Daniel that he wanted to test the prisoners endurance for abusive language and was surprised, he says, when no one challenged him. This too is stirring, for it suggests that all prisoners are complicit, to some degree or another, in their own abuse.

It is interesting to consider how simple it was for a professor to create an oppressive atmosphere by merely simulating one. The movie's most unsettling revelation may be that everyone is capable of becoming an oppressor and worse still, may relish its most heinous aspects.

Post film subtitles tell us no one was seriously affected by the experiment but one wonders.

Alvarez's film left me feeling shaken, in spite of my familiarity with the subject and my having seen The Experiment.
The Stanford Prison Experiment dramatizes its subject well; maybe too well but it is powerful and thought-provoking. It raises so many questions about human nature; our innate capacity for cruelty and sadism and maybe our tolerance for the abusive tendencies of superiors.

It's safe to say the film is a misfit in this summer movie schedule and I'm glad for that. Let's hope its stay in the theaters isn't ephemeral, though it may be consigned to that fate. See it while and if you can.