THE EXPERIMENT

US, 2010, 96 minutes. Colour.
Adrien Brody, Forest Whitaker, Cam Gigandet, Clifton Collins Jr, Ethan Cohn, Fisher Stevens.
Directed by Paul Scheuring.

The Experiment was written and directed by Paul Scheuring from an original screenplay by novelist Mario Giordano, The Black Box. The Black Box was adapted by its author as a film in Germany in 2001, Das Experiment. It was directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. Hirschbiegel directed the strong film about Hitler, Downfall. His American film was The Invasion, a version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers which was recut and reviewed badly. He also directed the Irish drama, Five Minutes of Heaven, where James Nesbitt and Liam Neeson confronted each other as an IRA killer and the brother of one of the dead.

The film is based on actual experiments conducted in 1971 at Stanford University. A group of twenty-six applicants were accepted for the experiment, conditions explained, several of the volunteers were designated as guards and the rest as prisoners. The film in this experiment lasts six days.

The film is a focus on human nature, the power that guards exercise, the preservation of power, fear tactics, humiliation and brutality. It also shows prisoners and submission as well as prisoners standing up to false authoritarianism. The controllers also have the weapon of the money to be paid on the successful completion of the experiment – withdrawn if there were any interruptions or the experiment closed down.

The film has a strong cast with Adrien Brody as Travis, the sympathetic character who is the leader of the prisoners. Forest Whitaker is Barris, an ordinary citizen who is made leader of the guards and who develops all the perverse attitudes of authority and brutality. Cam Gigandet portrays one of the guards, a brutal man, who enjoys sadistic behaviour as well as sexual behaviour. Clifton Collins Jr shares the cell with Adrien Brody, has a prison background, with an Arian movement. Ethan Cohn is the diabetic who pretends that he is not ill but dies. Fisher Stevens is the doctor who explains the experiment to the candidates.

The film suffers in comparison with the original. The original, with Moritz Bleibtreu in the central role, is a powerful, longer film, frightening in its portrayal of what happens in the experiment. This remake has a romantic background with Maggie Grace as a young woman that Travis encounters and saves. She reappears in his dreams – and provides the film with a happy ending. The film is much stronger when it focuses on the prisoners, the behaviour of the guards, the humiliation of the prisoners, the prisoners’ fight back.

1. The film based on actual experiments in Stanford? The audience imagining what if…?

2. An American remake from a German original? The comparisons? Ordinary people, homes for the elderly, protest marches? The interviews and tests? The move to the prison settings?

3. The visuals of the prison, the overtones? Space, the showers, the cells, the assembly area, the guards’ rooms, the surveillance cameras? The musical score?

4. The introduction to Travis, playing with the resident of the home for the elderly, the interview, his being fired, the reasons given? His going to the protest? His friend, the placards? The girl, her being attacked, his intervention, fighting? The bond with the girl, their relationship, her going to India? Travis and his need for money, the home manager’s telling him to travel? The girl, images in his dreams in the prison? Sustaining him? Her strong personality – and the scenes in India, the Ganges?

5. The group, the doctor and his giving explanations of the experiment, the range of interviews, the questions, prison background, health, religious affiliation, belief in moral absolutes? Some of the group telling lies – and the consequences?

6. Travis meeting Barris, Barris and his personality, their talking, Barris’s background, his mother, his needing to pay the rent?

7. The money motivation, a controlling factor in the experiment continuing, offering some kind of restraint to the guards? The way that it was used by the men in controlling each other?

8. The choice of the guards, of the prisoners? Planning or random?

9. The guards, taking their role seriously, Barris reading out the regulations, the details of the rules? The prisoners going to their cells, being referred to as numbers, the setup of clash between the two?

10. The focus on Travis, in the cell, with Nix? With Benjy? Their talk, the background of their lives? Travis and his leadership? Wary of Barris? Benjy and his being a graphic novel-writer, the diabetes, not wanting the insulin, the need for sugar? Travis and the torture, the humiliation, the guards and their plan, the haircut, urinating on him, his head in the toilet, his being bashed? His succumbing to Barris? Yet his interior spirit?

11. Barris and his leadership of the guards, his control, demanding respect, believing in humiliation, the cameras and his disregard, the red light not going on? His dislike of Travis? The black guard and his opposing Barris? His going to get the insulin, being seen on the surveillance camera, his being brutalised by Barris and made a prisoner? The other members of the group, following the lead of Barris, the young man and his wanting to rebel, thinking Barris crazy? Chase and his sadistic attitudes, his memories of the past, sexual behaviour, his sexual activity, in the bed, the magazine, his humiliating the softer prisoner, the sexual assault, Travis attacking him?

12. Benjy, the diabetes, wanting sugar, his condition, the insulin, being made to suffer, his being chained up, his death?

13. Nix, the Arian background, his being tied up, his prison attitudes? The other prisoners – and their not having any particular strong personality in the film?

14. The rebellion of the prisoners, taking off their shirts, being chained up, Travis and his being put in the cylinder, his being able to get out, freeing the others, the fights? The brutality of the struggle between prisoners and guards?

15. The cameras, some subjective shots of what was seen by the cameras, the non-intervention of the observers?

16. The mayhem – and its coming to an end? Everybody going out into the sun, into the open field?

17. The bus arriving, everybody back in their clothes, with their money? In the bus – and the passengers, Barris and Travis?

18. Themes of human nature, good and evil, power and the exercise of power, ruthlessness and brutality? Heroism and standing up to oppression?