December 31, 2015 -- I'm probably one of very few people to see all three of these related psychological films, “Compliance” (2012), “Experimenter” (2015) and “The Stanford Prison Experiment” (2015). I watched the last two last night. I wrote my review of “Compliance” in 2012, and I will write a separate review of “The Stanford Prison Experiment” today, but I will be comparing all three of these films here because there is a connecting thread running through all three.

Experimenter tells the story of social psychologist Stanley Milgram and his most famous series of experiments in 1961, examining the power of obedience to authority. In the experiments (some of which were filmed, and snippets of these films are included here) people were asked to administer an electric shock to a subject, supposedly to enhance learning. The voltage administered in the shocks ranged from 45 volts to 450 volts in incremental stages. The results showed that most people (designated the “teacher” in the experiment) complied with the instructions and administered shocks right up the maximum voltage.

In fact, no one was harmed in the experiments. No actual voltage was applied to the “learner” in the experiment. The learner only pretended to be in pain and to be protesting his treatment in the experiment. Most “teachers” (65 percent) continued to apply high voltages, even though they knew the learner was known to have a serious heart condition.

Peter Sarsgaard (“Blue Jasmine”) plays Milgram in the film, which covers Milgram's life from the time of the experiments until his death in the symbolically appropriate year of 1984. This film is a curious blend of biographical drama and semi-documentary form. It reminds me of another historical drama, “The Big Short,” (2015) which similarly breaks “The Fourth Wall” having a character, in this case, Milgram, speak directly to the audience about historical events.

This film goes even farther in experimental filmmaking techniques, using black and white rear screen projection, allowing Milgram and his wife (played by Winona Ryder of “The Black Swan”) to drive a car, seemingly “back in time” to visit another psychologist, Soloman Asch (Ned Eisenberg) Milgram had once studied with. Milgram continues his off-screen naration through and after his death. Like “The Big Short” these unusual film techniques do disrupt the movie to some extent, but are useful in getting the story told.

Milgram's compliance experiements proved to be quite controversial. The film makes the argument that the experiments cost Milgram his tenure at Harvard. When you compare his compliance experiments with Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment, however, they pale in comparison, and make some of the objections to Milgram's work look foolish. I suspect another reason for the attacks on Milgram's experiments is that the attackers are in denial of the truth revealed by the experiments.

The film also makes much of Milgram's interest in this kind of compliance because of how it relates to the historical compliance of Germans and others who participated in the extermination of some six million Jews in World War II, the so-called “banality of evil.” Milgram is of Jewish descent. The film also reveals that Milgram was also influenced by the popular TV show, “Candid Camera,” which did its own social experiments.

Milgram appears to be a man of great imagination and ingenuity when it comes to social experiments. One of his most famous experiments is quite different that the ones on compliance. He called it the “Small World Experiment” in which participants were given letters to deliver to people they do not know, by way of people they do know. The idea was to have them send letters to people they know on a first name basis, who would then forward the letters to others they know until the letter is finally delivered to intended recipient by someone who knows him directly. The average letter was delivered in 5.5 steps, hence the famous notion of “six degrees of separation” of any person to any other person.

I, for one, had no idea that Milgram was the author of both of these very different social experiments. He is a fascinating fellow, and he gives a spirited defense of himself and his work in this movie, which features an appearance by Kellan Lutz, playing William Shatner and Dennis Haysbert as Ossie Davis (both in a historic made-for-TV movie about the compliance experiments). Tom Bateman plays a young Dick Cavett, who interviews Milgram on TV.

Milgram never achieved Zimbardo's fame, mostly because he died so young. If he had lived a lot longer he might have achieved the fame he so richly deserved. This film makes up for some of that lack. As good as this film is, however, and as good as “The Stanford Prison Experiment” is, they still don't have the sheer power of the film “Compliance” (2012) which really highlights the psychological power of compliance, as well as the corruption caused by the power a guard holds over his prisoners. This film rates a B.

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