The Stanford Prison Experiment - The Rain & The Rainbow
Thoughts On: The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015)
An experimental simulation of a prison system in a university yields results that no one foresaw.
Wholly chilling and entirely immersive, The Stanford Prison Experiment is something close to a masterpiece; the acting, the direction, the writing, the cinematography, I cannot fault any of it, not even slightly. I went into this film having studied The Stanford Prison Experiment in a psychology class a few years ago, and so I knew of everything that would happen and had spent time contemplating what the real experiment says about humanity. But, there is something entirely different about seeing this played out on film, almost unable to separate it from reality. From the film emerges more than the facts, numbers and interviews I studied; from the film comes this and a narrative so easily attributable to ourselves and history. One of the most important questions that this experiment then conjures is as follows: How far away was this from becoming Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia? What would this experiment look like given more resources, a more complex goal and more people? Furthermore, what part would we have played as either the 'guard' or 'prisoner'?
Whilst so much could be said about the terror of authority that this film, and experiment, presents, I think there is value looking at this as not necessarily about authority. Authority, in my estimation, is an embodiment of something higher than, for example, a guard. Authority is such a scary term because it contains 'author', and authors, of course, construct worlds and rules. To have authority is to be able to write the rules of reality - and this is precisely what we see in the film/experiment: the guards and prisoners fall prey to a new sense of what is real and who they are, which is almost entirely constructed. However, this is not the fundamental element of the experiment in my view. Beyond the author and his ability to merely manifest rules rests something approximating an ideal, something representing reasoning and something encasing meaning. For the guards of this experiment, their authority lies in the ideal of control, of punishing and confining their prisoners; those who believe in control most then become the most influential writers of the prisoners' reality. The authority of the prisoners, what little of it that they have, lies in themselves; their self-autonomy, and decision to relinquish authorship of their own existence. Such is a terrible loop to be caught in: to hold authorship over an agreement to give up ones authorship. This seems to be why the 'best' prisoners, those who conform to the rules they've written for themselves, get so lost in the world they choose to accept from the guards and start to live as a true prisoner. That said, it bears worth to mention that the heads of this experiment have the most authority and the highest reasoning or ideal; they want to do good by seeing how bad things can go. And what another terrible loop to be caught in.
Without delving into too much detail, it becomes very clear that all that goes wrong in this film is predicated on authority derived from given ideals that, themselves, have a strong tendency to turn corrupt. In short, what this experiment proves above all else is the danger of a singular ideal allowed to be embodied by relentless authority. Maybe this says something about a time and place such as Nazi Germany; a corrupt ideal embodied by relentless authority gives rise to absolute hell.
There is light to be seen in this experiment, however: ideals change. The fact that the experiment was not completed says more about authority than the possibility of how far it could have gone. And this is for the simple fact that one can betray their own authority for an ideal of greater measure. It is then important not to see this film and lament the reality-bending properties of authority and corrupt ideals. There is potential in humanity for both good and bad and it manifests ideals of equal breed that, in reality, always conflict. So, whilst the experiment put to film here is not reflective of the reality of a prison system, it does have real humans within it. And so as the boundaries of the prison fall away, the humans remain, no matter how clouded and lost their shells become.
It is then as if Pandora's Box is opened by The Stanford Prison Experiment. As this box flings wide open and soul and humanity are swept away upon winds of corruption and authority, there is always potential for it to be closed before all is lost. The same force that opens Pandora's Box is the same force that closes it; it is the force of an ideal. What matters is what ideal possess the hands that can open and close the box, and how they battle to let truth and goodness overcome falsity that breeds endless darkness.
To bring things towards an end, it must be said that this film can potentially leave you speechless if you are sucked into its dark perspective's potential. Do not fail to see the light shone before your eyes. Ask, then, how far the experiment would go, yet, remember that the experiment was stopped. With responses at hand, ask what this says about humanity, not one or the other.
Previous post:
End Of The Week Shorts #66
Next post:
The Functions Of Dramatis Personae - Concept-Object Reduction
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
An experimental simulation of a prison system in a university yields results that no one foresaw.
Wholly chilling and entirely immersive, The Stanford Prison Experiment is something close to a masterpiece; the acting, the direction, the writing, the cinematography, I cannot fault any of it, not even slightly. I went into this film having studied The Stanford Prison Experiment in a psychology class a few years ago, and so I knew of everything that would happen and had spent time contemplating what the real experiment says about humanity. But, there is something entirely different about seeing this played out on film, almost unable to separate it from reality. From the film emerges more than the facts, numbers and interviews I studied; from the film comes this and a narrative so easily attributable to ourselves and history. One of the most important questions that this experiment then conjures is as follows: How far away was this from becoming Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia? What would this experiment look like given more resources, a more complex goal and more people? Furthermore, what part would we have played as either the 'guard' or 'prisoner'?
Whilst so much could be said about the terror of authority that this film, and experiment, presents, I think there is value looking at this as not necessarily about authority. Authority, in my estimation, is an embodiment of something higher than, for example, a guard. Authority is such a scary term because it contains 'author', and authors, of course, construct worlds and rules. To have authority is to be able to write the rules of reality - and this is precisely what we see in the film/experiment: the guards and prisoners fall prey to a new sense of what is real and who they are, which is almost entirely constructed. However, this is not the fundamental element of the experiment in my view. Beyond the author and his ability to merely manifest rules rests something approximating an ideal, something representing reasoning and something encasing meaning. For the guards of this experiment, their authority lies in the ideal of control, of punishing and confining their prisoners; those who believe in control most then become the most influential writers of the prisoners' reality. The authority of the prisoners, what little of it that they have, lies in themselves; their self-autonomy, and decision to relinquish authorship of their own existence. Such is a terrible loop to be caught in: to hold authorship over an agreement to give up ones authorship. This seems to be why the 'best' prisoners, those who conform to the rules they've written for themselves, get so lost in the world they choose to accept from the guards and start to live as a true prisoner. That said, it bears worth to mention that the heads of this experiment have the most authority and the highest reasoning or ideal; they want to do good by seeing how bad things can go. And what another terrible loop to be caught in.
Without delving into too much detail, it becomes very clear that all that goes wrong in this film is predicated on authority derived from given ideals that, themselves, have a strong tendency to turn corrupt. In short, what this experiment proves above all else is the danger of a singular ideal allowed to be embodied by relentless authority. Maybe this says something about a time and place such as Nazi Germany; a corrupt ideal embodied by relentless authority gives rise to absolute hell.
There is light to be seen in this experiment, however: ideals change. The fact that the experiment was not completed says more about authority than the possibility of how far it could have gone. And this is for the simple fact that one can betray their own authority for an ideal of greater measure. It is then important not to see this film and lament the reality-bending properties of authority and corrupt ideals. There is potential in humanity for both good and bad and it manifests ideals of equal breed that, in reality, always conflict. So, whilst the experiment put to film here is not reflective of the reality of a prison system, it does have real humans within it. And so as the boundaries of the prison fall away, the humans remain, no matter how clouded and lost their shells become.
It is then as if Pandora's Box is opened by The Stanford Prison Experiment. As this box flings wide open and soul and humanity are swept away upon winds of corruption and authority, there is always potential for it to be closed before all is lost. The same force that opens Pandora's Box is the same force that closes it; it is the force of an ideal. What matters is what ideal possess the hands that can open and close the box, and how they battle to let truth and goodness overcome falsity that breeds endless darkness.
To bring things towards an end, it must be said that this film can potentially leave you speechless if you are sucked into its dark perspective's potential. Do not fail to see the light shone before your eyes. Ask, then, how far the experiment would go, yet, remember that the experiment was stopped. With responses at hand, ask what this says about humanity, not one or the other.
Previous post:
End Of The Week Shorts #66
Next post:
The Functions Of Dramatis Personae - Concept-Object Reduction
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
