This was a slow moving but fascinating film about a world that I didn’t know existed.  This is the world of the brilliant  late Jewish Yale University psychology professor Stanley Milgram ((August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) , regarded as one of the pre-eminent social psychologists of the 20th century.

Milgram lost many of his family members in the Holocaust. Like many people, he spent much of his adult life trying to come to some sort of understanding as to how the evil of Nazism had such a strong stranglehold.

One of the theories that he wanted to test was whether evil permeated so much of society because so many people just did what they were instructed to do.

This was, in fact, the main defence that Adolf Eichmann espoused in his trial, that he was just following orders. Footage from Eichmann’s trial is shown during the film.

To test his theory came up with an experiment in which his subjects/students were given memory tests by a designated teacher. If they failed in their test, they were zapped with an electric  shock. The more their memory failed them, the greater the shock, and the discomfort for the student.

With his experiment which he conducted in the nineteen sixties at Yale he wanted to find out whether any of the teachers would refuse to continue with the experiment, not wanting to have anything more to do with the pain that they were inflicting.

Milgram went on to publish his findings in a landmark paper/book called Obedience To Authority which gave him  international fame. The book is still studied by psychology students at University today.

Michael Almereyda’s film, in documentary/re-enactment style stars Peter Sarsgaard  and Winona Ryder who very convincingly play Milgram and his wife.

Well worth a visit,  Michael Almereyda’s film EXPERIMENTER is screening as part of this years’ Jewish International Film Festival. For further information- www.jiff.com.au.