The Milgram Experiment (Short)
Harry Kao’s “The Milgram Experiment” is a dramatization of an experiment conducted in 1961-62 at Yale University. The experiment involved two people– a learner, and a teacher. The learner is strapped to a chair in one room, while the teacher is in another room. The teacher reads off a series of a set of words once to the learner, who will then be asked to remember what the second word of each set was from a list given. If the learner misses one, the teacher must administer a shock. The experiment, by Dr. Stanley Milgram (Russ Kingston), was designed to test the limits of obedience in the teacher, and how far they would go in shocking another human being if asked to. The results were not inspiring. Harry Kao’s film, however, is, in how it plays with our perception of reality in the same way Milgram’s experiment does. This is a smart dramatic rendering of a pretty intense situation, and it gets to the dark heart of the matter just by simply making us complicit in what Milgram is doing. It sticks with you.
