Experimenter

Having just watched Experimenter (2015 film), a movie about Dr. Stanley Milgram who performed experiments testing for empathy and obedience to authority in the 1960s, I came away wondering, “what was the director thinking?”

The movie is well acted. Peter Sarsgaard (Stanley Milgram) and Winona Ryder (Sasha Menken, spouse) do a good job of carrying the conversations. Dialogue really is what carries the film, and the ensemble of characters do an admirable job maintaining interest. Even the mail carrier harps on the virtues of philosophy and the meaning of life. Were it not for the sets, I’d mark this movie up there in my biopic collection with Hannah Arendt (2012 film).

Along come the scenes with static backdrops

And it’s only a few minutes into the film when the elephant enters the room. No, not a proverbial elephant. One walks down a hallway behind Milgram as he breaks the 4th wall and lets us peer into his mind. But this elephant, stylistically chosen to draw attention the the proverbial elephant in our own psyches, the part of us that would obey orders to commit immoral acts of violence, is possibly what made the rest of the film fall flat.

From one scene to another, without any explanation, scenes jump from being shot on location, to being shot in office space, rooms, houses, local businesses… and along come the scenes shot with static backdrops. Need to shoot a scene in a car? A static backdrop will do. Shooting a scene in an elevator? Shoot a static backdrop, except for the first scene which is shot in an actual elevator. Shooting a scene entering CBS headquarters? Shoot a static backdrop showing pedestrians frozen in mid-step. How about our characters greet guests in a home, presumably theirs? You get the idea.

I wonder if they just blew the whole budget on that one elephant.