I know i've recommended this film, it was suprisingly fascinating. It's based losely on an actual experiment that took place to study the psychological effects of prisoner/guard by assigning volunteers to play out the roles. For anyone interested this is a really interesting read on the actual experiment that took place in 1971:
The Stanford Prison Experiment (http://www.prisonexp.org/)
Post Edited (06-27-04 13:01)
yeah susan i saw the footage of the experiment at my college. its amazing how after only a week they started to take to thier roles. i remember towards the end of the experiment when one of the prisoners left they actual were going to come back and do a prison break! i agree with susan its very interesting.
"I know I know ive been exposed permeant psychoses..
at least the colors are nice"- Aeon Flux
I agree with Susan, this film is amazing. I rented it a few months back on a whim and was blown away. One of the most darkly beautiful films of all time.
I thought it was pretty good!
Definitely worth a viewing.
Post Edited (06-28-04 02:57)
Just put it on my rental queue at Netflix. There was a report on one of the news magazine programs a few weeks ago, about the original experiment. Should be interesting, thanks for the recommendation.
Yeah we talked about the Stanford experiment in my psychology class, pretty interesting stuff. I did like the Experiment a lot too, pretty creepy film.
The stanford experiment results make me wonder if we all have an innate control complex.
People are easy to manipulate psychologically, entire countries are by the political leaders instilling fear by example, thus leaving maybe a few extremists but for the most part a very controllable society.
Then there's the interesting part where the candidates were selected by a flip of the coin to be prisoner or guard. How easy it becomes to fall into both roles, not only that but with the right push a person who might be ordinary otherwise can fall into the role to the extreme. That being said no matter how we perceive ourselves, it isn't until the right set of circumstances that truly test us that we find out who we really are and what we're capable of.