The Game of Death: Docu Film Uses Modern Day Milgram Experiment

Everyone has pretty much heard of the Milgram Experiment. As wiki describes it, this was the famous study from “Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.” If genocides still occur today, I often cite this study – where participants basically followed orders without much thought, and “zapped” the hell out of some pretty good actors. A new doc is applying the above mentioned theory and will be making the rounds at next week’s European Film Market.

Basing itself on the 60’s experiment which showed how most people would give unbearable electric shocks to others when encouraged by an authority, Christophe Nick and Thomas Bornot’s documentary The Game Of Death, applies the same approach in the mock form of a TV game show. Adjectives such as amusing, compelling and disturbing come to mind.