The Game of Death

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL: Gil Scott Heron famously said in ’71 that the “revolution will not be televised.” Well, it appears the devolution will be.

In April 2009, French directors Christophe Nick and Thomas Bornot shot what was purported to be a pilot for TV game show called “The Extreme Zone”. Over 10 days, 80 contestants participated before live studio audiences of 20 groups of 100 people. The rules were simple: contestants posed 27 word-association questions to a man strapped to a chair in a futuristic pod off camera and out of sight. When the man, Jean-Paul, submitted a wrong answer, a pretty young woman instructed the contestants to pull a lever that administered what they thought was an electric shock, starting at 20v. With each incorrect answer the voltage was increased.

It was at the 80v mark that the game began to get interesting. Jean-Paul’s voice became pained for the first time as he yelped, “that really hurts.” The contestants continued with the game, as the woman/host repeated the phrase “Don’t be impressed.” At 180v, Jean-Paul’s screams became audibly worse. At 200v he pleaded, “That’s enough.” When it reached 380v no screams were heard, with Jean-Paul seemingly unable to answer any more questions. Again, the host repeated, “Don’t be impressed.” Despite the obvious pain Jean-Paul had endured up until this point, all contestants made it to this stage in the game; many others continued even after the man fell silent, reaching so far as 460v.

The show was in fact a controlled experiment by Professor of Social Psychology Jean-Leon Beauvois. The electric shocks were not real; Jean-Paul was acting. The aim was to replicate the famous ‘Milgrim experiment on obedience to authority figures’ in the modern context of a television environment. Milgrim conducted a series of studies in the ’60s at Yale University, calling for men from a wide range of occupations to take part. The subjects administered what they thought were electric shocks to a man in an adjoining room, as a person of authority instructed them to continue. In the first set of experiments, 65% made it all the way to the end – a 450v shock.

With today’s television producing more and more concepts around violence and cruelty, Beauvois was keen to know what the numbers would be in today’s all-knowing culture of television and celebrity, given the prevalence of reality shows and their use of humiliation techniques. Boy was he in for a surprise – a whopping 81% obeyed to the very end.

The Game of Death is a rather damaging account of many people’s over reliance on the belief that television has its limits. Though, watching the game unfold, under the bright lights of a cheering audience, the result is really not that unexpected. If you’ve ever watched Survivor or Fear Factor, people will humiliate themselves and others at the drop off a hat. To make the leap to hurting a stranger on what seemed like a legitimate game show isn’t really that much of a stretch, especially considering TV’s recent history of extreme prank shows.

What’s most effective in the documentary is the analysis done once the lights have been turned off. Beauvois and his team break down the experiment in detail: explaining the conditions, the consistent reactions of the players to administering specific voltages, the mechanism that triggers obedience, the mindset after signing a contract (all subjects signed away their audio and visual rights), how being alone can lead to increased subjugation etc.

The reaction of the contestants once they’re informed of the scam is telling, ranging from embarrassment ("How will I tell my husband and my children what I've done?" says one woman) to flat out denial of any wrongdoing. Several believed that it was the game’s responsibility and not theirs (“Denial of truth is an excellent obedience technique,” says Beauvois). Most worrying was watching contestants evade the victim by ignoring his cries and speaking over him, narrowing their focus to the question only (70% did this).

If its primary aim was to provoke discussion, then The Game of Death is a resounding success (fierce debate followed its original screening on French TV). Though, like ‘Cinema of Outrage’ documentaries, these shock docs provoke just as many questions as they set out to answer. It’s the type of film that’s perfectly suited for DVD, where additional material can be provided on the background and socio-economic realities of each contestant, recapping how the participants felt about their involvement in the ensuing months after the experiment, especially how they did in fact become celebrities for a short time, but not in the way they originally expected. Ideally, it would also come complete with Obedience, the documentary film of the original Milgrim experiment. And just for kicks, they should throw in the clunky ‘75 telemovie about the experiment, The Tenth Level, starring William Shatner and John Travolta. Now, watching that is a test of willpower.