By Clémence Noyer & Héléna Luparello
“Die Welle” tells the story of a German high school teacher, Rainer Wenger, who faced a class of student who strongly believed that an autocratic regime could no longer be established in Germany. He therefore decided to organise a one-week experiment as part of a workshop. By taking each of the attributes that represented an autocracy and more precisely a dictatorship, we were able to observe the implementation of a kind of life-size role-playing game. Built as a community, “Die Welle”, gathered around a symbol, a greeting, a uniform and rules. It spread quickly outside the school. In a few days, simple notions such as community spirit and discipline were transformed into a true political party.
What is very interesting is that this film is based on real facts that took place in 1967 in Palo Alto, California. A history teacher, Ron Jones, conducted this experiment with his first-year students. This teacher wanted to explain how the citizens could have let the Nazi party kill so many people, so he decided to do a scenario. It forms a movement called the third wave.
Unlike the real experience, at the end of the film a student kills another student before committing suicide. In reality the students just realized that they had been fooled and understood how the Third Reich could have existed.
We chose this film because we think it illustrates well the theories of social pressure, manipulation and the leader’s theory. Submission to authority, which is a phenomenon that is very much discussed in social psychology, is very well highlighted in this film.
Social conformity is highlighted too. Indeed, students are submitted to this mechanism of influence that pushes them to conform to what is socially desirable.
In other words, the power of the authority figure in these situations is very important and can lead people to go far beyond things they would not have thought they could do in the first place.
The power of the phenomenon lies in the fact that people still feel free to make choices. In the film, Mr. Wenger does not prevent defections, those who want to leave the group are free to do so.
Our critique of the film and the experience :
By researching the experience that inspired the film, the facts having been recounted several years later by the teacher, there are inconsistencies in the story and therefore we can ask ourselves the question of the attributions bias that could have been involved. Another negative criticism that we can bring forward is that this ideology settled very quickly.
However, this film is fascinating because it helps to understand how an autocratic regime can be established. Although it’s a film, it’s very close to a documentary because it details the rise of an ideology and its mechanisms. The different stages of the construction of a dictatorship are very well represented.
We also found this film interesting it highlighted a number of issues and questions one can ask. This film hopes to address in particular a young audience. Indeed, since events took place in a high school, young people will easily identify them self to the protagonists.
To conclude, there are a very good actors, especially the main actor, the teacher, who is very charismatic.