The art of sound pictures (1930)

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS 131 steps off the track and lets the train rush past, thus escaping death at the hands of his antagonist. It is the innate nature of any physical force to comply with an opponent which proves stronger than itself. If it cannot overcome the obstacles in its way, it must then readjust itself to meet the situation without attempting to alter it in any way. The motion picture writer should bear in mind that “nature” (beautiful scenery, forests, rivers, etc.) is the most pleasantly effective of all the possible compliance stimuli in the environment. It is a form of harmony with the environment. The person feels this environment as superior to him, and it is also antagonistic, since its nature is quite opposite to his own, and he must give up his personal consciousness to be at one with it. Nature is so much bigger than he is that he accepts it. He hears the rush of the mountain brook, the singing of birds, the sound of wind in the trees. He sees the hills, the river, the colors of the flowers and trees. He smells the odor of the newly turned earth, the flowers, and the grass. He feels the blowing breeze and the coolness of the mountain top. And because none of these various sensory stimulations is so intense as to make him more conscious of one stimulus than another, they tend to form a harmonious pattern in his consciousness, a pattern he alters his own mind to fit. Dominance This elementary emotion is a combination of the attitudes of antagonism and superiority. There is a slight unpleasantness to begin with, but when the emotion gathers intensity, pleasantness is felt as the action becomes