The art of sound pictures (1930)

iS6 THE ART OF SOUND PICTURES screened. It is well illustrated by Frank R. Stockton’s The Lady or the Tiger. At the end of this story, the hero is thrown into an arena by a tyrannical king. There are two doors leading out of the arena, one of which the hero must open. Behind the first is the lady of his choice. And behind the other is a man-eating tiger. The story ends with the hero in the arena, and the simple query, “The lady or the tiger — which?” Here, intellectual desire for a solution is substituted for the more usual emotion of satisfaction in some definite denouement. Intellectual desire underlies interest in problem plays, cross-word puzzles, some contests, and the average detective story. In all cases, however, intellectual satisfaction, though delayed, is finally achieved. The able detective always solves the crime problem, no matter how complex and baffling, in the last installment of the serial. And in motion pictures, complete satisfaction, even of intellectual desires, must be shown at the close of each successful picture. Passion In the old literary days of psychology, no differentiation was made between passion and captivation. In fact, not only were the two aspects of erotic experience confused in fiction and other literary works, but both emotions were described by the totally erroneous words, “sex emotion.” “Sex” means a physical difference between two types of organisms, male and female. The term sex emotion could only be applied properly to an emotion which has its origin in the sex differences of body or mind. Love, or erotic emotion, is quite the opposite, in this particular.