The art of sound pictures (1930)

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS 187 come an obstacle which would have been otherwise insuperable. In either case, the dominance accomplishes its purpose despite the handicap of wildness or selfabandonment. The habitually mild-mannered person fails to realize, however, that he overcomes obstacles, not because he flies into a rage, but rather because he arouses an adequate amount of dominance for battle. He wins his battles in spite of the element of thwartedness or compliance which controls his dominance, and not because of it. Righteous indignation represents a situation of more or less the same general nature. The long-suffering and virtuous individual at last is driven into a corner. He is attacked by his enemies and unjustly injured again and again, without appearing to resent it. At last, he can stand it no longer. He makes up his mind that the attacks upon him are malicious. He feels that the time has come when he must overcome his persecutors. He becomes wrathful, and conquers them. An audience, watching a situation of this sort on the screen, feels that the rage is justified. The very element of self-abandonment, which is unfortunate from the point of view of the person who thus exposes himself to injury, adds emotional interest and excitement to the scene, for the spectators. Although rage is an unnatural and abnormal emotion, it may be effectively used in the building of stories. Writers should clearly understand that the really admirable and normal element in the emotion is dominance. If the thwartedness or controlling compliance element is unduly emphasized, the rage will begin to seem silly and unpleasant to the audience. They will begin to think that the character is “making a fool of himself,” as indeed