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MOVIES AND CONDUCT
of a film star' — a Japanese star of the silent days, with a screen personality of a markedly sadistic type. At this period the girl regulated every detail and moment of her daily existence according to what she imagined would be the will of her hero, who seems to have combined for her the qualities of childhood bogey and adult lover. Many of her fantasies then were concerned with flagellation. Later, during her career at university and in her first teaching job, the cinema was to her a means of escape from a world where intellectual pursuits were paramount and pleasure as an aim of life was disregarded. Finally she came to live in London, and here at last her real life was sufficiently satisfying to make dependence on a dream-world unnecessary, and she began to go to films purely for entertainment. She nevertheless continued to make direct use of the cinema in her actual life. For it was in its friendly and relaxed atmosphere that she found her lovers, and when on one occasion a love affair ended unhappily it was to the cinema that she repaired for consolation and sat there every night for five weeks, partly in the hope that she might encounter her lover and be reconciled to him under the influence of the special mood which cinema background can create.
Not enough is known at present about the function of daydreaming in life for us to be able to say how far the fantasies stimulated by films may affect the general conduct and outlook of the individual. There are in existence two conflicting schools of thought on this phenomenon. According to the one school, the day-dream has a useful social purpose in that it acts as a safetyvalve for emotions and impulses which would be harmful if allowed uninhibited expression and which, if entirely repressed, would tend to create a neurotic condition in the individual. It is, in fact, a form of compensation which helps people to put up with monotony and frustration in their daily lives. The other current view of day-dreaming is that it is resorted to by people who cannot cope with the problems of reality, and who turn to fantasy as to a drug, which will at first appear to make them happier but will eventually undermine their morale altogether and sap any further attempt by them to re-order their lives. Neither of these theories has been proven, but the application of either to the question of the daydream inspired by films can suggest interesting lines of thought.
Finally, it must not be overlooked that frequent indulgence in fantasy may create or encourage desires and inclinations, and that these may possibly be expressed in actual conduct, should a suitable opportunity arise.
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