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MOVIES AND CONDUCT
but uncontrollable impulse, that is the most important aspect of the experience of fear in connection with films.
Sorrow and Pathos
A condition with similar psychological features to that noted in the examples of possession by fear may be induced by pictures which portray overwhelming pathos. Everyone is familiar with the type of person who invariably weeps at any sad or touchingly sentimental scene in a film, and who seems to enjoy the process. But there are others who make energetic efforts to hold back their tears, but are unable to do so, and these people may be said to be in a state of emotional possession. Their emotions have swept over the ordinary barriers imposed by common sense, and they have temporarily lost control of themselves.
The kind of pictures which seem to have a particularly powerful effect on the emotions of pity, sympathy and tenderness are of the type of Al Jolson's Singing Fool, where the situations tend to be pathetic rather than starkly tragic.
Difficulty in controlling the expression of emotion aroused by a picture of this sort was acknowledged by 39 per cent of the 458 writers of the high school documents. The proportion of boys unable to control their tears was lower than the proportion of girls.
An interesting by-product of the reactions of some individuals to films of the dolorous type is a desire to 'be good'. Feelings of remorse, self-abasement, self-criticism are stirred up, and resolutions are formulated to ensure that the situations portrayed in the film may not arise in the individual's own life. As Professor Blumer remarks, this attitude may be compared with that which follows a religious conversion. Generally, of course, the experience is forgotten fairly quickly and the resolutions are not put into practice. But occasionally the impression made by the film is so powerful that the effect of it is lasting. Thus one girl who had seen Over the Hill, whose story dealt with a mother deserted by ungrateful children, resolved that she would never treat her own mother in this way — she writes: T don't believe that the effects of that picture will ever wear off'.
Love and Passion
Perhaps this is the most powerful form of emotional possession — at least in the case of adolescents. After witnessing a film which
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