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THE ADULT AND THE CINEMA This process of identification would deserve the most careful study. 'Identification is distinguished',1 writes Jung, 'from imitation by the fact that identification is an unconscious imitation, whereas imitation is a conscious copying. . . . Identification is not always related to persons but also to things (for instance a spiritual movement . . .) and to psychological functions.' Though I cannot bring myself to accept Jung's definition of the 'unconscious', the process of identification appears to be adequately described. 'Identification' is clearly related to participation mystiquel 'This term', writes Jung2 again, 'connotes a peculiar kind of psychological connection with the object wherein the subject is unable to differentiate himself clearly from the object to which he is bound by an immediate relation that can only be described as partial identity. ... It does not apply to the whole subject-object relation, but only to certain cases in which the phenomenon of this peculiar relatedness appears. It is a phenomenon that is best observed among the primitives; but it occurs not at all infrequently among civilised men, although not with the same range of intensity . . .' I have shortened Jung's enlightening definition somewhat. Whether or not Jung would be prepared to allow its application to the film experience, I am unable to say. Naturally the process of participation mystique does not explain the whole complexity of the film experience. You usually do not sit through a whole film in complete obliviousness. Let me give an example which I take from my own psychological attitudes as I noted them in my 'film diary'. I have recently seen a film To Have and Have Not, with Humphrey Bogart and Miss Lauren Bacall (the latter is an 'offspring' of the Marlene Dietrich tradition) . Though I saw this film with the explicit purpose of the social scientist, I have to admit that there were fairly long sequences where I was completely absorbed by what was going on on the screen. The conversations between Mr. Bogart and Miss Bacall, in short the very obvious sexual side of this film, made me only smile, but the 'shooting scenes' drowned the sociological interest completely. For a while anyway. I also would not dream of imitating Mr. Bogart's behaviour towards women, nor is Miss Bacall 'my type'. But this is perhaps beside the point. What alone is interesting is the fact that certain instincts in us are brought to such a state of response that our rational faculties diminish or even disappear for a while. (I know that most people react to some films in this way, including our superior intellectuals. The difference
1 Cf. Jung, Psychological Types, pp. 551 sq.
2 Cf. Ibid. p. 572 sq.
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