Spielberg, of course, has the opposite temperament: he likes warmth and sentiment in his pictures.
Finally, there is Paolo Sorrentino's film "One Man Up," a dual character study of two men of almost opposite temperament, born 15 years apart, who have the same name, Antonio Pisapia, and birthday, Aug. 15.
This temperament is, James explains, "organically weighted on the side of cheer and fatally forbidden to linger, as those of opposite temperament linger, over the darker aspects of the universe".
That volume would describe how a man and woman of formidable talent, impeccable taste and acute wit, but opposite temperament, pooled their resources to redefine the canon of pop and jazz music as a no-borders territory.
Two more opposite temperaments are tough to imagine.
The two men are of clearly opposite temperaments, one hot and one cold, and Tyler is prone to what he calls "LSD – Lead Singer Disease".
The two older Dashwood sisters represent opposite temperaments: Elinor, the oldest, is "sensible," rational, and capable of exercising self-restraint, whereas Marianne, who shares her mother's temperament, is emotional and impulsive.
They walked together, the 60-year-old coach and his 21-year-old protégé, men of different generations, nearly opposite temperaments, locked together by the whims of their sport.
Theirs were opposite temperaments, united by royalism and loyalty to Wren: Evelyn the polished, liberal gentleman, excellently read but not a technician and not strapped for cash; Hooke, cross-grained, combative, sexually troubled, but not a lesser experimental scientist than Wren, and not a bad architect either.
He and the trumpeter Lee Morgan were colleagues in Art Blakey's band at the time, and they had a wonderful connection of opposite temperaments, similar to the Coltrane-Miles Davis partnership: Morgan's playing was direct, bright and slightly harsh; Mr. Shorter, then under Coltrane's spell, was a patient and slightly oblique harmonic explorer.
Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy have polar-opposite temperaments and have clashed frequently since the Frenchman took power in 2007.
