cannot " `focus searchingly on the question of obscenity,' " as the majority, ante, at 874, concedes he is obligated to do.
The majority's rejection of the New York court's reasoning appears to derive from a largely unarticulated feeling that that reasoning is inappropriately applied in the present case. As a result, notwithstanding the sweeping legal principles set out in the majority's opinion, the decision of this case ultimately rests on the mundane application of clear law to *888 undisputed facts. The majority suggests that the New York court wrongly applied its law because the affidavits described more than excerpted scenes: they allowed the Magistrate to discern the " `general theme and serious value' " of the films, and established that sex acts " `pervaded' " each film. Ante,to be exhaustive. They can be meaningful in considering the artistic value of the films, taken as a whole, or the films' predominant appeal, only if one assumes that everything, or almost everything, worth noting in the films was incorporated into the affidavits. Nothing in the affidavits, however, justifies that assumption. The affidavits are precisely what the New York Court of Appeals condemned: mere listings of selected scenes from the films that involved depictions of sex. The films described could as well be "Last Tango in Paris."
The majority's decision upholding a warrant authorization uninformed by any information relating to crucial elements of the definition of obscenity is especially incongruous because the majority overrules the institution most closely attuned to the content of those elements: the New York courts.