Abstract
This article reviews significant developments in affective neuroscience suggesting a refinement of the contemporary theoretical discourse on cinematic empathy. Accumulating evidence in the field points to a philogenetic-ontogenetic-neural boundary separating empathic processes driven by either cognitive or somato-visceral representations of others. Additional evidence suggests that these processes are linked with parasympathetically driven mitigation and proactive sympathetic arousal. It presents empirical findings from a functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) film viewing study, which are in line with this theoretical distinction. The findings are discussed in a proposed cinematographic framework of a general dichotomy between eso (inward-directed) and para (side by side with) - dramatic cinematic factors impinging on visceral representations of real-time occurrences or cognitive representations of another's mind, respectively. It demonstrates the significance of this dichotomy in elucidating the unsettling emotional experience elicited by Michael Haneke's Amour.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 89-114 |
Number of pages | 26 |
Journal | Projections |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Dec 2014 |
Keywords
- Cinema
- Embodied simulation
- Empathy
- FMRI
- Neurocinematics
- Theory of mind