«In formato corporeo»: estetica e percezione del cinema

Over the past decade, an intense dialogue between film theory and cognitive neuroscience developed, aiming to explore the experience of the film spectator in its multiple and related aspects. In this context, Vittorio Gallese and Michele Guerra’s book represents a relevant contribution. The first article (Borsari) reconstructs the inner structure of the book and discusses the aesthetic aspects of this approach, suggesting several points of further analysis in philosophical terms. The second contribution (Eugeni) criticizes the derivation of third-person systems of representation from first-person ones and argues that the findings provided by Gallese e Guerra refute the thesis of a radical naturalization of the film spectator proposed by some sectors of contemporary debate. The third text (Lecaldano) focuses on the main steps of the theoretical argument of the book, introduces some examples of films not discussed by the authors and stresses the moral relevance of the films connected to the notion of «sympathy» rather than to «empathy» by an ethical point of view.