The Character\u2019s Body and the Viewer: Cinematic Empathy and Embodied Simulation in the Film Experience

Establishing an intimate relationship between fictional characters and the viewer is of primary significance to the narrative film. In this chapter, I conceive film viewing as a quasi-intersubjective relationship between the viewer and the (main) character\u2014two bodies involved in a physical, mental and emotional experience, while mediated by a third quasi-body: the film. To explore the nature of this complex relationship, I adopt a phenomenological perspective and rely on the notion of cinematic empathy: a pre-reflexive and \u2018immediate\u2019 psycho-physical process through which the viewer experiences a character\u2019s perceptions, thoughts, actions, and emotions via embodied simulation. When conflating the bodily expression the character and the bodily perception of the viewer, a \u2018shared experiential space\u2019 emerges. My analysis of a scene of Alfonso Cuar\uf3n\u2019s space-exploration film Gravity untangles this notion, placing particular attention on the character\u2019s physical appearance and behaviour (e.g., body postures and facial expressions) in relation to the viewer. I depart from a phenomenological account of cinematic empathy and an \u2018embodied\u2019 conception of simulation offered by Belgian experimental psychologist Albert Michotte van der Berck, and subsequently explore relatively new assumptions from neuroscientific research