The "Paradox of Fiction" and Emotion in Sports Films

This bachelor thesis deals with the paradox of fiction and emotion of recipients of sports films. The work is divided into four main chapters. The first two aim to define the key terms fiction (the fictional world) and emotion. The third chapter briefly summarizes the most important theories dealing with the paradox of fiction (Radford and Weston, Walton, etc.) and offers an outline of a possible solution to the problem following neurobiological explorations of Antonio Damasio and selected concepts of aesthetics and psychology as Bullough's psychical distance or Worringer's empathy. The fourth chapter focuses on viewers' emotion in sports cinematography. On the background of previous conclusions and observing spectators' emotional responses in real sport here the work highlights the importance of experiencing emotions in fictional worlds of sports films. Key words: emotion, fiction, empathy, simulation, somatic markers, sport