Empatia i film

From the very beginning, theoretical reflections on film have been dominated by the belief that one of the main goals of filmmaking is to evoke an emotional response in viewers. Initially, this was understood through the concept of “identification,” which was given theoretical significance by representatives of psychoanalytic semiotics. Criticism of the theory of identification by proponents of the cognitive approach led to the beginning of a discussion on empathic mechanisms in film reception. The discovery of mirror neurons was a strong impetus for works addressing the topic of empathy from a cognitive perspective. In order to move away from viewing empathy exclusively in terms of naturalism, I refer to the tradition of German aesthetics at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, which introduced the concept of “Einfühlung,” which then permeated psychology and now functions as empathy. In describing the key issue of entering another person’s perspective, I use Edith Stein’s phenomenological description. The article concludes with conclusions presenting a consolidated understanding of empathy in film reception.