Embodied Visions: Evolution, Emotion, Culture, and Film

Abstract

Embodied Visions presents a groundbreaking analysis of film through the lens of bioculturalism, revealing how human biology as well as human culture determine how films are made and experienced. Throughout the book the author uses the breakthroughs of modern brain science to explain general features of film aesthetics and to construct a general model of aesthetic experience - what he terms the PECMA  flow model - that demonstrates the movement of information and emotions in the brain when viewing film. Examining a wide array of genres - animation, romance, pornography, fantasy, horror and sad melodramas - from evolutionary and psychological perspectives, the author also reflects on social issues at the intersection of film theory and neuropsychology. These include moral problems in film viewing, ow we experience realism and character identification, and the value of the subjective forms that cinema uniquely elaborates
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationNew York
PublisherOxford University Press
Number of pages324
ISBN (Print)9789195371314
Publication statusPublished - 2009

Keywords

  • Faculty of Humanities
  • Film theory, evolution, visual aesthetics, cultural theory, narrative theory, film emotions, genre theory

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