The chapter ‘Vertigo. Towards a Neurofilmology’ offers an introduction to
the book’s contents and methods. The implementation of psychology of perception,
philosophy of mind, and suggestions from cognitive neuroscience
(in particular the role of ‘mirror neurons’ and the hypothesis of ‘embodied
simulation’) has the capability to renew contemporary film theory and to
reduce the distance between competing approaches (i.e. cognitivist and
phenomenological film studies). ‘Neurofilmology’ adopts an enactive and
embodied approach to cognition and provides interpretative tools for the
exploration of contemporary cinema. Through a series of recurrent ‘aerial
motifs’ in which the film character loses his/her equilibrium—acrobatics,
fall, impact, overturning, and drift—the cinema offers an intense motor and
emotional experience that puts the spectator’s somatosensory perception in
tension. At the same time, it provides compensation by adopting embodied
forms of regulation of stimuli and a dynamic restoration of gravity and
orientation (the so called ‘disembodying-reembodying’ dynamic).
Embodied Simulation. Ideas for A Dialogue Between Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis