A walk suspended in mid-air, a fall at breakneck speed towards a fatal impact with the ground, an upside-down flip into space, the drift of an astronaut in the void… Analysing a wide range of films, this book brings to light a series of recurrent aesthetic motifs through which contemporary cinema destabilizes and then restores the spectator’s sense of equilibrium. The 'tensive motifs' of acrobatics, fall, impact, overturning, and drift reflect our fears and dreams and offer embodied forms of transcendence of the limits of our human condition along with an awareness of their insurmountable nature. Adopting the approach of 'Neurofilmology'—an interdisciplinary method that puts filmology, perceptual psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive neuroscience into dialogue—this book implements the paradigm of embodied cognition in a new ecological epistemology of the moving-image experience.
By:
Adriano D'Aloia
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781041183518
ISBN 10: 1041183518
Pages: 254
Publication Date: 01 December 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Acknowledgements, I Vertigo, Towards a Neurofilmology, II Acrobatics, On the wires of empathy, III Fall, Descent to equilibrium, IV Impact, Experiencing the unrepresentable, V Overturning, Upside-down dissimulations, VI Drift, Ungraspable environments, VII Flight, Towards an Ecofilmology, Bibliography, Filmography, Index
Adriano D’Aloia is an Associate Professor of Film and Media studies at the University of Bergamo, Italy.
