Dal personaggio allo spettatore. Il coinvolgimento nel cinema e nella serialità televisiva americana

The volume concentrates on the emotional engagement that film audiences have with characters. The essay is aimed to identify the psychological and philosophical root of empathy. After a critical overview of the different disciplinary approaches to the subject (cognitive psychology, film theory, semiotics, phenomenology and screenwriting theory), it is argued that the very core of empathy is the involvement of the viewer in the moral destiny of the protagonist of the movie. In this perspective, a great contribution in the definition of empathy is found in personalistic philosophy, especially with the notion of “narrative identity”. The potentiality of this perspective is then exemplified analyzing the way empathy is created in different genres of long running american Tv series.