Neurocinema: the science that investigates what happens to us when we watch movies

Many areas of the brain are active while watching movies; films mimic the structure of consciousness, and this imitation allows cinema to affect the brain.

The fledging science, neurocinema, studies this phenomenon. It is a discipline that spans the fields of neuroscience, cinema, and consciousness studies.

The central focus is on cinema as a multidimensional art that has the power to influence our neurophysiological structure.

The connection between movement and imagery

As reported in Naser Moghadasi’s study Neurocinema: a brief overview,” the first steps in the study of the relationship between cinema and the brain can be traced back to the writings of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, who as early as 1896 explained the relationship between movement and image in a modern way.

Cinema was taking its first steps when Bertrand Russell speculated that this new world represented a risk factor for “the nullification of free will,” because of the effect movies can have on the mind.

A single image can stimulate different areas of the brain, Jean-Luc Godard would later argue, but it cannot, in any way, recall the concept of movement in the mind. It may arouse emotions or memories, but it will never have the same power on the human brain as moving images, ordered in a precise sequence: and this is the main feature of a film.

We are shown a series of connected events that target our minds, representing problems we may face in life in a focused, relevant format. A cinematic process copies and reconstructs the structure of consciousness.

Sensory, cognitive, and affective relationships of moviegoers in the movie theater: some experiments

What does science tell us about what specifically happens in the movie theater? One important study, reported in the above article, “Neurocinema: a brief overview” and conducted by Hasson, examined the brain’s response and activity while watching movies.

He used a new method called “inter-subject correlation analysis.” This method allowed for the testing of the viewer’s brain activity while watching a movie. The study showed that while watching movies such as “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” and “Bang! You’re Dead,” viewers’ attention span was higher than when watching everyday scenes in our lives.

The same difference can be seen when measuring the viewers’ average eye movements: eye fixation while watching the aforementioned movies was considerably higher than when watching events that happen in real life.

Thus, a well-structured film can significantly control the audience’s brain activity and indirectly affect the audience’s consciousness structure.

At a different level than what neuroscience can study – neuronal stimuli and physiological responses – it is even more important to examine the influence film has on our understanding of the world and ourselves.

What is true about a fictional story?

Anthropologist Antonio Malo, in his book Svelare il mistero.Filosofia e narrazione a confronto (“Unraveling the mystery. Philosophy and storytelling compared”published by Santa Croce, Rome, 2021), explains what constitutes the “truth” in fictional works. He says, “There is a big difference between believing in something because it is truthful even if it isn’t true, and the reality one believes because it is true even if it isn’t truthful. The false, on the other hand, even if it is believable, becomes neither true nor verisimilar, unlike fiction, which, when it is believable, becomes verisimilar in its relational effects.”

Verisimilitude, then, would not refer to an event that has happened or is happening, but to the world in which it has happened and continues to happen, that is, human life with its passions, desires, actions, and possible relationships. A fictional world, when verisimilar, speaks directly to the human heart, in which there is the struggle between good and evil, hope and anguish, friendship and enmity, heroism and betrayal.
Verisimilitude makes it possible to recreate this world, which then is not fictitious, a hallucination, or deceptive. This is the very “truth of fiction.”

Cinema, politics, economics, and propaganda

We have always known that cinema has the power to engage us, to affect us, and to touch our consciences. Even major political movements and giants of the economic world have known this.

Armando Fumagalli explains in his book Creatività al potere, da Hollywood alla Pixar passando per l’Italia (“Creativity in Power, from Hollywood to Pixar via Italy”, published by Lindau, Turin, 2013) that in the United States “some of the most senior executives of the major film companies are part of think tanks – which include politicians, industrialists, and intellectuals – who are highly influential in shaping a nation’s policies, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, or the Rand Corporation, funded by the Department of Defense.”

In the face of all this, it is easy to comprehend the propagandistic nature that films can have.

It is good to know that when we watch a film we are “more vulnerable” and more likely to accept, without thinking critically, the worldview that the film writer proposes. After an initial phase of emotional involvement, it is good to move to a second phase: that of reflexivity, to analyze and not passively concede to the conveyed message of a film.