ABSTRACT
There are various contexts in which the viewer has the sensation of being “in the film,” a sensation characteristically experienced by the natural audience of the traditional feature film. As a viewer I do not only entertain the illusion that I am present in the scene—the diegetic effect—I may even feel that to a greater or lesser degree the adventures of the protagonists are actually happening to me. This experience can take many different forms, which makes it somewhat difficult to describe. In La Peau Douce (1964) we fill in Nicole’s thoughts after Lachenay has turned his back on her in the street in order to keep their love secret. We have a different experience, when Reuven is struck full in the face by a baseball in The Chosen (1981); we almost feel as if we ourselves are the victim. And watching King Kong (1933), one sympathizes with both the girl and the huge gorilla as the animal majestically undergoes his fate, amid a rain of bullets fired by stupid, insensitive human beings. In describing such experiences, people often speak of identification or empathy. Although based on the diegetic effect, these phenomena are clearly distinct from it. It is quite conceivable, for example, that the illusion of being present in the fictional world is absolute without the viewer experiencing any appreciable involvement with the events taking place on the screen. The exact meaning of the terms identification and empathy differs according to the context and the field of research; the result is an assortment of widely differing concepts commonly referred to by the same name. (For recent surveys undertaken from a broader perspective, see Schoenmakers, 1988; van Vliet, 1991; and Zillmann, 1991b.)
