ELSEVIER Poetics 23 (1994) 7-32 POETICS Film-induced affect as a witness emotion Ed S.-H. Tan * Film and Television Studies, Amsterdam University, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, 1012 CP Amsterdam, The Netherlands Abstract Traditional narrative film presents the viewer with the illusion that he or she is physically present in a fictional world, a witness to the events and characters involved in that world. Witnesses cannot participate in events, nor can they command their movements and views. It is the film's narration that dictates what the viewers see, how they see it and when. Emotion in the film viewer is a response to this predicament. It has been proposed that interest is the central emotion in film viewing. Interest is the urge to watch and actively anticipate further developments in the expectation of a reward. The film's control of the viewers' perceptions of events imposes on them special attitudes towards those events and characters. The events themselves together with the attitudes coloring them determine the viewers' emotions. Attitudes affect the witness' insight into the significance of the situation in the fictional world to the characters involved. Understanding of the significance of events for a character is the basis of empathic emotion, whereas abstraction from their meaning to characters underlies non-empathetic emotion. Sympathy is the major empathic emotion in film viewing. Finally, it is argued that the role of the film as an artefact, to be distinguished from the illusion of a fictional world it presents, in creating emotion is limited. I. Introduction Why do adults cry when they see a film? Many viewers of film melodrama report that they cannot help crying when witnessing a lost child returning home, or a couple being reunited after a long series of misunderstandings. What is puzzling in the response is that, on the one hand, it shows signs of genuine emotion, but on the other hand, we must assume that viewers are aware that they are watching a * Tel.: Office +31 20 5252980, Home: +31 20 6715526; Fax: +31 20 5252938. 0304-422X/94/$07.00 © 1994 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDI 0304-422X(94)00024-7