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CMT proposed a theory of embodiment according to which humans reason about abstract concepts in terms of concrete concepts by a process of “metaphorical mapping” ( Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, 1999). Two major theories in particular have attracted considerable attention in recent years: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory (henceforth, CMT) and Vittorio Gallese’s Embodied Simulation Theory (henceforth, EST). In conjunction with this theoretical shift, cognitive film scholars have been increasingly adopting some of the newly introduced concepts of this framework to shed new light on the creative and receptive aspects of cinema. Central to this thesis is the idea that cognition is not simply a computational process, but a biological phenomenon with a firm grounding in bodily, social and cultural experience.

Over the past three decades, various strands of cognitive science (linguistics, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, anthropology) have embraced the thesis of “embodiment”. The grounding problem of fictional subjectivity in cinema (that is, how are viewers able to attribute mental states to fictional characters in films?) will be used to test the validity of both claims. To clarify both assumptions, the article will present a discussion of the theme of embodiment at three levels of analysis: the conceptual level (how is meaning embodied in the human mind?), the formal level (how is this meaning structured in the visual mode of expression?) and the receptive level (how is the viewer able to infer this meaning on the basis of the evidence provided by the form?). The study is driven by two key assumptions, namely: (1) that meaning in film is metaphorically mapped within our sensory-motor system and (2) that embodied simulation processes in the brain allow for the viewer to infer this meaning from the evidence provided by the film. This article takes on the challenge of combining both perspectives into a unified embodied model for understanding conceptual meaning in cinema.

Despite their intimate relationship, both theories have been rarely addressed together in the context of film studies.

Two influential theories of embodiment that have received considerable attention among film scholars are: Conceptual Metaphor Theory (originated in the field of cognitive linguistics) and Embodied Simulation Theory (originated in the field of neuroscience). Only recently, the broad research program of embodied cognition has fuelled a substantial and ongoing body of research at the crossroads of cognitive science and film studies.