Film Theory in the Mirror. Argumenta 11, 2, 221–230. DOI 10.14275/2465-2334/202622.dal

This essay is the English translation of the foreword to the Italian edition of Film, Art, and the Third Culture, published in 2022 as Cinema, evoluzione, neuroscienze: un’estetica naturalizzata del film (Rome: Dino Audino). It approaches Murray Smith’s study as a key entry point into the ongoing dialogue between film theory and the cognitive sciences, and as a catalyst for rethinking the epistemological foundations of film studies in light of neuroscience. The analysis situates Smith’s notion of “cooperative naturalism” within a broader critical framework that questions how the humanities can engage with scientific models without relinquishing their interpretive autonomy. By comparing Smith’s work to other approaches—such as bioculturalism and Neurofilmology—the essay considers Film, Art, and the Third Culture as both a theoretical experiment and a methodological provocation: a testing ground for new interdisciplinary configurations that challenge the comfort zone of traditional film scholarship while redefining what it means to study cinematic experience today.