For the first time this volume makes Jean-Pierre Meunier’s insightful thoughts on the film experience available for an English-speaking readership. Introduced and commented by specialists in film studies and philosophy, Meunier’s intricate phenomenological descriptions of the spectator’s engagement with fiction films, documentaries and home movies can reach the wide audience they have deserved ever since their publication in French in 1969.

[Julian Hanich](https://www.rug.nl/staff/j.hanich/cv?lang=en) is Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Groningen. He is the author of two monographs: *The Audience Effect: On the Collective Cinema Experience* (2018) and *Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers: The Aesthetic Paradox of Pleasurable Fear* (2010).[Daniel Fairfax](http://sensesofcinema.com/author/daniel-fairfax/") is Assistant Professor in Film Studies at the Goethe Universität (Frankfurt), having completed his PhD at Yale University, and an editor of the online film journal *Senses of Cinema*. Fairfax has overseen the publication of two recent translated works, *Cinema Against Spectacle: Technique and Ideology Revisited* by Jean-Louis Comolli (AUP, 2015), *Conversations with Christian Metz: Selected Interviews in Film Theory (1970-1991)* (AUP, 2017).

Julian Hanich/Daniel Fairfax: IntroductionJulian Hanich/Daniel Fairfax: "Every Theory Needs a Reference to Lived Experience": An Interview with Jean-Pierre MeunierPart IJean-Pierre Meunier:The Structures of the Film Experience: Filmic IdentificationIntroductionPart One: Introduction to the General Structures of ExperienceChapter I: PerceptionI. The point of view of traditional psychologyII. The findings of phenomenologyChapter II: IdentificationI. The origins of the conceptII. Identification as the behavior of private intersubjectivityIII. The principal aspects of identificationa) The motor aspectb) The affective aspectc) The dramatic aspectd) Identification as the basis for the valorization (or devalorization) of other peopleIV. Fleeting and structuring identificationsV. Identification, projection, introjectionVI. Identification, mimicry and imitationVII. Identification and personalityVIII. Identification, communication and informationPart Two: The Film ExperienceChapter I: Filmic Consciousness Faced with its ObjectI. The film as an object of perceptionII. Film, real and unrealIII. The imaginary consciousnessIV. The attitudes of filmic consciousness faced with its objecta) The home movieb) The documentary filmc) The fiction filmV. From the home movie to the fiction filmVI. Movement1. The experience of movement2. Movement in the cinemaa) Movement in the home movieb) Movement in the documentary filmc) Movement in the fiction filmVII. ConclusionChapter II: Filmic Behavior, IdentificationI. The types of filmic identificationa) Identification in the 'home-movie attitude'b) Identification in the 'documentary attitude'c) Identification in the 'fiction attitude'II. The Differentiation of Identification According to Different CharactersChapter III: Towards Post-Filmic BehaviorGeneral ConclusionPart IICritical Essays, Historical Assessments, Phenomenological ExpansionsI: PLACING MEUNIER IN THE HISTORY OF FILM THEORYDudley Andrew: Stages of an Encounter with Filmic IdentificationDaniel Fairfax: Between Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis: Jean-Pierre Meunier's Theory of Identification in the CinemaRobert Sinnerbrink: The Missing Link: Meunier on Imagination and Emotional EngagementII: ON THE HOME-MOVIE ATTITUDEVivian Sobchack: 'Me, Myself, and I': On the Uncanny in Home MoviesMarie-Aude Baronian: Remembering Cinema: On the film-souvenirIII: ON IDENTIFICATIONChristian Ferencz-Flatz: You Talkin' to Me? On Filmic Identification in Video-SelfiesVictor Fan: Illuminating Reality: Cinematic Identification Revisited in the Eyes of Buddhist PhilosophiesKate Ince: Whose Identification? A Brief Meditation on the Relevance of Jean-Pierre Meunier's The Structures of the Film Experience to Contemporary Feminist Film PhenomenologyIV: REFERENTIALITY AND MEDIATIONGuido Kirsten: Jean-Pierre Meunier's Modalities of the "Filmic Attitude": Towards a Theory of Referentiality in Cinematic DiscourseFlorian Sprenger: Phenomenology, Immediacy, and Mediation: On Derrida, Meunier and LandgrebeV: PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPANSIONSJennifer M. Barker: Cinema and Child's PlayVinzenz Hediger: Engines of the Historical Imagination: Towards a Phenomenology of Cinema as Non-ArtJulian Hanich: When Viewers Drift Off: A Brief Phenomenology of Cinematic DaydreamingList of IllustrationsList of Contributors