Compassion in the Movies: Between Sentiment and Virtue

Abstract

Despite the poor press that compassion seems to be have been granted, here we attempt to re-bolster its value, considering it not only people’s condescension to their inferiors but also, and recovering its original meaning, as embodying the concept “suffering with”. Beyond sentiment, closer than virtue, compassion can also be learned. Since it would be presumptuous to know exactly what others experience, suffering with someone else is always an exercise in imagination. In this sense, here we propose a dual exercise in narrative imagination. What better occasion than that provided by certain narratives to become better acquainted with the pain of those “others” and to reflect upon it. Here we shall explore two audiovisual narratives: Red Beard/Akahige, by Akiro Kurosawa, and Cries and Whispers/Viskningar och rop, by Ingmar Bergman, both featuring illness, suffering and death. In the former, the figure of the physician is the pivot, while in the latter it is friends and family who are the stars. In both we are witness to compassion or lack thereof.