Phenomenology of the Body in Cinema: The Distinction between Leib and Korper in Body Representation and the Spectator's Experience Case Study Rosemary’s Baby Movie

The phenomenological study of the body in cinema, as articulated through Merleau-Ponty’s references to film in his lectures on the bodily relationship between the spectator and cinema, has become one of the most influential theories in film studies. According to this framework, the spectator engages with cinematic elements—such as narrative, cinematography, and editing—through an embodied mode of perception. This theory gained further prominence as film phenomenology evolved beyond classical realism. Prior to Merleau-Ponty, however, Husserl laid the groundwork for phenomenological inquiry by distinguishing between two forms of the body: Körper (the physical, objective body) and Leib (the lived, subjective body). In Husserl’s philosophy of the body, human cognition and perception are deeply tied to Leib, which he posited as the phenomenological center of the world—the source from which meaning arises. In contrast, Körper merely represents the observable manifestation of human presence. This distinction between Körper and Leib has profoundly influenced film phenomenology. The spectator’s visual perception of cinema has been reimagined through innovative concepts such as the "tactility" of film, while the body in cinema has come to encompass multiple dimensions: the body of the spectator, the bodies of characters within the film, and even the camera as a metaphorical body.
 
This research through a descriptive-analytical approach examines Husserl’s duality of the body in Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968), employing a descriptive-analytical methodology informed by theories of the body in cinema, particularly those of Vivian Sobchack and Laura Marks. By analyzing this distinction, the research aims to propose a new perspective on embodied phenomenology in film studies. The investigation ultimately concludes that Husserl’s framework not only clarifies the physical (and even biological) relationship between the spectator and the film but also revitalizes a body-centered phenomenological approach to film interpretation. Furthermore, it enables the prediction of spectator behavior across genres, particularly in horror cinema, by foregrounding the ways in which films engage the viewer’s corporeal and sensory experience.
For instance, in Rosemary’s Baby, the claustrophobic cinematography, disorienting sound design, and visceral portrayal of Rosemary’s bodily vulnerability activate the viewer’s Leib (lived body), eliciting physiological responses such as tension and dread. The camera’s intrusive framing mimics the protagonist’s psychological entrapment, while the film’s haptic textures—such as the chilling proximity of objects and bodies—invoke a tactile dimension of viewing. By unsettling the boundary between the spectator’s body and the film’s diegetic world, Polanski’s work exemplifies how horror cinema manipulates embodied perception to amplify affective engagement. This phenomenological approach not only reaffirms the centrality of the body in cinematic experience but also offers a methodological tool for analyzing how films physically and metaphorically "touch" their audiences.
Ultimately, revisiting Husserl’s Körper/Leib duality through films like Rosemary’s Baby revitalizes phenomenology’s relevance to contemporary media studies. It offers a methodological bridge between abstract theory and spectatorial affect, enabling scholars to analyze how films “touch” their audiences—both physically and metaphorically. By centering the lived body, phenomenology reaffirms cinema as an art of embodied experience, where watching a movie means being in Körper/Leib experience.