I introduce the two positions I defend in this book regarding the role of natural science in explaining film and the other arts: moderate autonomism (the subject of chapters three through five) and serious pessimism (which I address in chapters six and seven). Moderate autonomism maintains that the humanities enjoy a partial or moderate form of explanatory autonomy from the natural sciences. While the natural sciences can account for much about the arts, there is much about them that only humanistic methods can explain. I present this position by provisionally contrasting it with the “extreme autonomism” of film theorist David Rodowick and the “anti-autonomism” of film theorist Murray Smith. I clarify how I am defining “natural science” before then introducing the second position I defend in the book, which I call serious pessimism and which builds on the moderate variety recently proposed by the philosopher of art David Davies about the capacity of the psychological sciences to answer certain questions about the arts. As a serious pessimist, I think there are additional reasons beyond Davies's to be pessimistic about the contribution of the natural sciences to the study of cinema and the other arts, which I introduce here.