'Beyond the limits of millimetres, screens and projectors'. The Phenomenon of Transdiegeticity in the Perspective of American Transgressive Cinema

Abstract

The paper attempts to characterise the manifestations of cinematic transgression and the related phenomenon of transdiegeticity in the field of transgressive cinema - a movement that emerged in American underground cinema in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Using theoretical concepts such as Vivian Sobchack's kinaesthetic subject, Marc Vernet's dynamic diegesis and intercorporality as understood by Vittorio Gallese and Valentina Cuccio, the author analyses, firstly, the reciprocal relationship between screen bodies and external bodies (viewers), and secondly, the relationship of these bodies with the sphere of film and non-film reality. It tries to prove that the intercorporality of the aforementioned subjects is a source of destabilisation of the clear division between the sphere of symbols and reality. This leads to the phenomenon of trans-diegeticity, involving the transfer of various (extra)diegetic elements and entities between the two realities.