CODES

Roland Barthes suggested a set of 5 codes that organize discourse. You may use these codes to help locate the value and its ideology in your film

Paradigmatic Axis

• Props (objects, setting, costume...). Semic Code
• Stereotypes organize the selection of props. Cultural code

Syntagmatic Axis

• Actions (what the characters do).
• Enigmas organize the actions into puzzles Hermeneutic Code

Symbolic Code

• The stereotyped props are organized in turn by a set of binary oppositions in which one side of the pair is favored over the other.
• The mysterious actions are organized in turn by the breaking and restoring of the contracts governing exchanges of language, money, and sex.