Scene Analysis | The Da Vinci Code

How does mise-en-scene show the genre and style of the film? Throughout the whole scene, we can see multiple different types of artefacts and relics that have clearly been collected over the years by Sir Leigh Teabing. This creates an element of mystery and enigma within the scene as we, the audience, don't know what all these relics mean and whether they have any importance to the story. Enigma code (Barthes) is an extremely common technique and feature within films under the thriller genre. Most commonly, the enigma is established during the opening scene of a thriller, however, in some cases, enigma is further introduced throughout the film. In this scene, we can see a new element of enigma being introduced to the story, which is how most of the story is told. With more secrets. This helps establish the style of film that it is given its tagline is, "Uncover the secret", and, "Break the codes". In this situation, as mentioned earlier, the one artefact that has the most importance in this scene is the painting of The Last Supper. This has the most screen time out of all of the other artefacts that are in the room as Teabing uncovers the secrets of the painting to Sophie Neveu. This again helps create the idea of mystery. Although not technically mise-en-scene, Teabing is constantly asking questions to Sophie which further helps establish the style of film. Robert Langdon is positioned near a board of what looks like research into other artefacts. This tells the audience that Teabing is trying to uncover more secrets which is exactly what is happening in this scene and what the viewers themselves are trying to do. Once again, this firmly establishes the enigma and mysterious style of the film.