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The signs within the shot, according to Metz, carry a more complex meaning in themselves. However, this complexity is not meaningful unless the shot is arranged within a structure ^(55/28)1. For Metz, the shot, rather than being compared to the minimal unit of language, can instead be compared to a “sentence” or a “statement.”

These fragmented statements, in order to convey an undisputed meaning, must be organized within a communicational structure capable of reproducing social and individual behavior. Furthermore, the minimal units of cinema are able to paraphrase themselves. In this way, cinema generates meaning both autonomously—through its own communicational structure—and by “borrowing” elements from other communicational structures ^(56/29)2.

1. 28
   If Metz rejects the assimilation of film language to natural language, he also re­jects the common analogy between shot and word. In Metz’s view the shot is equiv­alent not to the word but to the sentence or statement, and it is the organization of shots in the film chain that invites and supports the claim that film constitutes a lan­guage.
   (Secuence>Structure>Language>Elements)
   Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings
   by  Leo Braudy, Marshall Cohen ↩︎
2. 29
   It is only when shots are organized according to repeatable, recog­nizable codes that they become discourse and are capable of telling a story. Cine­matic language comprises a number of cinematic codes and sub-codes, but the code which Metz analyses in detail (the code which was more or less established by the time of D. W. Griffith) is the grande syntagmatique of the image track. This code, a sub-code of the montage code, permits us to account for the procedures by which cinema denotes such narrative phenomena as succession, priority, temporal breaks, and spatial continuity.
   (Secuence>Structure>Language)
   Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings
   by  Leo Braudy, Marshall Cohen ↩︎