Two radical film adaptations of W. Shakespeare’s The Tempest by D. Jarman and P. Greenaway use tableau as the element of their film texts. This element is of special nature in both films, not being part of their figurative languages or part of their structure or a sign as understood by F. de Saussure. A more convenient instrument of analysis is «hieroglyph», the term that was used in the theory of theater at the beginning of the 20th century.