The best reason for becoming familiar with past film makers and their approach to structure, is that it allows us to find our way through the problems we have in our own writing. No script has ever been born anew in all its pristine glory, without someone sweating blood to turn a heap of words into a concept which grabs us by the nether regions and makes us pay attention.

What I enjoy is the back stories of what happens to force the creative team to realise that things are not going quite the way they had planned. Like how in Cassablanca, no-one knew, until the last moment, who was going to fly off with Ilsa.

But some things go beyond structure and have more to do with interpretation. In Ben Hur (the William Wyler version), the director was having all sorts of problems with the script. It just wasn’t hanging together, particularly the relationship between Judah and Messala. A script doctor was needed. The whole thing was too plodding and it looked like it was going to die on the editing table. After several attempts to sort things out, enter Gore Vidal with shall we say a little bit of an adventurous approach to the situation.

Let us invite Reed Johnson to explain what happened next: ” Vidal had some unorthodox ideas about the reasons why Judah Ben-Hur, played by Charlton Heston, and the Roman tribune Messala (Stephen Boyd) had gone from boyhood pals to deadly enemies, culminating in their chariot-race showdown. —- (in) an interview with Vidal in which the writer described how he’d convinced Boyd and director William Wyler that there had to be a deeper motive to explain Messala’s lethal hatred of his old friend Ben-Hur — namely, that the two men once had a homosexual relationship that Messala wanted to resume but Ben-Hur did not.”
See: https://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/01/entertainment/la-et-mn-gore-vidal-charlton-heston-ben-hur-20120801

Sometimes there is a three way or even four way tussle that goes on between various members of the creative team, which causes the script to veer off in a number of directions before finding its final groove. A case in point is Spartacus. There were several monumental egos contributing to the mix. The writer was black listed Dalton Trumbo who’s attribution was only given credit after Kirk Douglas declared open warfare on the studio bosses. There was also Stanley Kubrick as director. We will never be able to discover what went on to arrive at the final shape of the narrative except to be sure that the conflict between director and star, caused some bad compromises to be made which flawed the telling of a great saga.

So where does this leave us in our search for shape in the scheme of things. Structure should always be subservient to the core of the conflict which drives the narrative. If there is no conflict, you may have a nice well adjusted leading protagonist, but you will have little drama and no entertainment value. You will also never, ever be invited to write another screenplay. A good screen play follows the transformation of characters going through a series of adventures to finally realise a solution to a near impossible situation. A great screenplay adds an additional layer. There is the realisation that the conflict and challenges cause damage to those involved and at the end of the day, some of the problems may be overcome, but around the corner tomorrow who knows what rough beast is going to come along and screw things up.

The horror of Kurtz is the realisation that the human condition is not one of brotherly love and tender acceptance – man is the destroyer of his own peace. Of course whether or not you care to accept this premise is something else again – but it is the hook around which most conflicts revolve.