Rethinking the third act structure

The three-act dramatic structure is most common screenplay form taught in creative writing programs. Further, it is almost always demanded by Australian funding bodies. Yet this structure has hardly changed since it was developed by Aristotle in his Poetics 2000 years ago. This paper examines whether the three-act structure is sufficient to meet the situations of memory, identity and time that are the increasing preoccupations of both modern society and international cinema. It argues that by continuing to teach only the three-act structure we risk reinforcing the status quo and limit the potential of our cinema to explore the complexity of human experience.