The Problem-Solution Mass

I was watching my favorite part of Moulin Rouge! the other day – basically, the elephant scenes.  I noticed a very interesting pattern:

They introduce a problem, then they solve it.  Then, as soon as that one is solved, they introduce another problem, and then they solve that.  Lather, rinse, repeat, for about 20-25 minutes.  Behold:

Problem	Outcome/Solution
Satine and Christian are in the elephant for different reasons. She wants to seduce him, and he wants to inspire her with his poetry.	She fakes an orgasm for a while, until he bursts into song and makes her fall in love with him.
She realizes he’s not the Duke, freaks out, and then the Duke shows up while he’s still in there.	They run around for a while, trying to divert him, until they finally get him out of the room. Then …
Satine passes out, and the Duke returns to get his hat, only to discover her in the arms of another man.	The emergency rehearsal! Generally, the Duke likes it.
While everyone else is celebrating, Christian tries to write, but all he can think about is Satine.	He goes to visit her, while she’s lamenting and dreaming.
She’s not allowed to fall in love. But a life without love, that’s terrible!	He sings for her again. She falls in love again. He’s going to be bad for business, she can tell.

My favorite part of Robert McKee’s Story is that story happens in the gap between expectation and result.  Any time you think you know – or even more critically, any time the characters think they know – what’s going to happen, we need to throw them a curve ball, which they then need to figure out how to solve.  That’s done here in spades, and this happens to be one of my favorite movie sequences – I’ve watched Moulin Rouge! in its entirety maybe four or five times, but I’ve watched that sequence closer to four or five dozen.

Of course, there are a lot of other things going on here, than just the problem-solution mass.  It’s also visually stunning, outstandingly well-choreographed, hilariously funny, and thematically brilliant.  Plus, Nicole Kidman is hot.

But we could all stand to take a page from Moulin Rouge! and introduce more problems into our screenplays that our characters have to solve.