There IS a fundamental *structure* to storytelling underlying all human world experience, and that is the hero journey, or, as already noted: beginning, middle, and end. Campbell and Jung spent their lifetimes studying comparative literatures and mythologies to find that, indeed, the monomyth underlies all human storytelling, that it's the local variants of cultures and individual contexts which make this (our human) *story*, contemporary. It's been said before, you need a common denominator (the monomyth) in order for an audience to start this journey with you, but it's up to the artist/filmmaker to make it relevent for their audience....and that means gleaning, and mirroring, the culture the artist lives in...that's where the real creativity comes in. You cannot make a work of art in a conceptual vacuum, you need some remnant of reference.
And, I do agree there are many works made outside this formula. But if you were to dig deeply into them, I bet you could easily classify those pieces as deconstructive...they most probably work with some element of the monomyth, even the most abstract examples.
