nothing much happens

"You talked about Crisis as the ultimate
decision a character makes, but what if a
writer is attempting to create a story
where nothing much happens, where people
don't change, they don't have any
epiphanies. They struggle and are
frustrated and nothing is resolved. More
a reflection of the real world --"

"The real world? The real fucking world?
First of all, if you write a screenplay
without conflict or crisis, you'll bore
your audience to tears. Secondly:
Nothing happens in the real world? Are
you out of your fucking mind? People are
murdered every day! There's genocide and
war and corruption! Every fucking day
somewhere in the world somebody
sacrifices his life to save someone else!
Every fucking day someone somewhere makes
a conscious decision to destroy someone
else! People find love! People lose it,
for Christ's sake! A child watches her
mother beaten to death on the steps of a
church! Someone goes hungry! Somebody
else betrays his best friend for a woman!
If you can't find that stuff in life,
then you, my friend, don't know much
about life! And why the fuck are you
taking up my precious two hours with your
movie? I don't have any use for it! I
don't have any bloody use for it!"

-- from Charlie and Donald Kaufman's, "Adaptation"