In its essence, Central Conflict Theory refers to a type of dramatic construction, first developed by naturalist playwrights such as Ibsen, and later imposed as the model for Hollywood and international cinema. The crucial claim of this theory is, as Ruiz puts it, that "someone wants something and someone else doesn't want them to have it. From this point on [...] all the elements of the story are arranged around this central conflict" (Ruiz, 11). What is immediately problematic about this method is that it is exclusive: whatever doesn't serve to feed the central conflict should, in a good film be eliminated. For Ruiz, this is not just an aesthetic question but a directly political one: in fact he has gone so far as to suggest that the recent American invasion of Iraq is an expression of the way this logic has come to dominate not only cinema but contemporary politics itself. But to return to cinema, what exactly is excluded by an adherence to this doctrine, which is as much an economic one as an aesthetic one as it is used as a primary criterion for determining which films get funded? According to Ruiz it is all the "boring" moments, that is, those moments that contribute nothing to a central conflict and which are nevertheless the most interesting: "central conflict forces us to abandon all those events which require only indifference or detached curiosity, like a landscape, a distant storm, or dinner with friends(Ruiz, 11)...."
- by Michael Goddard, Towards a Perverse Neo-Baroque Cinematic Aesthetic:Raúl Ruiz's Poetics of Cinema, (Senses of Cinema)