Ebert's article on Vertigo for the WSJ

Roger Ebert on the Best Film of All Time - WSJ.com:



From the article:

Hitchcock invites us to follow Scottie's time line, but the film's emotional depths are hidden in Judy's version of events. Scottie is the butt of the joke. Judy is the victim.

In "Citizen Kane," we see a similar psychological dynamic in how Charles Foster Kane grows consumed with his idea of Susan Alexander. Not the real Susan, a sweet, ordinary young woman, but his reinvention of Susan as an opera diva who would reflect greatness on him.

Kane as a character turned out to be uncannily prophetic of Welles's own life. Scottie as a character reflected not only Hitchcock's fetishes but his fears. The films originated in the self-knowledge of their makers (and in Welles's case, perhaps, the even greater knowledge about him of Herman Mankiewicz, the writer).

After I am cornered and asked to supply my "favorite film," I am sometimes quizzed about the "auteur theory" by people who "loved," let's say, Michael Bay's "Transformers" movies. A whiz-bang director like Mr. Bay invites us to gaze in awe at his frantic cutting, bright lights and loud noises. An auteur director like Welles or Hitchcock guides our eyes: "Look here…now there…focus on this…now that…make this connection…feel this absence. That is the best I can say about what it is like to be me."