“Could it be that some film directors (like Hitchcock), if they are to gaze with such longing, are safer and freer if they don’t ask too much about their own motives? Is it possible that a similar liberating restraint applies to us, the viewers? One of the charms of ‘I am a camera’ was always its insinuation that if you become that mechanical you may not need to think or question what you are doing. The same facility is useful in torture or playing golf.”
David Thomson, The Big Screen
Cinema Arete 