Near the conclusion of North by Northwest, Cary Grant finds himself in something of a pickle.
His true love, Eva Marie Saint, is dangling helplessly in space on the face of Mount Rushmore. If she falls, splat. The reason she has not fallen is that Grant is holding her with one hand while the other grabs a rock ledge. Not easy. Watching all this is Martin Landau, the subvillain, who stands a few feet away holding the precious statuette that contains valuable microfilm inside, said microfilm being of great danger to America should it fall into enemy hands. Grant, desperate, looks up at Landau and asks for help.
Landau walks over to Grant and, instead of bending down and aiding to him, puts his foot on Grant’s fingers and begins pressing down. He grinds his shoe down as hard as he can.
That’s the pickle.
Now, between that moment and the end of this superb Ernest Lehman-Alfred Hitchcock collaboration, the following occurs.

(a) Landau is made to cease and desist.
(b) Grant savees himself.
(c) Grant also saves Eva Marie Saint.
(d) The two of them get married.
(e) The microfilm is saved for America.
(f) James Mason, the chief villain, is captured and handed over to the authorities.
(g) Grant and Saint take a train ride back east.

That’s a lot of narrative to be successfully tied up. and I would like you to guess how long it takes in terms of screen time for it to be accomplished. Got your guess? Here’s the answer––
––forty-three seconds.

(Adventures in the Screen Trade, pagina 117)

(No, niente, è che volevo scrivere di come Invictus sia un film con dialoghi tutti di frasi fatte senza neanche la scusa del grottesco che aveva Il divo, con una sceneggiatura scritta da uno che non ha non dico mai visto una puntata di West Wing ma neppure mai sentito un discorso di Veltroni – battuta tipo: «Non è un santo virgola è un uomo punto esclamativo coi problemi di un uomo ripunto riesclamativo» –, con un Mandela rispetto al quale Valterone nostro pare un gigante del pensiero politico e del senso delle priorità, una crasi tra la cartellonistica Benetton e gli spot dei Ringo Boys dilatata su due ore e un quarto equamente divise tra scene inutili – la metà delle quali sono di cameriere che gli portano cose e lui che ringrazia cerimoniosamente, e se non sono la metà sono comunque più di quante ce ne fossero in Gosford park – e scene di cinque minuti che potevano durare quaranta secondi. Volevo. Poi mi sono resa conto che William Goldman, in uno dei più strepitosi libri sul cinema che abbia mai letto, l’aveva detto meglio.)

But they got great reviews from the auteur critics.
The reason is this: Once an auteurist surrenders himself to an idol, for reason passing understanding, said auteurist flies in the face of one of life’s basic truths: People can have good days, and people can have bad days.
Any movie by Chaplin, even shit by Chaplin, is terrific. (I wish them all a very long life  on a desert island with nothing but The Countess from Hong Kong for company.) Any John Ford, another of their favorites. And, of course, any Hitchcock.
I think the last two decades of Hitchcock’s career were a great waste and sadness. He was techically as skillful as ever. But he had become encased in praise, inured to any criticism.
Hitchcock himself had become The Man Who Knew Too Much.
So yes, I think the auteur theory ruined him – or at least his belief in it. And I think that belief is dangerous to any director. I mentioned before that no director I ever met said out loud he believed in the auteur theory. But God knows what’s silently eating away at them in the dark nights of their soul.

(pagina 105)