“Hitchcock’s films can therefore work only if a natural order is presupposed. Everything is proceeding normally, according to routines that are ordinary, even humdrum and unthinking, until someone notices that an element in the whole, because of its inexplicable behaviour, is a stain. The entire sequence of events unfolds from that point.”
—Pascal Bonitzer, “Hitchcockian Suspense” (1992)
Erik M. Bachman 