Film making is inevitably based on collaboration and often bogged down by compromise, yet the achievements of the great directors leave no doubt that the cinema is a supreme art form of the 20th century. Detailed analyses of scenes from well-known films, many of them Hollywood classics like Psycho, show how film makers can tell a story and interpret the events at one and the same time. It is only when we understand the dual role of the camera as a ruthlessly realistic eye and creator of illusions that rational film criticism becomes possible.