The human heart has hidden treasures. In secret kept, silence sealed. The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures , whose charms were broken if revealed.
There's a subtle decency to most of Cotten's work, though it can curdle into cynicism pretty fast, and his characters often get crushed by the looming failure of their dreams.
At the very least, it has awoken us from our national fever dream of easy riches and bigger houses, and put a necessary end to an era of reckless personal spending.
What has happened is that people cannot confess fully to their dreams, as easily and openly as once they could, lest they be thought pushing, acquisitive and vulgar.