One of the most popular thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock's middle years, Rear Window is now also recognised as one of the most brilliant demonstrations of the director's cinematic wizardry. Starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, with Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr in memorable supporting roles, the film centres on a photographer confined to a wheelchair in his apartment who, using binoculars, spies on his courtyard neighbours and witnesses a possible murder. Stefan Sharff, professor emeritus of Columbia University's film department, shows us how Hitchcock achieved the mounting excitement and fear that mark this film. The author first provides a detailed overview of the director's skill in developing the story from intriguing start to shattering climax. In the second part of the book, he goes on to a shot-by-shot analysis; using the film's continuity as his text, he describes how Hitchcock's technique accomplished its magic. Illustrated throughout with stills from the film, The Art of Looking is a unique appreciation of the art of Alfred Hitchcock, made even more valuable by the first publication in any form of the full dialogue of a screen masterpiece.

Beginning with the proposition that there exist uniquely cinematic elements of meaning and structure, Stefan Sharff clearly and systematically lays the foundation for "literacy" in cinema -- a sensitivity to the aesthetic elements intrinsic only to film. Sharff presents the basic elements of structure, modes of expression, and rules which he argues create a specific "language" and "syntax" of cinema.