The Apartment
Billy Wilder, 1960
Billy Wilder
• Over 50 films an 6 academy awards
• Born June 22, 1906 Samuel Wilder,
grew up Austro-Hungarian Empire
• Father, Max died in 1926 and his
mother Eugenia who spent a great deal
of time in America told him stories and
began his fascination with the US
• Nick Named Billie for Buffalo Bill
Beginning of Career
• Started out as a journalist
• Received his first break as a filmmaker
in Germany in 1929: MENSCHEN AM
SONTAG (People on Sunday)
• Rise of the Nazis forced him to move to France,
and ultimately to the United States
He worked on and off until 1938, when he began a long
and fruitful collaboration with Charles Brackett. Their
partnership, which lasted twelve years, produced a
succession of box office hits including HOLD BACK
THE DAWN (1941), DOUBLE INDEMNITY, THE LOST
WEEKEND, and SUNSET BOULEVARD. DOUBLE
INDEMNITY --PBS (American Masters)
DOUBLE INDEMNITY, co-written with Raymond Chandler was a
tense and thrilling film noir, while SUNSET BOULEVARD
investigated the bizarre and tragic life of a once famous silent
movie star. Both proved Wilder’s ability to create successful and
artistic cinema. --PBS (American Masters)
The 1950s saw Wilder produce several films alone including STALAG 17 (1953)
and THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH, before teaming up with the writer/producer I.A.L.
Diamond in 1957. The two would collaborate for over twenty years, producing
such major hits as WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1954), SOME LIKE
IT HOT and THE APARTMENT --PBS (American Masters)
Themes
• clerk gets ahead by hiring his apartment
to philandering superiors in exchange
for promotion
• Jack Lemmon’s CC Baxter is a symbol
of Joe Public’s complicity in corporate
ethics
• “the great American con game”
• plots revolve around some sort of
swindle
• moral weaklings trapped in situations in
which they must lie to live
• sex and money are inextricably linked
• sex/greed conflict as a comment on
human frailty
Secondary Themes
• hated television (look for it in The
Apartment)
• Baxter as little white dot?
Approach
• innocent fascinated by the world’s
corruption?
• Material is almost always serious, but
always ironic
• “What I hate more than not being taken
seriously is being taken too seriously
• many of his films have happy endings
(while not necessarily his most famous films)
Cinematography
• How does the film show Baxter as the
“little guy?”
• How are Baxter and Miss Kubelik
framed vs Kubelik and Sheldrake?
Exposition
• Pay close attention to the first few
scene of the film and think about (take
notes on) all of the different ways
exposition is communicated
•
Exposition (from wikipedia) is a technique by which
background information about the characters, events, or
setting is conveyed in a novel, play, movie or other work of
fiction. This information can be presented through dialogue,
description, flashbacks, or even directly through narrative.
Close attention to detail in
Exposition
• Key to executive office
• Office Details
• Television
• Sleeping Pills
• The movie is about two people who
become emancipated, so it is important
to see what they are emancipated from
• Baxter is non-judgmental, bending over
backwards for everyone to climb the
corporate ladder
• Miss Kublik is in love with a married
man and is trapped in an unhealthy
situation (haircut)
Mise en Scene
• How does the mise en scene help the
development and understanding of the
main character?
• What are the differences between the
main office, the executive office and the
apartment?
• What do they say about the
environments?
Cinematography
• Use of 40mm Lens (even wide shots)
• Shots weren’t meant to draw attention
to themselves
Jack Lemmon
• Perfect “every-man”
• An unlikable character overall, so
Lemmon is key to make him seem like
a descent guy
• considered a genius, because he can
do physical comedy (very complex) and
act at the same time