The Apartment

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The Apartment

• Billy Wilder, 1960

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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

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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

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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.
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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 Wilders ability to create
successful and artistic cinema. --PBS (American
Masters)
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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)
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Themes of The Apartment

• Baxter is a clerk who gets ahead by hiring his
  apartment to philandering superiors in exchange
  for a promotion
• Jack Lemmons CC Baxter is a symbol of Joe
  Publics complicity in corporate ethics

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Secondary Themes

• Interesting that Wilder hated television (look
  for how this is expressed in The Apartment)
• Baxter as little white dot? (image theme)

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Billy Wilders Approach

• Material is almost always serious, but also has
  an ironic edge
• 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 like Double
  Indemnity)

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Cinematography

• Many elements of the cinematography show Baxter
  as the little guy

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Compared to
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Exposition

• Pay close attention to the first few scenes of
  the film and think about 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.

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There is a great deal of detail in the films
exposition

• Key to executive office
• Office Details
• Television
• Sleeping Pills

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• Since the movie is about two people who become
  emancipated, it is important to see what they are
  emancipated from (why there is so much detail in
  the beginning)
• Baxter is non-judgmental, bending over backwards
  for everyone to climb the corporate ladder
• Miss Kubelik is in love with a married man and is
  trapped in an unhealthy situation

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Jack Lemmons collaborations with Wilder link

• 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