Directed by Billy Wilder, The Apartment is a social moral comedy set in 1959. Although there is a decided
lack of character development, the story is relatively complex, engaging the
viewer on many levels with plots and twists between the central characters. In
1960, The Apartment garnered an Oscar for best picture. No doubt,
Wilder’s expose of the darker side of corporate
Wilder paints a bleak picture of
urban corporate life in 1959
Baxter is an ambitious young bachelor who appears willing to compromise his comfort and his morals to climb up the corporate ladder. His Faustian bargain to loan out his apartment, to his adulterous bosses, in return for career advancement, suggests that Baxter himself may be undeserving of sympathy. However, viewers soon see the harsh price that Baxter has paid for this arrangement, when Baxter is ousted from his apartment unwillingly, in the middle of the night, so that a boss can use the place for a “quickie.” Baxter is presented as lonely and disconnected.
Urban life is presented as being exploitative of personal relationships and desires. Baxter’s married bosses exploit single women’s desire for love, as a way to get sex from them. They then exploit Baxter’s desire for promotion as a way to use his apartment for their personal benefit. Baxter, in turn, exploits their vices as a means to be promoted to the coveted 27th floor. This theme of exploitation is evident in Fran’s comment “he’s a taker. Some people take and some people give.” Although Fran is portrayed as the injured party, her own actions are questionable. As Fran knowingly chooses to date a married man, it could be argued that Fran herself is ‘taking’ from his wife. Indeed, the symbolism of Fran’s cracked make-up mirror is that Fran herself is damaged or flawed in some way. When asked about the cracked mirror, Fran confirms this symbolic role of the mirror by stating “I like it that way, it is the way I feel inside.” Yet Fran’s subsequent attempted suicide demonstrates the consequences of living a life that is disconnected and devoid of love. What then is a viable solution to the darker side of urban life?
According to Baxter, the solution to this darker side of urban life is to choose to become a “Mensh.” A Mensh is a human being, presumably, in this context, one who has awakened from the isolation of urbanism to the joy of love, the decency of moral behavior and the liberation from corporate dehumanization. The way to become a mensh is to connect with other humans, to feel love and notably to be able to set appropriate moral and personal boundaries. Baxter has found meaning beyond stark ambition. Baxter has found love. In the final scenes of the movie, Baxter is able to ‘do the right thing’ and stand up for himself by virtue of the fact that he is now a man in love. He has been transformed by this experience of feeling love and, as a result, he is no longer able to comfortably engage in exploitative relationships.
Billy Wilder is rooting for a world where we treat other humans with respect. In Wilder’s world, people are the ‘ends’, not simply a means to an end. It appears that the movie is ultimately intended to be optimistic about love. Yet, in its optimism, the movie does not entirely explain why Baxter’s love for Fran would be enduring or different from the love his colleagues initially felt for their wives. The viewer cannot assume that the force of love alone is so powerful that humans will not succumb to temptation. If that were the case, Sheldrake and his colleagues would not be adulterous husbands. Instead, the viewer might imagine that Baxter’s love is tempered with a deep sense of morality and that, ultimately, it is this morality that keeps the love healthy.
Ella Quent 2010
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