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Once a decade, the British film publication Sight & Sound publishes a list of 100 motion pictures that, through a poll of critics, have been determined the greatest of all time. Norman & Tyler are discussing selections from 2022’s edition of the list.

Spoilers ahead.

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The Apartment

1960

Directed by Billy Wilder

Written by I.A.L. Diamond and Billy Wilder

Sight & Sound ranking: 54 (tied)

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Norman: Anyway, let’s talk The APARTMENT!!!

Tyler: Yes.  The Apartment indeed.

Norman: One of my absolute favorite things to do in my 20s was to see movies in Chicago’s Grant Park. 

I had already seen The Apartment once on video, but seeing it there with an audience was a revelation. The movie is a bit of an emotional roller coaster with a lot of funny sex jokes thrown in. Wilder’s widescreen compositions burst off the screen. The people were into it!

Tyler: Good.  The people should be.

Norman: If Wilder had never made The Apartment, his career would sill be one of the most distinguished in film history. But I think The Apartment really takes everything that he had ever done and rolled it up into one. 

Think of the cynicism of Double Indemnity or Ace in the Hole. You see shades of that here. 

Think of the comedy in Some Like it Hot. You’ve got comedy. 

Think of the seriousness of The Lost Weekend. That’s here too. 

The romance in Sabrina. 

All of it combines here just perfectly.

Tyler: Probably the only movie in Wilder’s canon that rivals it for reputation is Sunset Boulevard.  Not a bad pair to have in your portfolio.

Norman: I’d make a case for Double Indemnity, but yeah. It’s impressive.

Tyler: The Apartment is more lovable than either of those two movies, don’t you reckon?  Indemnity and Boulevard are so dark, so caustic.  The Apartment has warmth those two movies purposefully–rightly–lack.

Norman: Absolutely.

That’s probably the thing that sets The Apartment…uh, apart…from the others. It’s very dark and grimy in its own way, but it never wallows in the muck.

Tyler: Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine are crucial in that regard.

Norman: Yes. They are so damn likable that it’s easy to forget that they are both doing despicable things!

Tyler: My goodness, what a word.  Despicable, you say?

Norman: They are obviously both trapped and so you feel bad for them, but I’m sticking with despicable. I mean, the word applies to a lot of people in this one.

Tyler: So I’m wagering you’re displeased with “Bud” Baxter—Lemmon—sharing his apartment so his bosses can more easily cheat.  And Fran, MacLaine’s character, is The Other Woman.

Norman: Yeah. They are both obviously trapped in their situations. It isn’t that I don’t feel for them, but the catharsis at the end of the film is that they both break out of the moral torpor.

Tyler: And do so together, with just a beautiful touch of ambiguity.

“Shut up and deal.”  I mean, so good.

Norman: Rightfully classic.

Fred McMurray stood out for me this time. 

He’s so suave and calm. He’s plays a gaslighter to perfection.

Tyler: Oh, he’s an assassin.  Zero empathy.  Chastising his partner for bothering him with a suicide attempt?

Norman: His voice never betrays anything other than annoyance or bewilderment. Even when he’s getting the call on Christmas morning, he never plays the part as nervous or worried. It’s just a guy swatting a fly away from his face.

Tyler: Dude doesn’t get a comeuppance, either.  Baxter in his climactic moment of triumph is still just another of those flies.

Norman: It speaks to Wilder’s imbedded sense of cynicism. He knows that Sheldrake will go on doing the same thing with other girls. A lesser movie would have put him in his place.

Tyler: A lesser movie, too, would end with a kiss.

Norman: Indeed.

Tyler: I’ll tell you, Wilder had a style you could call “workmanlike,” but there’s a shot early, when Bud is in the park huddling up for sleep, cold wind scattering leaves across the scene.  Choice.

Norman: There are a lot of great shots in this one, especially in the first half. 

The way he shoots the office is just incredible.

Look at that widescreen!

Slightly low angle gives the impression that Baxter is trapped in this huge space.

I believe this is the start of a pan across the Christmas party, but you gotta love the couple making out in the corner of the frame.

Tyler:

If I may drop a little influence into the mix, here’s a low-res shot from King Vidor’s The Crowd, all the way back in 1928.

Norman: Yes! No doubt Wilder is calling back to Vidor. 

An aside–The Crowd is incredible and it’s a shame we don’t have a decent video transfer in 2022.

This one isn’t in the office, but I love how Wilder manages to make Lemmon so small as he stands outside of his apartment.

I can’t find this one, but when Baxter finds Fran in his bed, there’s an absolutely perfect shot of her in the foreground as Baxter sees her and does a double take.

Tyler:

Not exactly what you referred to, and it’s cropped.  But the framing!

Norman: Bam. Framing is perfect and the line of her body really sets it up.

There are a lot of stunners. My guess is that The Apartment doesn’t get credit here because a lot of the movie is shot in a fairly claustrophobic interior (the apartment itself, in the second half)

Tyler: There are a lot of interiors, aren’t there.  The apartment, the bar, the Chinese restaurant.

Norman: Sheldrake’s office.

Tyler: The elevator!

Norman:

Tyler: I love the shot of Fran running breakneck down the sidewalk to meet Bud, just before the end.  That’s freedom.

Norman: We are deep enough into this conversation that I think we can talk about the thing that astounds me most about The Apartment.

Tyler: By all means.

Norman: This is a comedy from 1960–look at the cheery ad campaign–and it hinges on an attempted suicide. That’s bold.

Tyler: And the misunderstanding that follows it, when Fran’s brother-in-law hunts her down.  Abortion references!

Norman: There’s even an elaborate joke about Baxter’s own failed attempt at suicide. 

It’s got to be one of the earliest dark comedies, right?

Tyler: I imagine there’re some pre-Code romps that plumb some depths.  Other than that, you’ve got, what, more Wilder?  Some Like It Hot hinging on a massacre and all.

Norman: The Apartment is just masterful in this, though. It treats suicide seriously, but it doesn’t turn into a “message picture” along the lines of The Lost Weekend.

Tyler: One of the finest tiny brushstrokes in the movie is Baxter removing the blade from his safety razor.  And they bring that back, as a gag!

The sequence of Baxter discovering Fran unconscious in his bed plays with the soundtrack in damn fine fashion.  That stupid dance song blares for so long that you forget it’s on the turntable.

Anyway, to your point.  This is a thoroughly adult movie.

Norman: And I love it.

One other small thing I want to make sure we touch on.

Tyler: Absolutely.

Norman: I’m really taken by how Wilder lets characters do small business. The whole sequence where Baxter has to call a bunch of people in the office to rearrange apartment schedules could have been shot and cut in a very clipped staccato rhythm, but Wilder lets you watch Baxter flip through the rolodex to find the right number. There’s an amazing amount of patience in the movie for bits like that one.

Tyler: I’m reminded of Baxter trying to watch Grand Hotel. That bit takes its time!

Norman: Those moments are funny but not LOL, which is very difficult to do.

Tyler: Wry, you could call them.

Norman: You watch them with a smirk.

Tyler: Let’s wrap it up.  Any closing thoughts?

Norman: I don’t think Fran and Baxter stay together.

Tyler: I think you and Wilder would really get along.

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