Film Analysis: The Apartment

Ms. Kubleik’s character transforms throughout the film. She is Mr. Sheldrake’s mistress. She gets taken advantage of, lied to, and is constantly let down, but is completely in love with him. Mr. Sheldrake is C.C. Baxter’s top executive and is conniving, powerful, and privileged. Ms. Kubleik is not his first mistress and pretty much tries to pay her for her services treating her like a prostitute or an object of his desire. Mr. Sheldrake also brings up divorce, which was uncommon during the 1950’s and 1960s. The language created here makes corporate executives come off as cheating pigs. Once Mrs. Sheldrake’s wife finds out about the affairs she kicks him out of the house and files for divorce. This is an example of women exercising their

So film would have to try to change to keep viewers interested and do something that television could not. The language in film had to change to something that could not be expressed in television. The film The Apartment is about sex and blatantly displays this through the language and narrative of the film. The film also pokes fun at television in one scene. C.C. Baxter sits down to eat and reaches over to grab the remote. When he clicks on the TV set an announcer is presenting “From the world’s greatest library of film classics... Grand Hotel.” Baxter gets excited to watch the film but is interrupted by a sponsor and immediately grabs the remote to change the station. He then switches from station to station not being able to escape from Westerns. He’s then back to where he stated and gets ready to tune into Grand Hotel then gets interrupted by one more sponsor. At this point Baxter s annoyed and turns off the set in disgust. Billy Wilder expresses his distaste for films being interrupted by commercials in this scene. Looking at this through semiotics one can understand what Wilder was trying to

Christian Metz’s theory of filmmakers creating a language can be applied to Mulvey’s feminist theory. Men dominate the film industry giving them control over the language, meaning, and how women should be viewed. The Apartment was both written and directed by Billy Wilder who is a male. He had the power to create how he thinks women should be represented. The film shows a patriarchal workplace of the insurance company ran by men yet Wilder decides to let the women roles call the shots. The language in the film address topics that were taboo during that time such as sex, affairs, divorce etc. This is Wilder’s attempt at addressing the film industries standards and challenging them. The role of women was changing after World War II and Wilder suggest this throughout the film symbolically through a language that he invented. The film goes deeper than the comedy it is presented as. It is dark and light, cynical and humane. These simple images known as the denotation have a deeper meaning behind them that have a greater value in creating a language in film, the connotation according to Christian Metz. The connotation in The Apartment tries to change of how spectators view women. You can apply both the feminist theory and semiotics theory to the film The Apartment because it has its own specific language that comments on the representation of women during the 1960’s and at the same time challenges that