Billy Wilder on ‘The Apartment’
On how he used a mirror to convey key exposition with minimal dialogue.
Billy Wilder is my all-time favorite filmmaker. Consider just some of his movies: Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Blvd. (1950), Ace in the Hole (1951), Stalag 17 (1953), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), an oeuvre that demonstrates an incredible range in a filmmaking career that went from 1929 to 1981.
One of the best books on filmmaking and storytelling is “Conversations With Wilder” in which Cameron Crowe, a fantastic filmmaker in his own right (Say Anything, Singles, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous) sat down with Wilder for multiple hours and they talked movies.
Every Sunday for the next several months, I’m going to post excerpts from the book, add a few thoughts, and invite your comments. I trust this will be a good learning experience for each of us. And while we’re at it, why don’t we watch some Wilder movies to remind ourselves what a great writer and director he was.
Today’s excerpt comes from P. 59:
CC: You’ve often used mirrors as a clever way of revealing a story point, but the most powerful instance has to be the broken-compact-mirror shot in The Apartment.
BW: Yes. when Baxter sees himself in the mirror and he adds up two and two. He gave it to the president of the insurance company [Fred MacMurray], the big shot at the office, now he knows what we know. And we see it in his face in the broken mirror. That was a very elegant way of pointing it out. Better than a third person telling him about the affair — that we did not want to do. This was better. This gave us everything, in one shot. Some ideas came easy, like that one. It was good, it came easy. That’s why it was good.
In Hollywood, there’s an old saying: “Show it, don’t say it.” That speaks to a fundamental truth about movies: They are primarily a visual medium. This bit of business with the broken mirror from The Apartment is a perfect example.
In the story, Baxter (Jack Lemmon) has a thing for Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine). She works as an elevator girl in the same office building as Baxter. Toward the end of Act One, the audience learns something Baxter doesn’t yet know: Kubelik is the mistress of Sheldrake, the aforementioned “big shot at the office” played by MacMurray. What this means — and again, Baxter doesn’t know this — is that Sheldrake, who has obtained a key to Baxter’s apartment, is using it for his trysts with Kubelik. That leads to this scene in Baxter’s new office, the promotion he gained by allowing Sheldrake to use Baxter’s apartment:
This is the second beat with the compact, the first as noted in the scene description here. This sets up a later scene where Baxter is showing off his new hat to Kubelik, still unaware she is Sheldrake’s mistress:
Here is the scene in the movie:
Look at that shot at 1:45 in the scene: Precisely what Wilder describes, Baxter seeing his reflection in the broken mirror as he “adds up two and two.”
Visual. Storytelling. Better than a third person telling him about the affair — that we did not want to do. This was better. This gave us everything, in one shot.
By “everything,” Wilder means everything because there is not only Baxter’s realization that Kubelik is Sheldrake’s mistress. There is also the fact that just prior to this moment, Kubelik discovered Sheldrake has had a lot of affairs with women in the company, Kubelik just the most recent victim. Hence her line: “I like it this way — makes me look the way I feel.” A shattered soul.
Dialogue is great, especially when you have masters like Wilder and Diamond writing it. But Wilder knew the primacy of visual storytelling. And so should all screenwriters.
