After reading The Apartment, written by Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, I was left with good feelings, generally. There were a lot of elements that made the script work. The characterization was done very well, as the descriptions used to introduce the characters were very telling. I found a wealth of information about the characters in the subtext of these introductory descriptions, as the writers cleverly describe the person as the outside world would see them, and then show us how their actions contradict the description, thus revealing the characters’ true nature. There was the presence of both internal and external conflict, the issue of cheating being the main theme of the external conflict. The script was extremely well written; as the story unfolded, I found myself scrolling insanely fast at times, eager to see what was going to happen next. The “twist after twist after twist” structure of the script created a certain rhythm in the piece, as the pace at which I was reading it would quicken and slow based on my interest in the action. There was a certain flow to the script created by this pace. One thing that I felt didn’t work in the script was that I did not really sense any strong emotional weight while reading it. Emotionally intense things were happening, but I didn’t feel that emotional intensity. I do think that brilliant actors could fix that problem, which is probably what happened because it won a number of Oscars. Also, being from a different generation, maybe I need a greater amount of emotional intensity to be moved.
Discussion Questions:
1. Unlike A Boy’s Life, The Apartment had almost no indications of camera direction. How did the absence of camera direction affect your reading of this script?
2. Do you think that Fran’s line at the end, “Shut up and deal,” was appropriate for the situation? Was it something that her character would say in real life? Why or why not?
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