some notes I made after watching.

Billy Wilder is very clear and precise in his

analogies, like the broken mirror beautifully and strongly show how Baxter is
broken:

[img]https://onceuponascreen.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/a-broken-mirror-is-a-
painfulrealization-in-the-apartment-1960.png[/img]

then Fran add something like "I like it the way it is, that is how I feel". That is
rare in cinema that straightforward meaning that doesn't become obvious or
sentimental.

mirror is another analogy since characters mirror each other, Baxter tries to
appear and sound like his bosses, and at the end he makes a crucial decision only
to find that Sheldrake had taken the same decision. In the end his last office is
mirrored to Sheldrake's, like a perfect copy. Also the women is mirroring their
places within men's lives.

Lemmon's acting is outstanding because his character is so menial and hypocritical,

lacking any sense of integrity, that I would hate if Lemmon didn't manage to make
him sufficiently open and vulnerable through his nimble acting. What I mean is that
he is a *fool* pouring with true emotions all the time (his hat was used by many
fools before, a hat that in the end he will abandon in the head of a (foolish?)
black man). The metaphor of liquids pouring shows how he is unrestrained, made of a
matter that is different from a Consolidated Life. Despite his involvement in the
whole scheme he has not yet become one of them, he doesn't have a home and in his
work he is only a key.

another interesting thing about this movie is how the *mis-en-scène* develops
around two key ideas, *apartment* and *togetherness*. The noun apartment refers in
its original sense to set things apart, to separate, and Baxter at some point
mentions "togetherness": "there is nothing I like better, you know, togetherness".
He adds the word with a playful smile, a perfect tone, as if togetherness were
something expected from people but at the same time a bit unnatural. Billy Wilder
constructs all the scenes to emphasize the loneliness in the middle of the crowd,
in those public spaces of mass interaction like elevators and large office floors,
but also the loneliness of empty halls and park benches and façades. Even the
intimacy is bounded by apartment, by a sense of being separated from true feelings
by walls and floors and privilege.

the doctor acts as a kind of existential philosopher when he prompts Baxter to act
like a *mensch*, and spatially that means being something more than a number in the
office floor, and also someone capable of exiting the apartment. That is also
symbolic, leaving the apartment meaning assuming a responsible attitude towards the
other, towards togetherness, beyond the pragmatic rules that command the setting
apart of people and love. When Fran ends the movie saying "shut up and deal",
Wilder is mentioning this possibility of taking control over your own life instead
of acting as an unrestrained fool.