英文影评：《公寓春光/桃色公寓》（The Apartment）
发布时间：2024-03-04 08:15:14
Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine star in Billy Wilder‘s mournful romance-cum-satire
Winner of five Oscars, three BAFTAs and three Golden Globes The Apartment is a true classic. It‘s about advancement, ambition, corruption and adultery, and it operates as both a satire and a sorrowful romance.
Director Wilder and co-writer Diamond reunited with star Jack Lemmon after the three of them had worked on 1959‘s Some Like It Hot, setting sights set on something a more intense. The Apartment is defined by its scabrousness, sleaze and the sadness arising from one central character, Lemmon‘s put-upon CC Baxter, who spends most of the film looking on while his boss beds the woman he loves. That woman, Shirley MacLaine‘s Fran Kubelik, is herself the victim of exploitation by that boss, Fred MacMurray‘s amiably obnoxious Mr Sheldrake, a heartless patriarch if ever there was one.
Before getting into the nitty gritty of how much both Baxter and Fran suffer, and the odiousness of their male colleagues, the bottom line with The Apartment is that no one (bar maybe Clifford Odets with Sweet Smell Of Success) wrote dialogue as smart, incisive and witty as Wilder and Diamond, and The Apartment is the prime period of their collaboration.
How about Sheldrake trying to defend his philandering? "Ya know, you see a girl a couple of times a week, just for laughs, and right away they think you‘re gonna divorce your wife. Now I ask you, is that fair?" to which Baxter replies, "No, sir, it‘s very unfair. Especially to your wife." Of course, it‘s not just about the writing itself, it‘s that alchemical process where the right actors are handling it, and Lemmon is particularly adept at bringing it to life. MacLaine and MacMurray are no slouches either. Baxter is a nobody who works for a New York insurance company. Several of his senior executives are clued into the fact that his apartment is conveniently located for illicit liaisons. Lured by talk of promotion, he‘s bullied into lending out his keys and staying out the way - by working late and hanging around in the cold - while Dobisch (Walston), Kirkeby (Lewis) and Co take turns staying there with their mistresses. So busy is his apartment that his neighbour Dr Dreyfuss (Kruschen) takes him for a "Good time Charlie."
Baxter is stuck - he‘s a nice guy but spineless (a "schnook"), tempted by the talk of promotion. "Be a mensch," Dreyfuss tells him, "be a human being". But Baxter can‘t. He‘s in love with Fran, a lift operator, but just when he‘s in a position to go on a date with her, his boss Sheldrake hears of his apartment and wants in too. More specifically, he wants to go there with Fran, his latest bit on the side. Baxter gets his promotion and Sheldrake becomes the fifth executive with access.
The naive Fran is strung along by Sheldrake - he lies about planning to divorce his wife - but eventually she has enough. The breaking point comes when, having not bought her a Christmas present, he hands her a hundred dollar bill. The implications are clear and it proves a tragic epiphany for Fran. That same night, Baxter, in his lovelorn misery, succumbs to the advances of a lush (Holiday) only to arrive home and find Fran overdosed on sleeping pills in his bed. The good doctor next door helps revive her, believing Baxter is responsible. Will he be able to tell anyone the truth? And is there any hope for him and Fran? Can he ever be a mensch? The Apartment is a film laden with bittersweet desperation, as the nice but pathetic Baxter longs for Fran but can‘t quite stand up to his bosses. There would be no moral in the story if "Buddy" Baxter didn‘t come good in the end. However, the happy ending is a long time coming, as Wilder and Diamond wring out every last drop of humanity from Sheldrake and his grotesque comrades presenting their case about their horrendous ethics.
Wilder and Diamond, as well as providing a lot of smart laughs and a touching romance, don‘t pull any punches in their portrait of married corporate men, merrily conforming to the odious stereotypes in their infidelity and abuse of underlings.
Director Wilder and co-writer Diamond reunited with star Jack Lemmon after the three of them had worked on 1959‘s Some Like It Hot, setting sights set on something a more intense. The Apartment is defined by its scabrousness, sleaze and the sadness arising from one central character, Lemmon‘s put-upon CC Baxter, who spends most of the film looking on while his boss beds the woman he loves. That woman, Shirley MacLaine‘s Fran Kubelik, is herself the victim of exploitation by that boss, Fred MacMurray‘s amiably obnoxious Mr Sheldrake, a heartless patriarch if ever there was one.
Before getting into the nitty gritty of how much both Baxter and Fran suffer, and the odiousness of their male colleagues, the bottom line with The Apartment is that no one (bar maybe Clifford Odets with Sweet Smell Of Success) wrote dialogue as smart, incisive and witty as Wilder and Diamond, and The Apartment is the prime period of their collaboration.
How about Sheldrake trying to defend his philandering? "Ya know, you see a girl a couple of times a week, just for laughs, and right away they think you‘re gonna divorce your wife. Now I ask you, is that fair?" to which Baxter replies, "No, sir, it‘s very unfair. Especially to your wife." Of course, it‘s not just about the writing itself, it‘s that alchemical process where the right actors are handling it, and Lemmon is particularly adept at bringing it to life. MacLaine and MacMurray are no slouches either. Baxter is a nobody who works for a New York insurance company. Several of his senior executives are clued into the fact that his apartment is conveniently located for illicit liaisons. Lured by talk of promotion, he‘s bullied into lending out his keys and staying out the way - by working late and hanging around in the cold - while Dobisch (Walston), Kirkeby (Lewis) and Co take turns staying there with their mistresses. So busy is his apartment that his neighbour Dr Dreyfuss (Kruschen) takes him for a "Good time Charlie."
Baxter is stuck - he‘s a nice guy but spineless (a "schnook"), tempted by the talk of promotion. "Be a mensch," Dreyfuss tells him, "be a human being". But Baxter can‘t. He‘s in love with Fran, a lift operator, but just when he‘s in a position to go on a date with her, his boss Sheldrake hears of his apartment and wants in too. More specifically, he wants to go there with Fran, his latest bit on the side. Baxter gets his promotion and Sheldrake becomes the fifth executive with access.
The naive Fran is strung along by Sheldrake - he lies about planning to divorce his wife - but eventually she has enough. The breaking point comes when, having not bought her a Christmas present, he hands her a hundred dollar bill. The implications are clear and it proves a tragic epiphany for Fran. That same night, Baxter, in his lovelorn misery, succumbs to the advances of a lush (Holiday) only to arrive home and find Fran overdosed on sleeping pills in his bed. The good doctor next door helps revive her, believing Baxter is responsible. Will he be able to tell anyone the truth? And is there any hope for him and Fran? Can he ever be a mensch? The Apartment is a film laden with bittersweet desperation, as the nice but pathetic Baxter longs for Fran but can‘t quite stand up to his bosses. There would be no moral in the story if "Buddy" Baxter didn‘t come good in the end. However, the happy ending is a long time coming, as Wilder and Diamond wring out every last drop of humanity from Sheldrake and his grotesque comrades presenting their case about their horrendous ethics.
Wilder and Diamond, as well as providing a lot of smart laughs and a touching romance, don‘t pull any punches in their portrait of married corporate men, merrily conforming to the odious stereotypes in their infidelity and abuse of underlings.