The Apartment (Movie, 1960)

The Apartment (1960) is producer/director Billy Wilder's bittersweet, heart-rending tragi-comedy/drama of a compliant insurance clerk (Lemmon) who secretly lends out his apartment to other company executives for adulterous sexual affairs and liaisons. The plot thickens when the clerk realizes that his building's elevator operator (MacLaine) is being taken for trysts by his married boss (MacMurray) to his apartment. The sophisticated yet cynical film of the early 60s is a bleak assessment of corporate America, big business and capitalism, success, and the work ethic, when a lowly but ambitious accountant enables his climb up the corporate ladder by ingratiating himself to his superiors - he literally prostitutes his own standards and moral integrity and allows himself to be exploited. Micro elements such as cinematography and mise-en-scene can be used to create all sorts of effects and feelings within a screen play. Cinematography is the use of the camera, the shots used, the angles and distances. When combined and used effectively they can create any mood or feeling, for instance can be used to create the feeling of fear like in a horror film when a point of view shot is used as a character looks around for what is chasing them and then as they turn its stood behind them, this places you in their shoes and you feel the same fear that grips them. Mise-en-scene is the placement of everything in the shot, the objects, the people and the colours. This can be used to create different atmospheres within a scene or frame, for example in a horror film, dark colours and heavy duty, rusted machinery can create a very unsafe atmosphere one of threat and fear. I have chosen Rear Window(Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) as my film to study and the micro-elements I have chosen are Cinematography and ...