Roman Polanski’s first American film (the second part of his apartment trilogy, including Repulsion and The Tenant), Rosemary’s Baby, is arguably one of three (George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho being the others), cinematic works of horror which catapulted the genre into its modern period. By setting the film in present day society and lacing it with a quagmire of ambiguity, the director creates an atmosphere of dread reminiscent of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man as we are lead through a labyrinth of emotions via Mia Farrow’s character as Ruth Gordon delivers her Academy Award-winning performance as a nosy neighbor who may or may not be a Satanist.
Guy (John Cassavetes) and Rosemary (Mia Farrow) Woodhouse move into the Bradford complex in Manhattan. When Terry Gionoffrio (Victoria Vetri), who was living with the Woodhouse’s elderly neighbors, Roman (Sidney Blackmer) and Minnie (Ruth Gordon) Castevet, dies a mysterious death after having a brief conversation with Rosemary, the Castevets quickly befriend the newcomers as Roman takes Guy into his confidence. Shortly thereafter, Guy’s career as an actor begins to rise after a leading actor, Donald Baumgart (Tony Curtis), is suddenly struck blind. Rosemary begins to get suspicious of her husband’s relationship with the Castevets, especially after she becomes pregnant and is told by both Guy and the Castevets to leave her current obstetrician for one Abraham Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy). Her apprehension is seconded by her friends, whom she intentionally calls upon due to their lack of exposure to the Castevets’ influence, when it is brought to her attention that perhaps those around her are not concerned for her and her child. Her paranoia becomes paramount when her friend, Edward “Hutch” Hutchins (Maurice Evans), slips into a coma and dies after making a dinner date with her subsequent to his stating over the telephone that he had urgent news which must be delivered in person. She is then brought a book on witchcraft from her late friend which outlines stunning similarities to the Bradford and especially Roman. However, Guy quickly proves that Rosemary’s suspicions are unfounded prior to her child being stillborn. Or is it?
Roman Polanski did several monumental things for horror by making this classic of the genre. Not only does he posit the protagonist as the outsider (a role traditionally held for the antagonist), but he sets his film in normative, everyday society, thus bringing the terror that much closer to home. However, his masterstroke, aside from his cunning use of humor, is the manner in which he presents the figure of Rosemary as the audience uses her as an emotional and cognitive litmus throughout. The film’s effectiveness prompted a barrage of child-based horror films in the successive years, most notable of which is William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive, and Richard Donner’s The Omen.
The film is heralded, and rightfully so, for issuing a staunch metaphor for the trials and tribulations of pregnancy. We watch as Rosemary is plagued with anxiety, pain, and uncertainty for the duration of her nine months. Her milieu is compounded by the fact that her husband is largely absent for most of the period atop the fact that those whom Rosemary is familiar with in her new setting seem untrustworthy. This is the means by which Polanski achieves his psychological ends. He gives us a character register in the figure of Rosemary by which the viewer has no other reliable source of reference in which to doubt the character’s misgivings. Thus, we are dependent upon Rosemary’s judgment for the duration of the film. At no point can we doubt Rosemary’s decisions and notions, no less refute them.
Not only is Rosemary isolated from everyone around her but the visceral nature of her situation is all too real in that, even if the viewer has not experienced pregnancy or been around anyone who has, we can all identify with being lost in alien territory without hope of aide or assistance and, most importantly, a second set of eyes by which to validate our mindset. (Thus, the film’s ambiguity isn’t solely hinged upon Rosemary’s “pre-partum crazies” as Guy puts it put, but is paralleled by the foreign environment.) As we watch Rosemary’s perspectives, which are deeply dependent upon her conservative Omaha upbringing, shift and change, the audience becomes aware, not only of the easy sway which the paranoid mind can cast and interpret events, but the viewers are forced to consent that we too were guilty of rash, immature judgments. Once again, this makes the climax stunning, not only for the lead character, but for the audience as well, as we are pulled into and become accessories to the fact as Rosemary contends with and is forced to decide upon her new predicament as it has recently presented itself.
What I like most about the film is the gullibility which is evoked by Polanski via the humor of the various situations. Even though we, and Rosemary, become apprehensive of the Castevets, we cannot help but smile at the good-natured Roman as he openly criticizes the Pope and laugh at Minnie’s flippant attitude. This is perhaps the impetus behind much of the violent reaction to the film in that Polanski reminds us that factions which are not socially agreeable are nonetheless comprised of real, even humanistic, individuals, i.e. George Sluizer’s The Vanishing. The comedy becomes twofold once we realize all of our misgivings were unfounded as we then willingly revel in the characters’ eccentricities. We quickly forget the coincidental nature of Sapirstein having instructed Rosemary to go to Minnie for herbal shakes in place of vitamins, that the Castevets had hid all of their pictures in their apartment before having the Woodhouses over as well as the fact that Rosemary is due on the sixth month of 1966, and the hilarity evoked when Rosemary attempted to decipher the anagram “All of them witches” as she produced “elf shot lame witch.” How else can we reconcile our doubt amid the paradoxical absurdity of having overtly jovial Satanists engulfing a film?
I do have some minor quibbles with the film in that Farrow’s character is a tad too reminiscent of Catherine Deneuve’s character Carole Ledoux in Polanski’s Repulsion. However, I applaud Polanski’s decision to cast the actress in that, visibly, her stature and frame readily adapts to the changes demanded of the role throughout. Also, though essential to the “slow burn” nature of the suspense, the work seems a bit overlong right before the climax. Furthermore, though set in contemporary society, the visual look of the film is excessively dated (I have trouble justifying the film’s meaning being largely depended and reflective of the time period), whereas other filmmakers who have similarly set their films in modern times have scurried around such expiratory constraints.
Trivia tidbits: 1) During the filming of Rosemary’s Baby, Mia Farrow received her divorce papers from Frank Sinatra. 2) Alfred Hitchcock was slated to direct the film at one time. 3) Polanski offered the role of Guy to Warren Beatty before turning down Jack Nicholson. 4) Famed horror director William Castle was allowed to produce the film on the agreement that he wouldn’t direct. 5) Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by Charles Manson’s followers in what was dubbed the “Helter Skelter” incident, a title lifted from a song by John Lennon, who would be murdered in the same apartment complex in which Rosemary’s Baby was filmed.
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