Rosemary Woodhouse: "I dreamed someone was raping me. I think it was someone inhuman."
Guy Woodhouse: "Thanks a lot."
(I have to say this: Woody Allen you fucked up son!)
Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" is known as perhaps the finest example of the "pre partum crazies". But the viewer need not be pregnant to experience the gnawing sense of an infinitely horrifying billowing black sail at the edge of perception. It is a horror movie of the first order. Often in horror movies, and suspense movies as well, the characters are subsidiary to the plot. Characters and objects become schemata. "Rosemary's Baby" feels like people are actually experiencing these things, no doubt due to the gradually diminshing chaste performance of Mia Farrow, the acerbic perfomance of Ruth Gordon(who won an Academy Award),and the tightly wound direction of Roman Polanski.
Polanski and the crew seemed to understand the true nature of horror: It is not when something terrible happens to us out of nowhere, but rather when we have a festering sense of doom,and still remain powerless to it's inevitable arrival.
"Rosemary's Baby" tells the story of an attractive Manhattan couple, Rosemary(Mia Farrow) and Guy(John Cassavetes. Yes, that John Cassavetes) who move into The Dakota(a mysterious apartment complex, one that John Lennon would be shot in a year later). Guy is a struggling actor, to say the least, and the film provides one the funniest critiques of the commercial industry in which he toils:
"Mr. Nicklas:Are you a doctor?
Rosemary Woodhouse:He is an actor.
Mr. Nicklas:Oh! An actor! We're very popular with actors! Have I seen you in anything?
Guy Woodhouse:Well, I did "Hamlet" a while back, didn't I, Liz? Then we did "The Sandpiper"...
Rosemary Woodhouse:He's joking. He was in "Luther" and "Nobody Loves an Albatross" and a lot of TV plays and commercials.
Mr. Nicklas:That's where the money is, right? The commercials.
Guy Woodhouse:And the artistic thrill too!"
Guy's extreme discontent with his modest success leads him to strike up an accord with a pair of eccentric neighbors:Minnie and Roman Castevet. A bit intrusive, but seen as altogether innocent, Rosemary gradually lets her guard down. She and Guy, who had been previously hoping to conceive, try again one night. The night they have sex, Minnie brings over individual ramekins of chocolate mousse, which Rosemary famously notes has a "chalky undertaste". She soons falls into a deep haze,and has a strange dream that she is raped by a demonic presence. A few weeks later, Rosemary discovers she is pregnant.
This all occurs about halfway into the movie, at best. You know where this is going. I won't spoil the ending, but suffice it to say, it may not have been a dream. "Rosemary's Baby" is not a groundbreaking horror story by any standards. It is essentially a B story, transformed into a A+ movie because of Polanski's meticulous direction. I mean, this is not the most believable horror story ever created. In fact, it seems like it'd be damn near impossible to pull off. It probably would in the hands of any other director. "Rosemary's Baby" is probably the one horror story that is most dependent on restrained direction and genuine performances. And, cot damn, the pieces actually fell brilliantly into place.
The ultimate trade awaited it's ultimate practitioner. The evil depicted in Guy's and the other's hearts were in men long before "Rosemary's Baby" was written, and perhaps the recognition of it's omnipresence is the most horrifying thing. The ultimate trade awaited it's ultimate victim, in the form of the heartbreakingly pure Rosemary. But,on a brighter note, sometimes our acceptance of how random everything is leads to miracles, in this case, the alignment of this particular cast/director with this particular film. In any event,the film and it's chaotic backstory are representative of how much in our lives is truly driven by chance,and even if granted the perception that it is titling one way or the other, there is little we can do.When the lambs is lost in the mountain, sometime come the mother. Sometime the wolf.
(Trailer is turrible btw. Just rent the movie.)
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