Streaming Availability: Rental
Note: I have to start with an acknowledgement of director Roman Polanski's actions. The temperature around this man has shifted radically within our lifetimes. He won Best Director only twenty years ago, and as of ten years ago was releasing major motion pictures without controversy. In a Post-Harvey Weinstein era, Polanski's history is not something to laugh about or push under a rug. This issue all the more unavoidable considering Rosemary's Baby is a film about a young woman being manipulated, drugged, and raped - violated in every possible way. In spite of the film's sympathy towards its title character and being in her POV in every scene, Polanski seemingly learned nothing from it. He was been found guilty of those very same acts in 1977 - to a 13-year-old girl. And thanks to a lot of loyalty from his home country of France, he's served no jail time and suffered no punishment besides a few wagged fingers. He's got a movie out on the festival circuit right now. Maybe he is one of the greatest directors of the 20th century, Rosemary's Baby is probably his single best film, his most important film. But also this needs to be said: fuck Roman as a person.
Rosemary's Baby brought demons into the modern world. Most horror films involving the supernatural before this were set back in Old Europe. The devil was a ridiculous superstition of another era, he simply did not belong in the Sixties, in New York City, in a world with cars and televisions and pixie cuts. The demons almost never appear on camera, instead evil is represented by a semi-competent gang of elderly witches. That Rosemary (Mia Farrow) is the unwitting mother of the Antichrist is a huge unavoidable spoiler. (Btw, SPOILERS: Rosemary's baby is the Antichrist.) Until then, at worst she imagines the conspiracy is some crazy people trying to kill her unborn baby, not overthrow God. But no, Satan is back. He can live in a world with Yamaha commercials, and he'll thrive here.
Even if the demonic elements were removed, Rosemary's Baby would be one of the best movies ever made about the confusion, uncertainty, and even isolation of pregnancy. A healthy equal couple will find themselves split in some way by the reality of human reproduction. The father can be there for the mother, but ultimately the mother has to carry the child alone. In the case of Rosemary's Baby, Rosemary finds herself in very unhealthy relationship with a consummate liar, expert manipulator, and all-around shitbag, Guy (John Cassavetes, another great director of the 20th century). Every step of the way Rosemary's reality is made murky, from the pregnancy's inception, to the severity of her complications, to who or what is inside her. She seems to have no family she's close to, rapidly loses connection with her friend circle in New York, and finally is left with nobody she can trust. Who would listen to a hormonal pregnant women talking conspiracies and witchcraft?
The script is absolutely brilliant here. I love the use of repetition in Rosemary's Baby to make the stated claim less and less convincing every time we hear it. Rosemary rattles off Guy's resume several times as if his career is going great. "He was in 'Luther' and 'Nobody Loves an Albatross' and a lot of television plays and commercials." But the reality is he's desperate enough to sell her body out for a few choice roles. Her doctor and neighbors keep gaslighting Rosemary by claiming that her weight loss and pain are no big deal, "She has lost some weight, but that's quite normal - later she'll gain, probably too much.". Guy's various lies are actually extremely clever, especially claiming her scratches from demonic rape are just too rough sex from the night before. But all of it is helped by Rosemary's rather sympathetic wish that she's not a burden to anybody, that her problems aren't that bad, that this all will work out. When the time comes to strike back, she has impressive strength and a deep well of sarcasm.
Turns out, no, despite Rosemary's courage to believe all is fine, this is all cursed. Rosemary and Guy's apartment in Central Park West is probably itself enough for somebody to sell their soul for. Hell, the housing market these days is so horrible not even Satan himself could get you a place in Hackensack, NJ.
Another interesting, curious, element to Rosemary's Baby is the Jewish undercurrent. The only religious issue that is mentioned is Rosemary's lapsed Catholicism, so the Pope's visit to NYC in 1965 is a recurring issue. But Polanski is a Holocaust survivor, and Ira Levin, who wrote the 1967 novel this film was based on, is also Jewish. Most importantly, I don't know how you can read the performances of the older overbearing neighbors, Minnie and Roman Castevet (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer) as anything other than deeply Semitic-coded. If I didn't know women just like Minnie in real life I'd call her a stereotype. Plus there's a character named Dr. Abraham Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy). It does make me uncomfortable since these Jewish-flavored people are shabby, nosy, unflattering, especially when contrasted against the pure skinny beautiful Christian victim played by Mia Farrow. Worse, these Jews actually do control everything, it's all the worst Anti-Semitic conspiracy garbage come to life on screen.
Not really sure what to do with all of this. Moving on.
In terms of horror, Rosemary's Baby is an immensely successful film. Most of the paranoia grows simply due to the isolation we feel in our surroundings. We spend so much time in Rosemary's apartment on sound stages around four people that it becomes, shocking once the camera finally goes on location to the outside to see 1960s crowds and cars in Manhattan. You feel what Rosemary feels, the first breath of fresh air in months. There's also a delirious and terrifying sequence set in Rosemary's dreams during her rape by Satan, where her mind floats off to the Kennedys and the Pope while a beast violates her. "This is no dream! This is actually happening!" One of the brilliant bits of restraint in Rosemary's Baby is that we only ever see the Devil's paws and brief glimpses of his eyes. We see even less of the titular newborn, only a superimposition of its eyes half visible over a shot of Mia Farrow reacting to it. "Guy's eyes are normal!"
Mia Farrow's performance is so good, her line reads are immortal. I've seen this movie almost ten times and she's better each time I see it. Even her haircut is iconic - though I kinda agree with Guy that it looks awful...
Rosemary's Baby will pushed open the door that would later be kicked down for good by films like The Exorcist and The Omen. However, of those, Rosemary's Baby might be the single most-respected film in the canon of demons. It's more than just schlock and spooks, it's a really important feminist film... made by a rapist. (What a world.) Rosemary's Baby has never disappeared from the conversation, it's always high on lists of greatest horror movies, and probably belongs on lists of greatest movies agnostic of genre.
There even was a bit of a franchise. There was a direct TV Movie sequel in 1976 called Look What's Happened
to Rosemary's Baby, that's little-remembered and little-loved. Ira Levin wrote a sequel novel that has not been adapted. There's
an alternate sequel that made up part of the horror anthology film XX
from 2017. There was a 2014 NBC miniseries remake, also
little-remembered and little-loved. Finally, there's an upcoming prequel
called Apartment 7A, which will probably release next year. That's a solid cultural footprint for a movie getting close to being sixty-years-old.
Next Time! Curiosity is winning out here. How about that sequel, how bad could it be? Let's jump slightly out of chronological order and see Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby.
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