Comments on: Rosemary’s Baby : Whimper Against the Machine

By: Film Log For The First Half of 2009 « Ruthless Culture

Film Log For The First Half of 2009 « Ruthless Culture — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:55:38 +0000

[...] Rosemary’s Baby (1968) [For Ruthless Culture] : Finally found time to watch all of this in one sitting and glad that I did. It’s actually [...]

By: Jonathan M

Jonathan M — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 11:49:52 +0000

Glad you enjoyed it Richard :-)

Here is the Cousins interview :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cLAc_lsJdE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zPf_vBjoCo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1P1YOUksIQ

I was actually struck, in rewatching Rosemary’s Baby, how it touches upon similar themes to Chinatown. How you have this morally decayed older generation manipulating the young and giving them stuff in return for allowing them to exercise power over future generations.

By: Richard Kovitch

Richard Kovitch — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:51:49 +0000

Jonathan – another excellent analysis, and one that extrapolates brilliantly quite why RB transcends the Horror genre to be just so unsettling.

To add another layer of mystery to the film, and further underline how extensive its wider preoccupations are beyond mere Satanism, Polanski tells Mark Cousins in their prickly Scene By Scene exchange (watchable on YouTube) that it is crucial the baby itself is never seen. Of course, for years audiences were convinced they had seen the baby, but power of suggestion was all Polanski actually provided, bringing the viewer even closer to the unsettled, troubled mindset of his protagonist. Her anxities about growing old, new pressures etc are our fears, societal, but here expressed via the Occult. And who of us ever really makes that journey unscathed? This, as you rightly identify, is why the film resonates so deeply.