It was true when I said it yesterday and it's true when I say it now: I've got Rosemary's Baby on my mind, y'all. My relationship with that movie has evolved a lot over the years; the first time I watched it, I did so expressly because it'd been dubbed, you know, one of the scariest all time movies, don't watch it alone, you're gonna pop your cork and never sleep again! I was a slasher-happy teenager at the time and "scary" was my absolute standard for whether or not I'd enjoy a movie. (Other, lesser standards of mine from that era: "has cuties," "is gross," "is cool.")
Needless to say, Rosemary and I didn't jive. It wasn't the kind of scary I was into back then, and frankly I couldn't see what all the fuss was all about. I didn't bother with it for years.
But our tastes change as we age, no? Most of the time they do, I think. You start to notice differences: maybe your tastes have hair where they never had hair before. Maybe your tastes aren't the sweet little tastes you remember...instead they're volatile and given to tell you that they hate you as they stomp into their bedroom and slam the door.
The point is, slashers are no longer my be all-end all horror movies, and what I consider "scary" these days isn't as limited as it was (not to mention, horror movies don't have to be scary for me to enjoy them).
All this to say that Rosemary and I very much jive now. The entire film is the very definition of indelible, so choosing one shot or moment has proven a challenge. But this one, I think, is my current winner:
Rosemary walks into the lair of the witches in search of her child and...it's so banal. So civilized. She's got that knife raised, ready for (another) fight, but it seems that she's walked into the middle of a regular cocktail party gathering. well-to-do older folks engage in conversation, hardly any of them paying her any mind. For a moment, we might think that Rosemary is off her rocker, after all...but after darting around the screen, our eyes finally settle on that bassinet; it's gone unnoticed despite being center frame because there's simply so much else to see.
I love that for all their urbane mundanity, their blending in to normal society, the Satanists can't help but go full goth with their choice in baby furniture. Only the blackest, most extravagant crib will do for the Son of Satan!
A great scene in a great film. -- I think Rosemary's Baby is pretty much perfect, I don't think there's anything I don't like about it. That's a good observation about that blacker than black bassinet -- whoever was the art director on this film should have received an Oscar -- it wasn't even nominated! At least Ruth Gordon was shown some love for her work.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite line from the movie is in this scene! Rosemary says to Roman, who lied to her about being out of the country, "Be quiet, you're in Dubrovnik, I can't hear you!"
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