I Am All Minisode: Henry’s Movie Review (S1, E1) — “Rosemary's Baby"

and we're gonna be discussing Rosemary's Baby. And uh, let me tell you a little bit about this film. Rosemary's Baby adapted from the novel by Eye eleven UH. Adapted for the screen UH by Roman Polanski, also directed by the Great Roman Polanski, produced by Paramount Pictures UH and Robert Evans was at the Helm at that time. He also shepherded The Godfather onto the screen as well. If I Am not mistaken, UM, William Castle producer, Donna Holloway

associate producer. The music by was music by Christoph Komada UH, cinematography by the Great William Freaker, also Sam Osteen and Bob Wyman editing two Giants. Uh. Production designed by Richard Silbert, Art direction by Joel Schiller, set direction by George R. Nelson. Costume designed by and THEA. Silbert. In the makeup department was vidall Sassoon, That Videla Sassunias Allan Snyder, Sherry Wilson,

and Sydney Grilof. I believe that's the pronunciation anyway it is starring let me get to that, Mia Farrow, John Cassavetti's, Ruth Gordon, Sydney Blackmyre, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Victoria Vetry Um Charles Grodin appears in the film. Philip Leeds, Hope Summers, Mary Ann Gordon, and Wendy Wagner, A many, many, many and many others. Uh So we're gonna bring in Henry.

We're gonna talk about Rosemary's Baby, which was a groundbreaking film in terms of its ability to unleash psychological horror onto an audience, and it became a very big film, blockbuster film um and inspired the likes of the Exorcist and other films that dealt in in in realism and in horror realism and thriller realism. UM so we're gonna bring Henry an. We're gonna talk about this episode, and I can't wait to dig into it. Henry, why don't you kick it off and tell us a little bit

about Rosemary's Baby? Awesome? Thank you, Scott. Yes, my name is Henry Markin. I'm a senior at Indiana University and I love movies. Yes. In episode one of The Gilmore Girls, in the midpoint of the show, when Rory first meets Dean uh In, Deana is you know, of course hovering over her items are just scattered. It's a yard sale in the hallway. Rory's just says, God, you're just like Ruth Gordon standing there with a tennis root make a noise, and Dean says, Rosemary's baby. His first words in the

show is Rosemary's baby. And that is of course the n Roman Polanski thriller about witches and satanic beliefs just an ultimate cult classic throughout the centuries. Previous one and this current one still has a rippling effect today on the genre of thriller and horror. Uh, Scott loves the movie. I I liked it, I didn't I liked it. I think I didn't love it. Because it really just scared the hell out of me, just because of just how freaky it was and just what was really going on.

And it's too real. It's too real. It was too real. It's too freaking real. Man. It didn't let you breathe because it could happen to you or someone you loved. And that's what was so psychl It was psychologically terrifying. The filmmakers did and give you any room to breathe. Nothing you were You were trapped inside that that world. That's how gifted a filmmaker. Polanski is um anyway, So

let's kick it off. What are your thoughts? All right, I'm gonna give a plot summary, and I'm gonna be as brief as I can, but I gotta hit all the major notes that happened, so bear with me. In short, a woman named Rosemary and her husband Guy move into a new apartment and right away everything is just whack. The neighbors are weird as hell. A woman in the building jumps out a window and kills herself, and Rosemary can hear chance each night, like some twisted group prayer,

that something is being summoned. But of course her husband Guy says don't worry about it. Just play the course, sweetheart. Everything will be just fine. Guy then says, let's start a family and raise some kids. Well. The next night, one of the weird neighbors played by Ruth Gordon, the very actress Rory from The Gilmore Girls, refers to when she first meets Dean. Uh gives her a drink and some food that was poisoned with something vile, and Rosemary

consumes it and passes out that night. Guy is insistent on conceiving a child that night, and so he has sex with her regardless even though she was out like a light. Guy does it um. And by the way, he wakes up feeling just like a champion, like like everything is great. Um. And she's like that was really weird. What was that? And Guy says, you know, it's not me, it's you. You must have dreamt too much that night. It's your fault. You need to settle down. That's you know,

red flag one. But she's Rosemary is like, okay, whatever, her pregnancy is going really wrong. She's losing weight, not gaining weight. She impulsively eats rom meat. She's a mess, and she's worried. But everyone in her life says, Oh no, everything's just fine. You're just crazy, You're just pregnant. You need to relax, And this includes her husband, her friends,

her neighbors, and her doctor. Well, on the night she's giving birth, she discovers that everyone in her life I just mentioned are all a part of a secret Satanic which soci id where Rosemary was chosen to give birth to Satan's child. She learns this after her husband and doctor tell her that the baby died in childbirth and that's why she can't see it. But of course she

finds out that the baby is alive. She hears a child cry, she locates it and escapes the custody she's in, and she sees that the baby is half human, half devil hidden in the secret society. She wasn't crazy at all. As far as the movie, I liked it, I didn't love it. You know. It's probably because of how the movie made me so uncomfortable. It's really twisted and dark and creepy. But of course you can maybe say that

was a strength of the movie. Anyway you feel about it, it's indubitably a cult classic and continues to have a rippling effect on the thriller genre and cinema as a whole today. That's that's the theme that was definitely touched on in that film about the oppression of women and the total the controlling of women and the loss of control that women had over the own bodies, over their

own choices, their lives. The constant criticism from John Cassavetti, her husband, the constant browbeating, the you know, the doctor Saberstein telling her not to read books. You don't want

to read books. I mean, it was it was very very salem Me witch trial kind of stuff, uh, being sort of perpetrated by the witches themselves on this poor woman and a very you know, a very innocent looking, sort of girl ish, baby ish looking Mia Pharaoh, who at the time was married to Frank Sinatra Um who was and she was under a tremendous amount of pressure, uh to leave that filming because he wanted her to do this the detective film, the Something Detective that he

was doing out in Hollywood, and she was flying back and forth in New York to work on Rosemary's Baby, and he just he divorced her over it. Um. Yeah, And and anyways, it's a movie about the young couple who moves into the Dakota and New York and h she is manipulated by all of these witches who live who are neighbors and who had led by Ruth gordon Um and even her own husband's manipulated because he makes a deal with the devil at these people saying like

you know, because he's a frustrated actor. His characters are prest like, well, we're going to give you a big, big career if you go along with us, because we need to impregnate your wife with we need to have Satan impregnant your wife so that she can give birth

to Satan's child. That's the film, and it's terrifying. Yeah, essentially, like I mean, as you said, the husband guy, John Caspaty's character, he he gets the role of the lifetime because the other guy, the next guy in line, who got the park, goes blind, you know, cannot cannot see, cannot act, and he's like, oh, I got the part, and he feels super crummy about it because he knows that we may deal with the devil and mean and Pharaoh's characters like, oh my god, you did it, congrats.

You no idea that he's just part of this coven of witches, right, yeah, And it's just it's just it's it's horrifying. It's horrifying because Polanski shot it in a style that's known as uh god, what is it called? Me mean as sense, which is this sort of continuous shot. It's there's no, no, not a lot of cutting. You know, there's it's not a montage style of filmmaking where there's cuts cuts, cuts, and there's time ellipses and all this

kind of thing. It's just like you know, you sort of like see the see the characters work and walk through the scene. There's you know, it's mainly from me a pharaoh's point of view. You're either seeing what she's seeing or you're seeing a close up of her face. Um. So it really uh and it does play on these themes of u of of the oppressed woman who's completely controlled by her husband and demeaned and completely controlled by

these this coven of witches. And it's you know, and it's scar and that was the psychological terror that the audience felt because she was so bound up, and she was so confused, and she was so deceived, and she was so sweet and so baby like, and they just completely controlled everything she did or said, or you know, couldn't read the whole thing, so not to mention when she was raped by her husband to get the baby impregnated.

You know, like they're they're talking about, hey, let's have a kid, and it's like, you know, we're gonna do it, let's do it tonight. She passes out from the drink that she has and then her husband essentially it rapes her and and that's the kind of start of this, like this down I was like, wait what and then he and then he justifies it by like, hey, you know, I was really hot to trot and you know, maybe I had an nail you know, I hadn't I hadn't

cut my nails and maybe had some jagged nails. And I'm sorry for the scratches on your back, and you know, but it was a great night for me. And I'm gonna go brush my teeth. You know. Yeah, it was super that that part was just super weird because he said, She's like, why couldn't we have done it? You know, in the morning, he's like, I was just loaded that night,

Jesus um. And it's also interesting how she started out with longer hair with a little more color in her face and a little more um, sort of girlish wardrobe. And then as the film went on, you know, she cut her hair. You know, it's about Vadalla Sassoon did it. It's in style now, and it's just like this very boyish haircut made her almost look a little bit masculine.

And the clothing changed and she became you know, and the and the makeup was more pale, so she was more washed out and um, and everyone kept saying how bad she looked. They kept right. So they removed her femininity completely. They removed her independence, they removed her freedom. Um, they imprisoned her. And Rosemary's Baby had a huge impact. UM. When it was released, it did very opened. The opening weekend for Rosemary's Baby was better than anything Paramount I'd

seen in years. And then it went on to be a huge block blockbuster because it was such you know, it was a type of a psychological horror film that hadn't been done before, at least not in the United States, or it hadn't been done that well by such a gifted artist, uh As Polanski, such a uh and coming from the Ira eleven novel, you know, Polansky said that he didn't really need to write or rewrite a story to suit a screenplay. It was all in the book, right.

So the first I think the first draft of screenplay he he wrote was two u or fifty some odd pages, which is twice as long as you want it, but they had to cut it down to a hundred and ten pages or something like that. But um, it was just a master stroke of psychological terror. And it was the first time that had happened in an English language film.

But yeah, it had a big impact and it went on to be a blockbuster film and it inspired The Exorcist, and it was you know, it was the type of a psychological thriller that made the audience feel like this could really happen. It was realism. It was filming realism. This could happen. Definitely, like a lot of horror films, you see that that's that's scary as hell, but that couldn't possibly happen. This was in the realm of possibility because they didn't show the monster, They didn't show any

of that stuff. I mean, you saw some eyes right a little bit, um, but you never really saw the baby. And Polansky himself said that that would have been a colossal error to show the baby. Um. Um, you know, Polanski is an interesting background. I mean he survived the Holocaust. His father and mother were taken away as mother died in the camps and they were in crack All, Poland,

and it became a ghetto. And uh, the father survived and uh you know, yeah, I think I think I think Roman was taken in by neighbors and he survived. He moved to Paris, he went to film school, you know, and it was just like this awful time. He was born in thirty three, I think it was. Um, so he had this really horrible childhood. I mean it was just filled with just angst and and and you know, he put her on film. He became he became a great,

great director of our times. And no matter what you think about him personally, and I know there's a case against him and uh in California and uh, but I mean we're talking about his his ability to make films, his ability as a writer, as a screenwriter and a director. Um. And I mean, even watch something you know what you should watch? You should you should watch The ghost Writer. Um.

I actually fired a manager. Uh, I don't know. Ten years ago, because when I saw The Ghostwriter, I was so impressed, and I didn't know who directed it, but I was captivated from the first image and I love Whowan McGregor, and I watched the entire film and it was it was just I mean, the actors and and every scene was just perfectly shot and had the look of the film and the field of film and the build of the of the suspense and the build and the build and the build and the mystery and the

suspense and the terror and the whole thing. And it was just about a guy rewriting UH of replacing a writer on uh Prime Minister ex Prime Ministers of England's autobiography. Oh that's with Pierce Brosnan, right correct. Brilliant film, brilliant film, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. And I was talking about it my manager and she said at the time and she says, that's terrible film. And I thought, boy, I can't have this person. Imagine have no taste. They have no taste. We mean The Ghostwriters,

the terrible film. It's a brilliant film, um made by a guy who understands film. One of the few people that really understands film. And the and the power of film. Um but Pulaski is a giant. I mean, he's just

an absolute giant in the world. Um uh. And but anyway, so yeah, I mean that's that's the power of the film as it builds over time and and it keeps you in the moment, it keeps you in her p o V. And it and it there's not a lot of cutting back and forth and scenes, you know, it's just like, oh my god, I mean, what a perfect It's a perfect film. And it did inspire The Exorcist

and it and the power of the Exorcist. The true horror in that film is because the audience is it's so relatable, because the audience is so terrified that the mother the loss of love between a mother and a daughter, and that's really what it is. It's like, I'm losing my daughter to the devil, and that's the pain and the horror for her. That's that's that comes out at the audience, and that's what really hooks people. It's about people. It's not about blood or stunts or crazy stuff. It's

about the connections between people, the love between people. And that's what Rosemary's Baby had. Buddy I enjoyed it. Can't wait for the next one. Thank you, Appreciate you. We're gonna be we're gonna we're gonna be doing these we're gonna be doing these films. All right, I'm in, I'm in, i'm in.