TV and Movies

[Baylie]

I saw it when I was a teenager. I am almost 70 and I still hate thinking about it!!!

[MarnieRez3]

@SilleeMee

My friend, you held steady to the firm throughout this entire thread...all alone sometimes...and you were correct, Polanski intentionally never showed ANY image of the baby. The scene is studied in film schools for its mastery.

It is FASCINATING to me the number of people who THINK they SAW the baby, or the baby's eyes...

I HATE to give credit to Polanski, who is still in exile for a horrendous crime, but his directing strategy worked perfectly. Our imaginations made up for NOT seeing the baby by filling in with an image of what we THOUGHT the newborn would look like.

It's what we don't see that is scarier than actual reality. Our imaginations are powerful places!

[CatsyCline]

ok now you guys got me going.  i read the book in HS before seeing the movie years and years later. also liked Stepford Wives, another Ira Levin novel.

In the book i am not 100% ... i think Rosemary bends over the cradle and sees tiny cloven hoofs replacing her baby's hand and tiny yellow eyes.

in the movie there is a quick flash to red the devil eyes as Rosemary recoils in horror.

[MarnieRez3]

@CatsyCline

Oh yes, Ira Levin...he also wrote A Kiss Before Dying. I had forgotten he also wrote The Stepford Wives!

I have never read Rosemary's Baby...the movie scared the heck out of me. Pretty sure the book would put me over the edge!

[CatsyCline]

@MarnieRez3    i found a book summary online  most reviews only say Polanski was ambiguous with the ending:

. After Rosemary delivered her baby, she was told it had not survived.  She instinctively goes looking for it following it's cries...and sees the cradle is in the Castevets’ apartmen. She looks in and sees that the infant has yellow eyes, hoofs instead of hands and a tail.  When the clan says why not be a mother to your baby, even as her terror escalates she relents and agrees and they let her change the baby's name to Andrew.

(paraphrased)

[SilleeMee]

---

@MarnieRez3 wrote:
@SilleeMee

My friend, you held steady to the firm throughout this entire thread...all alone sometimes...and you were correct, Polanski intentionally never showed ANY image of the baby. The scene is studied in film schools for its mastery.

It is FASCINATING to me the number of people who THINK they SAW the baby, or the baby's eyes...

I HATE to give credit to Polanski, who is still in exile for a horrendous crime, but his directing strategy worked perfectly. Our imaginations made up for NOT seeing the baby by filling in with an image of what we THOUGHT the newborn would look like.

It's what we don't see that is scarier than actual reality. Our imaginations are powerful places!

---

You said that so well! I couldn't have said it any better. @MarnieRez3 

While reading this thread all along, I kept thinking to myself about how powerful the imagination can be and that it can make us believe something that never happened in all actually. Crime investigators have often taken eyewitness accounts with caution...and for good reasons, as what was seen in this thread so clearly.

[MarnieRez3]

@SilleeMee
Thanks, friend. YOU are the master of psychological analysis and inquiry, so that's truly a supreme compliment.
SUCH a good point...eyewitness testimony is often worthless in court. This thread has been SO psychologically interesting.
First, we are debating whether the baby was shown, then, for those who swore the baby was shown, there's disagreements about the color of the baby's eyes! Fabulous!
It's also great because Rosemary's Baby is one of those movies that many of us saw in our most formative years, when images and scenes - especially frightening ones - stick like glue to our young brains.
In a lot of ways, this movie really plays upon the natural fears most every first-time mother has...will my baby be healthy, am I eating the right things, do I trust my doctor, etc.

To me, the most terrifying scene in the movie is when Rosemary discovers her own ob-gyn is a member of the coven. The image of Mia Farrow in those empire waisted baby doll dresses frantically wandering around NYC, trying to find a pay phone or get someone to listen to her is sooo scary. She realizes she can trust absolutely no one. I remember that scene as absolutely terrifying.

[SilleeMee]

Thank you for the compliment! @MarnieRez3 

[MarnieRez3]

@CatsyCline
Wow! I now want to go back and read the novel! Quite a find...I never knew she changed the baby's name to Andrew...
And it sounds like from what you are quoting, that in the book Rosemary DOES get to see the baby!

[CatsyCline]

The street scene with Rosemary walking into traffic was not improvised. she really did walk into the street with cars nearly hitting her. The crew freaked a bit and made sure Polanski was holding the camera.

One of the producers plays the guy with the cigar at the phone booth.

John Cassavetes was  already a director of some independent films and as an actor playing Guy wanted to improvise the dialogue - Polanski refused to allow  this becuase he was all precision in his directing and exacting in following the script. The two clashed quite often