Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Written and directed by Roman Polanski
Featuring critically acclaimed performances by Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon
Written and directed by Roman Polanski
Featuring critically acclaimed performances by Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon
Roger Ebert's review of the film upon its release sums up many points explaining the film's success. If I can pick the most outstanding, he makes fitting comparisons to Hitchcock. However, he uses Hitchcock to illustrate a suspense-film tradition in which the plot rules the characters, which he compares to Rosemary's Baby, where the characters transcend the plot. I definitely agree that the film's success lies in the strong characters, credit for which is shared by Polanski and the film's principle players Farrow and Gordon. I also think that the film engages in another Hitchcock tradition, right from the start: that of suggestion, which manifests itself in big and small ways, and is key to Polanski's talent.
The glimpses we get of small stories happening not just in the lives of the main characters, but in each moment of the film's world, is a noticeable use of suspense in the Hitchcock tradition. what Hitchcock was good at was suggesting to us any number of stories that we could follow with our imagination even as the principle action of the film was happening (Rear Window, need I say more?). He suggested them with nuances in the interactions between people, and in the mis-en-scene of each situation. Polanski does this from the beginning of the film... most memorably, in the exchange between Roman (Rosemary's husband, played by Sidney Blackmer) and the people he and Rosemary meet as they walk to the apartment viewing. Just as the main characters are strong, so are the incidental ones, and that goes a long way in preserving the unfolding intrigue of the film.
Polanski walks a good line between giving us enough to tell the story, but not so much as to spoil our dreading curiosity. The story is not one of plot points as much as it is a portrayal of the characters' journeys after arriving in a new context, one which throws each of them out into extremes that we follow and even predict, but with aforementioned dread.
For this reason, the ending was necessary as an affirmation of our dread, but the real content of the movie was not the end but the end in the making.
The glimpses we get of small stories happening not just in the lives of the main characters, but in each moment of the film's world, is a noticeable use of suspense in the Hitchcock tradition. what Hitchcock was good at was suggesting to us any number of stories that we could follow with our imagination even as the principle action of the film was happening (Rear Window, need I say more?). He suggested them with nuances in the interactions between people, and in the mis-en-scene of each situation. Polanski does this from the beginning of the film... most memorably, in the exchange between Roman (Rosemary's husband, played by Sidney Blackmer) and the people he and Rosemary meet as they walk to the apartment viewing. Just as the main characters are strong, so are the incidental ones, and that goes a long way in preserving the unfolding intrigue of the film.
Polanski walks a good line between giving us enough to tell the story, but not so much as to spoil our dreading curiosity. The story is not one of plot points as much as it is a portrayal of the characters' journeys after arriving in a new context, one which throws each of them out into extremes that we follow and even predict, but with aforementioned dread.
For this reason, the ending was necessary as an affirmation of our dread, but the real content of the movie was not the end but the end in the making.
