Rosemarys Baby by Roman Polanski - Essay Example

In the history of horror movie genre, Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is a famous representative ic horror. By describing the story that shocks by itsunusual final and overall atmosphere, film’s director Roman Polanski entered the U.S. market as a talented and famous artist. Notwithstanding these merits, the commercial success of the movie enables an assumption that its appearance was the result of successful marketing strategy. In this context, current essay discusses the role of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) in the context of both horror genre and American movie industry. After presenting the summary of movie’s plot, it defends the statement that the emergence of the film was possible because of internal transformation within Paramount Company. Thus, by being the product of this studio’s ambition to gain huge profits, it managed to bring new motifs within the horror movie genre, since it attracted creative talents of William Castle and Roman Polanski. In the very beginning, creators of Rosemary Baby (1968) introduce the audience lovely couple Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and actor Guy (John Cassavetes) Woodhouse, who are preoccupied of finding the beautiful place to live in Manhattan. In this context, the movie starts with a common routine of buying a new apartment in the company of smart and talkative agent. However, certain details like moved wardrobe with no sense, further casual talks of witchcraft between the Woodhouses and their friend Hitch, and constantly appearing warning background music make the spectators feel like the movie is about to turn into horror. Nevertheless, nothing extraordinary happens in the first fifteen minutes of plot: Rosemary and Guy show their love openly, buy the new apartment, and make friends with their neighbors. Although, the new friend immediately commits the suicide, and this fact immediately complicates the overall situation. Woodhouse couple have nothing but try to enjoy a company of their elder neighbors, Roman (Sidney Blackmer) and Minnie Castavets (Ruth Gordon). Steadily, Rosemary feels something is not right in her marriage, as Guy is more and more preoccupied with his new role and talks only to Castavets. However, the couple manage to fix their relations, after Guy suddenly has agreed on having a baby. Even though Rosemary finally got pregnant, the circumstances of impregnation and the period of gestation make it evident that this child is not a usual one. For instance, demon raped Rosemary while she was sleeping. In addition, she looks terrible, feels constant pain and loses weight at the beginning of gestation. At the same, Rosemary’s suspicion on the evil from Guy, Castevets, and her doctor Sapirstein grows, since they do not show sincere sympathy to her suffering. Finally, after an unsuccessful psychotic attempt to change her closest environment and find another doctor she reveals the secret of the whole movie: her child she thought has died is a demon. In the final scene, Rosemary finds the reason to see him as a normal baby and seems ready to be his mother. To start with, the era when Rosemary’s Baby (1968) had appeared demonstrated both the high level of interest to movie as a common type of entertainment and the structural changes in the Paramount studio (Heffernan, 2004, p. 181-182). In particular, Paramount was widely known for “its attempt to reach what had become a highly fragmented consuming public during a time of bewildering social change” (Heffernan, 2004, p. 181). In other words, the development of horror movie genre was possible within this studio, since the purpose of its activity was to work with different types of audience. In addition, this peculiarity served as a distinguishing element in the rising cinema industry with several powerful actors. In this context, constant difficulties experienced by competition with Warner, Universal, and Twentieth Century-Fox was the daily routine for Paramount from the very beginning of its development (Heffernan, 2004, p. 182). In fact, its unsuccessful strategy of saving assets led to the falling under the influence of Gulf and Western two years before Rosemary’s Baby (1968) saw the world (Heffernan, 2004, p. 181). Consequently, the cooperation with independent producer William Castle took place, since the studio wanted “to move out of programmers and into the production of more prestigious features” (Heffernan, 2004, p. 182). Moreover, Paramount’s purpose to gain popularity in European market enabled the signing the contract with Eastern European well-known director, Roman Polanski (Heffernan, 2004, p. 182). In fact, business issues served as a core motivation for conquering European market. In this context, Heffernan (2004) emphasizes on the fact that “Bluhdorn’s Gulf and Western… had the resources to turn Paramount into a “conglomerate within a conglomerate” constituting a ‘leisure core’ of theatrical film, television programs, cable television, leisure parks, music publishing, records, and theater ownership in Canada and Europe” (p. 183). Therefore, the boxing success of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) with William Castle and Roman Polanski as the key players means above all the beneficial strategic vision of Paramount Company under the new leadership, which had already proved its marketing and commercial success. In addition, the movie used the story taken from the best-seller written by Ira Levin, which also means the attempt to combine the most successful elements in the open access to coordinated activity of Paramount and Gulf and Western in 1968. And so, Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is the result of the careful choice of the ingredients in order to create a commercially successful movie. On the one hand, Paramount revealed its significant influence in the way Rosemary’s Baby (1968) was presented to public. For instance, the clues of Satan nature and witchcraft that appear constantly from the first scene of buying the new apartment fits Paramount’s “’leisure code’ of interrelated products and tie-ins that accompanied the film’s release” (Heffernan, 2004, p. 192). In this context, the core of company’s internal policy is to present rather a logical story than a unstructured compilation of beautiful images. In Rosemary’s Baby (1968), this peculiarity is visible in different cases. For instance, the starting leisure conversation with Hitch on witchcraft steadily transforms into the possession of this idea, demonstrated by both of them. Moreover, all the surroundings in the new Bramford house are marked by the variety of unknown houseplants. At the end, Rosemary realizes that all these plants certainly served to hypnotize her and everyone she knows. Hence, it is evident that Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is a narrative film, which has logical and deeply interconnected internal structure; in fact, these features help it to catch spectator’s attention and predict the extraordinary ending from the clues in the plot. On another hand, Paramount revealed its effective work during the promotion of this movie, since it had caught all the tangible elements of society in general and movie industry in particular. Heffernan (2004) described the advertising poster on the movie as the one that “condensed the gothic heroine and demon child motifs into a single image without giving away the film’s ending” (p. 190). In this context, the motif of demon children had already gained its popularity and changed for the several times long before the emergence of Rosemary’s Baby (1968). At the very beginning, it emerged due to the durable discussions of juvenile delinquency; thus, the appearance of motif “was directly connected to the fear of the contamination of children by both permissive childrearing practices and products of the culture industry” (Heffernan, 2004, p. 185). So, the exact time of such a movie to appear was not accidental, since the society was worried on the influence of cultural industry on their children. In this context, horror movies simply reflected and hyperbolized all these fears in their plots. In other words, Paramount studio had perfectly combined the core elements of the new motion picture in order to show its difference from the other horror movies during the promotion period. In fact, this advertising campaign served as another clue to the plot; hence, it worked in the same way as different details scattered within the plot. Thus, the key idea of interconnection between different components of the product appears in these examples too. In this context, the fantasy ending of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) seems as the most realistic one in the given circumstances, since all the elements of movie’s promotion and plot development work on believing in such a final. Moreover, the marketing slogan ‘Pray for Rosemary’s baby” (actually, composed in the best tradition of short-phrased slogans) played its role, since the movie got 12.3 million dollars in sales (Heffernan, 2004, p. 201). In general, all the above-mentioned efforts and circumstances on Paramount prove that Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is a typical product of American horror movie industry. As for Polanski, his style in Rosemary’s Baby (1986) in many details resembles the previous motion picture he directed for the first time in English, Repulsion (1965). In this film, Carol Ledoux (Catherine Deneuve) suffers from psychotic disorders, demonstrated by the hypnotic whispering of the song of her childhood (Heffernan, 2004, p. 187). In fact, this movie was rather innovative than commercial. In this context, Repulsion (1965) served as a background for further development of certain motifs connected with horror movie genre. After the year of 1965, Bava’s Kill, Baby, Kill (1966) and Fellini’s Histoires extraordinaires (1968) (both from Italy) had deepened such a trend by bringing “blonde curls, the girl’s giggle, the discarded doll, and the bouncing ball to terrifying effect” (Heffernan, 2004, p. 187). In the new picture, Polanski used the same narratives but in a different way. Among them, Heffernan (2004) noticed motives of connection between fantasy and reality, social awareness of woman and surrounding causes for suspicion (p. 192). Although, the main point is that in a new movie “all of the heroine’s persecution fantasies turn out to be true and even worse than she [Rosemary] expected” (Heffernan, 2004, p. 192). In addition, Polanski used the details that public traditionally associate with the horror films. Among them, Heffernan (2004) mentions “the secret behind the door, present in the passageway that links the two apartments, and the menacing direct address, seen in the feline-eyed blazing stare of the demon incubus – and echoed in Guy’s averted eyes, the blind eyes of Guy’s rival …, and the “piercing eyes” of Roman Castavet” (p. 199). In this context, even the common in its appearance scenes of buying the new apartment and talking to the doctor are traditional ones for horror genre (Heffernan, 2004, p. 199-200). Thus, it is evident that Polanski created his film using already existing tools of simulating horrific atmosphere. Nevertheless, it is relevant to state that Rosemary’s Baby (1968) had brought new vision in the context of American horror movie development. At first glance, above-mentioned emancipation of Rosemary goes beyond the traditional demonstration of women on the screen. Moreover, Polanski and Castle presented the context in an unusual way. As Heffernan (2004) noticed, “the blasphemous story line, explicit language, nudity of its female lead, and dialogue – which included discussion of menstruation, morning sickness, miscarriage, abortion, and necrophilia.” (p. 200) were unique for the 1960s. In this context, usage of common language throughout the movie is one of the key elements of these innovations; in the future, it even led to the appearance of restrictions for people of young age to watch certain movies (Heffernan, 2000, p. 200). Although, these changes emerged long time after the release of Rosemary’s Baby (1968); thus, it is irrelevant to connect these transformations directly with the film. Nevertheless, it is evident that Polanski and Castle’s appearance on Paramount was extraordinary for American horror genre industry. So, the strange features of their style with the commercial success of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) proved that the audience like them. In order to sum up, it is evident that Rosemary’s Baby (1963) is the result of calculated marketing efforts, invented in the internal environment of American movie industry. In this context, Paramount’s recent restructuration and the efforts of this company with its new stakeholder in both promotion and creating of the film prove that it used the most popular and strategically beneficial elements for this movie. In particular, the appearance of creative Castle and European Polanski served for distinguishing from the other movie companies and conquering foreign markets. Moreover, the choice of the novel and advertising campaign were based on the usage of popular horror motif of demon child in the cultural industry in late 1960s. At the same time, creative talents of Polanski and Castle used this chance in order to create the new norms within the horror movie genre. By using already prepared by himself and certain colleagues tools, they introduced the possibility of fantasy to turn into the reality, common language in language, socially aware heroine reading books, and human-like ending of accepting the demon child. Thus, it is evident that Rosemary’s Baby (1968) deserves its fame as an outstanding horror movie that attract spectators even nowadays. References: Heffernan, K., 2004. Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the American Movie Business, 1953-1968. Durham and London: Duke Up. Rosemary’s Baby. 1968. [Film]. Directed by Roman Polanski. USA: Paramount. Read More