Rosemary's Baby (film)

Rosemary's Baby (in Latin America, El bebé de Rosemary; in Spain, The Devil's Baby) is a 1968 American dramatic horror film. Written and directed by Roman Polański and based on the novel of the same name by Ira Levin. It stars Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans and Ralph Bellamy. The film tells the story of a pregnant woman who suspects that an evil sect wants to take her baby to use in her rituals.

The film garnered near-universal acclaim from film critics, winning numerous nominations and awards. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Ruth Gordon), and Polański earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

It is listed as #9 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Thriller Movies. In 2014, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress of the United States and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Plot

Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) is a young housewife who is married to stage actor Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes). The couple settles in an apartment in the Bramford House, an old apartment building in New York. The apartment has a somewhat sordid legend due to the sinister reputations of some former residents.

Rosemary is a young and cheerful woman, she likes to be devoted to her home, she longs to have a baby with Guy, who for his part, wants to achieve stardom. Due to accidental circumstances, the Woodhouses become friends with Roman Castevet (Sidney Blackmer) and Minnie Castevet (Ruth Gordon), an elderly couple who live on the same floor of the building, and who become a kind of surrogate parents for the young couple.. Rosemary befriends Terri Gionoffrio (Victoria Vetri), a young neighbor who wears a necklace with some kind of root that the Castevets gave her after welcoming her into their house.

Guy and Rosemary, returning home one night, are surprised to see a huge commotion of people and the police. Apparently, Terri has jumped out of the Castevets' apartment and committed suicide. Minnie and Roman arrive very scared, but Rosemary comforts them by telling them that Terri talked a lot about them before she killed herself. Roman and Minnie invite Rosemary and Guy to dinner. Guy seems to have managed to develop a great friendship with the couple, but Rosemary doesn't trust them as much. The Castevets give them Terri's necklace, telling them that her scent comes from a root called Tanis.

Before long, Guy lands a role in a play in which he had previously been turned down, after the actor who was to appear mysteriously and inexplicably goes blind. Guy and Rosemary agree to have the much-desired child, and plan the ideal date for her to become pregnant. That night, Rosemary has a horrifying and bizarre dream, in which she finds herself in the room, surrounded by the tenants of the building (including the Castevets), all naked saying strange words, and that a creature, Satan (Clay Tanner), he is violating her strongly and hurting her. The scene continues to such an extent that Rosemary starts screaming that it's not a dream, but she passes out as the creature continues to rape her.

When she wakes up, Guy apologizes for "making love to her while she was unconscious," and she discovers that she is pregnant. Her friend Elise (Emmaline Henry) recommends Dr. Hill, but the Castevets intervene and recommend Dr. Abraham Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy), who gives her a juice he claims is better than the usual vitamins. During the first three months of her pregnancy, Rosemary suffers severe abdominal pain, develops a taste for raw meat and chicken liver, and loses a lot of weight. The doctor tells her that her pains will go away and that she continues to consume the drink. Hutch (Maurice Evans), a friend of Rosemary's, sees Minnie adding the strange "Tanis root" to Rosemary's juice, and it annoys him a lot, so he decides to investigate what's going on.

However, on the same day that Hutch plans to share his findings with Rosemary, she mysteriously falls into a coma a few hours before the meeting and passes away three months later. However, a few days before her death, Hutch briefly regains consciousness and, taking advantage of this, gives instructions to another friend, Grace Cardiff, giving her a book on witchcraft and a message that Grace gives to Rosemary at the funeral: "The name It's an anagram."

With this and the book, Rosemary discovers that Roman Castevet is actually Steven Marcato, the son of a previous tenant, Adrian Marcato, who was accused of witchcraft and later murdered. She deduces that they plan to use her baby for a strange cult and that Guy cooperated with them to sabotage the actor and his career to take off. She then learns that Dr. Sapirstein is part of the conspiracy, and that they murdered Hutch so she wouldn't rat them out. Rosemary shares her problems with Dr. Hill, and Dr. Hill thinks he's delusional, so she calls Sapirstein and Guy. They tell Rosemary that if she cooperates, neither she nor the baby will be harmed. The two men take Rosemary to her apartment, where she goes into labor. Waking her up, she is told that the baby has died, but she hears crying in the building.

Rosemary discovers a secret door and enters the Castevets' apartment, where they are gathered in front of a baby (whose face is hidden). Seeing this, she demands to know the cause of the deformity, but she quickly discovers that the entity that raped her was actually Satan, that it was not a dream, and she is horrified. Roman calms her down and tells her to give the child a mother and that she and Guy don't have to join the cult if they don't want to. The film ends with Rosemary tucking the child in and slowly rocking the cradle.

Cast

Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes, the protagonists of the film

Production

In Rosemary's Baby: A Retrospective, a bonus feature on the film's DVD, writer-director Roman Polanski and Paramount Pictures executive producer Robert Evans, along with designer production manager Richard Sylbert recall some details about the production. House, the writer's publisher, will publish the novel. Since Paramount officials had recognized the commercial potential of a possible adaptation, they soon agreed that William Castle, who had an excellent reputation as a producer of low-budget horror films, could produce, though not direct, the adaptation of the film. movie.

At that time Robert Evans, who already knew and admired Roman Polanski's European films, was confident that he could convince him to get involved in the project, and with it make his debut in his first production for American cinema. Roman Polanski soon received from Robert Evans a rough first version of the script for Rosemary's Baby and was fascinated. So much so, that he read the original novel in one night. The next morning he called Robert Evans and told him that this script was a very interesting project for his debut as a filmmaker in the United States, and that he would not only like to direct it, but also participate in writing the final script.

In his reading of the novel, Roman Polanski envisioned the main character, Rosemary, as a physically and mentally robust girl, but also normal and ordinary, neither pretty nor ugly. For this he thought that the role of her could be interpreted at first by the actress Tuesday Weld. But Robert Evans had his doubts about it, since the book had not yet reached the best seller position. Evans was not confident that the film's title alone would guarantee public attention, and thought that another, better-known actress was needed for that. With supporting roles in films like Guns at Batasi and the then not yet released A Dandy in Aspic it didn't seem like Mia Farrow had a great filmography, but her role as Allison MacKenzie on the television series Peyton Place, as well as her recent marriage to Frank Sinatra made her an interesting actress for the role, according to Evans. Despite her puny and crestfallen appearance, Polanski eventually gave him a testimonial of her. Unfortunately, accepting this role caused a lot of problems in Mia Farrow's marriage. Frank Sinatra, who demanded that his wife give up her career when they got married, was the first to protest, eventually asking for a divorce in the middle of the film and in front of the entire film crew. Mia Farrow, in an attempt to To save her marriage, she pleaded with producer Robert Evans to terminate her contract. However, he convinced her to continue with the project when she showed him footage from the film not yet edited. After seeing it, she Mia Farrow decided to continue, because Evans assured her that with this film she would get the Oscar nomination for best leading actress, which never happened.

Robert Redford was the first choice to play the role of Guy Housewood, Rosemary's husband, but for some reason, he turned down the role. Jack Nicholson was soon considered, but eventually Polanski's criteria prevailed and John Cassavetes was chosen.

Production designer Richard Sylbert was the first to pitch Ruth Gordon for the role of Minnie Castevet, the nosy neighbor. Now all that remained was to locate all the characters in the building where the action took place: the fictitious Bramford building. Sylbert thought that using the Dakota building would be a good idea. This building, located in the upper part of the Westside, in Manhattan, New York, was famous for the number of people linked to the world of entertainment who lived in it. But the building was already earning its notoriety as a trouble spot: The owners refused permission for filming inside, and Polanski was dissatisfied with the degree of darkness and gloom in its lobbies and hallways. At the time, the building was only used for exterior shots that fictionally reflected Bramford House.

On the other hand, Polanski wanted to hire old Hollywood stars for coven members, but he didn't know any personally. For the coven he drew sketches of how he had envisioned each character, and it was finally the chosen actors themselves who had to finish creating their roles. In each case, the chosen actor physically resembled Polanski's drawings; these were Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Elisha Cock Jr, Phil Leeds, and Hopes Summers.

Mia Farrow had to wear a wig for practically the first half of the footage, and it wasn't until later, when she was already wearing her fictitious pregnancy, that she could be seen with her authentic hairstyle, the one that she herself announces as the latest fashion by Vidal Sasson. As a counterpart to this, the American actress also experienced very bitter moments during filming. One of the most emotionally charged scenes in the film was the one in which, in the middle of a party held in her apartment, her friends throw Guy, her husband, out of the kitchen while trying to comfort her because of Rosemary's traumatic pregnancy.. Said scene was shot in a single day, but just after filming the first take of the scene, a courier broke into the filming set, bringing with it all the documentation regarding Mia Farrow's divorce sent by Frank Sinatra. When the actress read the documents she burst into tears on the kitchen floor, just as Rosemary's character plays her telling her friends how strangely bad she feels about her pregnancy. Alarmed, Polanski wanted to suspend the filming of that scene for that day and concentrate on others that did not involve the presence of the actress. But Farrow, in a fit of professionalism, pleaded with the director to continue with the original work plan, and the scene was completed without further ado.

Polanski did not want "Rosemary's baby" to appear at any time, because that way, and rightly so, it would be more scary to imagine. But the others convinced him to "always show the monster", so, much to his regret, Polanski added, at the end of the tape, a shot of yellow eyes looking at the camera.

Sequel and new version

In 1976, a telefilm titled Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby was released in the United States in which some characters from the original novel by Ira Levin were retaken. Although Mia Farrow was not involved in the production, her character was played by actress Patty Duke, and Ruth Gordon reprized the role of the nosy neighbor, the eccentric Minnie Castevet.

In January 2014, NBC launched a self-titled miniseries starring Zoe Saldana as Rosemary. The miniseries was filmed in Paris under the direction of Agnieszka Holland.