Rosemary’s Baby

For most women, pregnancy is a joyous time.  All sweet Rosemary wants is a healthy baby in a happy home.  For a while, that seems like a dream coming more true every passing day.  However, she starts to become suspicious of her husband, the helpful neighbors and even her doctor.  Could they all be behind some sinister plot to use her baby, or is it all in her head?

We first meet Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) as they are looking for an apartment.  What they find would be perfect for them and the family they hope to have, but it has a sorted past.  Tales of a man who conjured the devil and sisters who ate children resonate with the building.  No worry to Guy and Rosemary, it’s just silly rumors, right?  They quickly make the apartment their own cozy home and Guy’s acting career begins to take off.

Their neighbors are very friendly.  Rosemary first meets Terry (Victoria Vetri), a young woman about her age that stays with an older couple.  We think we are seeing the start of a great friendship, until Terry jumps from the building and leaves a gruesome splatter on the sidewalk.  This is how Rosemary meets Minnie (Ruth Gordon) and Roman (Sidney Blackmer), whom the woman lived with.  Partly out of pity for their loss, Rosemary spends more time than she would like to with Minnie.  She is very thoughtful, even bringing over desserts for the young couple. When Minnie and Roman hear news of Rosemary’s pregnancy, they are more helpful than Rosemary feels comfortable with.

Soon, it seems that Rosemary’s pregnancy is in everyone’s hands, except hers.  Minnie and Roman insist on her only going to the best doctor, even making the appointment for her.  Every day they give her a mysterious drink, to help the baby.  The new doctor seems to be no help when it comes to abnormal pains that plague poor Rosemary.  The only reasonable friends Rosemary has are her young girlfriends and Hutch (Maurice Evans), but she doesn’t get to talk to them much, as if people were trying to keep them away.  I don’t blame Rosemary for cutting off all her hair, it seems to be the only thing she can control.

While Rosemary’s Baby is remembered primarily as a horror film, it also had some Oscar recognition.  Based off of Ira Levin’s novel, Roman Polanski was nominated for best adapted screenplay.  In fact, he stayed very true to the book, not realizing he could take liberties with.  And Ruth Gordon won for best supporting actress.  I really loved the way she can be so kind, helpful and doting while maintaining a slight menace under all that makeup.

Most film fans already know the big horrific ending to Rosemary’s Baby.  I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but the pieces are easy to put together, especially after that creepy dream.  This was the first time I had seen the film, and I was well aware of the ending.  However, it did not spoil my enjoyment at all.  In fact, I found that last scene much creepier than I expected I would.  This film doesn’t rely on that big surprise, the whole film is a wonderful experience in growing paranoia.  Roman Polanski can always make things feel wonderfully uncanny and Rosemary’s Baby is his beautiful contribution to horror.

“We’re your friends, Rosemary.  There’s nothing to be scared about.  Honest and truly there isn’t!”

Chinatown

The role of a private investigator is to snoop.  To get down into the muck and find out the dirty truth.  That’s exactly what JJ ‘Jake’ Gittes (Jack Nicholson) does in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown.  It is 1937 in Los Angeles and Jake is a private detective specializing in cases of adultery.  When a Mrs. Mulwray hires him to see if her husband, Hollis (Darrell Zwerling), is having an affair, the wheels are slowly set in motion for Jake to uncover a huge conspiracy with the city’s water management, corrupt land use, incest and murder.

Hollis Mulwray is the chief engineer at the city’s water department, and currently in high profile while Los Angeles is experiencing a drought.  Jake’s investigation finds Hollis dealing with business and visiting the ocean for hours.  The man seems to have water on the brain.  Then Hollis is found dead, very odd for a man to die of drowning during a drought.  Could it be murder?

Through a tip, Jake learns that water is being dumped somewhere every night.  As he investigates, a man warns him to keep his nose out of their business by slicing Jake’s nose.  The giant gauze bandage Nicholson sports for the next while is an unforgettable image of the film.

Then there’s the issue of Mrs. Mulwray.  It seems that the woman who hired Jake was an impostor and the real Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) wants Jake to drop the investigation on Hollis.  But between the possibility of a murder, something fishy going on with the water and falling in love with Evelyn, Jake is in too deep to go back now.  Soon he’s drug Evelyn even further into the mess and realizes she has been keeping some dark secrets.

To me, Chinatown can feel like a cousin to classic film noir.  There is a mix of crime, corruption, and Jake first thrown into this by a deceitful woman.  Thing is, Jake has the look, but not the archetype personality for noir.  For that, he would need to be gruffer, meaner and have more dirt on his hands.  For the most part, his conscious is clear, just a Private Eye doing his job.  He is simply not hard nosed enough, otherwise it wouldn’t have sliced so easily right?  Nicholson is good at going over the top, but he’s relatively calm in this role.  He’s just the soft spoken guy who finds himself in the middle of the maze with no control.  The one time Jake really turns into a hard-nosed tough guy is when he slaps the truth out of Evelyn, and that just ends in a whole new level of secrecy that he should have never uncovered.

Chinatown is a classic that can be enjoyed time after time.  The plot is very smart and thrilling enough that I still find new pieces and clues along the way in my multiple viewings.  Between the mysteries being revealed along the way, the suspense and the exciting scenes that make this film a thriller, the only reason people may not enjoy Chinatown is its bummer ending.

“Forget it, Jake.  It’s Chinatown.”

The Pianist

If you’re over the age of twelve, you’ve heard your share of holocaust stories: Anne Frank, Schindler’s List, Night is a popular junior high read.  These stories of spirit and survival in one of the darkest times in human history are all harrowing and worthy of remembrance.  Adding on to that list is The Pianist, worthy of all its praises.

The story is that of real life concert pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, who lived in Warsaw, Poland as Nazi Germany swept through Europe.  As hardships intensify, from not being allowed in the park or coffee shops to being relocated to the ghetto, Szpilman (Adrian Brody) keeps a passively positive attitude.  Through old friends from the radio station, he tries to pull some strings hoping to get his family out before its too late.

Throughout the film, we never see, or hardly hear about concentration camps, yet the horrors of Nazi Germany are just as present.  Without any violence in the ghetto, people lie dead in the streets from illness or starvation.  Brick walls are hastily build, trapping the Jews in the ghetto and children found tunneling underneath are beaten to death on the spot.  While waiting for hours for a train to take them away, Szpilman’s family listens to a woman wail non stop because she smothered her baby in an attempt to stay hidden from the Nazis. 

Brody’s depiction of Szpilman is astounding, moving and worth of his Oscar.  He’s a quiet artist, passive, sensible and never makes a fuss, qualities that probably help him in such dire circumstances.  There’s a sense of sadness and loss about him that only deepens as the film progresses and Szpilman grows weaker.  For the role, Brody lost over thirty pounds and looks like a sickly skeleton in an over sized suit.

At a later point in the film,Szpilman is discovered and asked to play a piano to prove he’s really a pianist.  After a long moment of tense hesitation, Szpilman plays for his life.  There’s a somber sense about him, knowing this song may be his last and he plays his heart out.  It can be seen in his breath against the cold that he cherishes this moment and can only hope to live.  It’s more moving and beautiful that I imagined, I could only pray that his humanity would let him be spared.

Onto more technical notes, Roman Polanski’s vision is wonderfully rendered though some excellent cinematography.  So many films set in European cities feel so confined, it’s all gray streets flanked by ugly buildings.  Not many promising shots.  But when Szpilman is hiding out, locked in an apartment, his only view is out the window, and that’s the view the camera shows us.  We get a view down to the street, where a lot of startling action takes place.  In one apartment, Szpilman is able to see one of the ghetto walls, and each side is fighting.  Later, when he’s taken refuge in a hospital, his only safe window is a small break in fogged glass over a toilet, but he’s still able to see plenty going on.

It is understandable that many people just don’t want to see another holocaust film, they’re depressing, I agree.  For some, The Pianist is the holocaust film to see, others would prefer Schindler’s List.  How do you know which to choose?  The Pianist is for those who want to see a one man survival through Warsaw, the struggles there and no depictions of concentration camps.  If you’d like to see one man save hundreds of Jews, horrific camp scenes and SS violence that will give you nightmares in stark black and white, then pick Schindler’s List.  An easier comparison:  Pianist is to Schindler as Monet is to Van Gogh.