The end of "Rosemary's Baby"
Robby805
in the end. I mean I sit for over two hours, somehow foolishly hoping for
Rosemary to kill someone in the end or something, yet everyone lives and
absolutely nothing
is resolved... Does anyone else feel the same way???
John Harkness
No
John
Thomas Benton
jsch...@my-dejanews.com
Nope. Me neither. Robby--there is a resolution: it's worse than Rosemary
thought, and the bad guys win. That's what's so horrible. Whaddya know...a
horror film that actually relies on horror, rather than violence and gore.
JSC
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mack twamley
Thomas Benton wrote in message <35efc7d...@news.mindspring.com>...
>John Harkness <j...@netcom.ca> wrote:
>
>>Robby805 wrote:
>>>
>>> I have just got through watching "Rosemary's Baby" and I felt totally
cheated
>>> in the end. I mean I sit for over two hours, somehow foolishly hoping
for
>>> Rosemary to kill someone in the end or something, yet everyone lives and
>>> absolutely nothing
>>> is resolved... Does anyone else feel the same way???
>>
>>No
>>
>>John
>
>
>Not me.
baby, would have been strictly formula. This ending, with her giving in to
the cult because there's nothing else to do is more satisfying (but
frustrating) to me. You can sense her frustration along with her
resignation.
Russ Walter
>
> In article <35efc7d...@news.mindspring.com>,
> tomb...@mindspring.com wrote:
> >
> > >Robby805 wrote:
>>>>I have just got through watching "Rosemary's Baby" and I felt >>>>totally cheated in the end. I mean I sit for over two hours, >>>>somehow foolishly hoping for Rosemary to kill someone in the end or >>>>something, yet everyone lives and absolutely nothing is resolved... >>>> Does anyone else feel the same way???
> > >
> > >No
> > >John
> >
> > Not me.
>
> JSC
>
Well, ONE columnist-possibly Nora Ephron or Ellen Willis-was also mad
and disappointed when the movie first came out. I suppose that was
mainly because she would never have reacted the way Rosemary did-as any
of their readers knows well. Yes, it would have been formulaic for the
movie to have ended slasher-style, but as it is, it implies that
Rosemary really is nothing more than the naive passive waif she's
behaved like all along, so it's difficult to see it as "horrifying".
Maybe if it were made today, a good subtle horror director (now who
meets that criteria?) could write an alternative ending.
Lenona.
FrMerrin
>
>
>In article <35efc7d...@news.mindspring.com>,
> tomb...@mindspring.com wrote:
>> John Harkness <j...@netcom.ca> wrote:
>>
>> >Robby805 wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I have just got through watching "Rosemary's Baby" and I felt totally
>cheated
>> >> in the end. I mean I sit for over two hours, somehow foolishly hoping
>for
>> >> Rosemary to kill someone in the end or something, yet everyone lives and
>> >> absolutely nothing
>> >> is resolved... Does anyone else feel the same way???
>> >
>> >No
>> >
>> >John
>>
>> Not me.
>
>Nope. Me neither. Robby--there is a resolution: it's worse than Rosemary
>thought, and the bad guys win. That's what's so horrible. Whaddya
know...a
>horror film that actually relies on horror, rather than violence and gore.
>
I love the fact that, as my wife pointed out to me, all the way through the
film, Rosemary's feelings and paranoia are not unusual for a woman going
through a difficult pregnancy. It is the knife edge of whether she is imagining
the evil or whether it is real that makes the film a masterpiece. Just look at
all those scenes where we can only see or hear HALF of what is going on. Sheer
directoral class !!!
Mike
________________________________________________________
Why Mr Rusk, you're not wearing your tie...
_________________________________________________________
Richard
<mack...@inland.net> wrote:
> Thomas Benton wrote in message <35efc7d...@news.mindspring.com>...
> >John Harkness <j...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> >
> >>Robby805 wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I have just got through watching "Rosemary's Baby" and I felt totally
> cheated
> >>> in the end. I mean I sit for over two hours, somehow foolishly hoping
> for
> >>> Rosemary to kill someone in the end or something, yet everyone lives and
> >>> absolutely nothing
> >>> is resolved... Does anyone else feel the same way???
> >>
> >>No
> >>
> >>John
> >
> >
> >Not me.
> To have it end with Rosemary killing off the evil partygoers, and maybe her
> baby, would have been strictly formula. This ending, with her giving in to
> the cult because there's nothing else to do is more satisfying (but
> frustrating) to me. You can sense her frustration along with her
> resignation.
I suspect that if "Rosemary's Baby" were filmed today, the director
would be forced to tack on an artifical happy ending after it was
previewed in front of some numbskull test audience. The downbeat ending
is one of the reasons why the film is so effective. It's refreshing for
once to have a movie without a "feel good" ending.
Richard
Adam Pöltl
>
> I have just got through watching "Rosemary's Baby" and I felt totally cheated
> in the end. I mean I sit for over two hours, somehow foolishly hoping for
> Rosemary to kill someone in the end or something, yet everyone lives and
> absolutely nothing
> is resolved... Does anyone else feel the same way???
Yes,I also felt disappointed because through nearly the whole movie you
did not know whether the girl was right or simply psychotic. The end
showed that she was right,but I think it would have been more exciting
to leave the question open and let everybody decide for himself.
Adam
FilmGene
and disappointed when the movie first came out. I suppose that was
mainly because she would never have reacted the way Rosemary did-as any
of their readers knows well.>>
Have Ephron and Ellis get back to us after they have been raped by the Devil
and betrayed by their husbands and everyone around them.
Gene Stavis, School of Visual Arts - NYC
bu...@home.com
babies. Rosemary's child is horrid and repulsive, yet it is her baby
and she accepts it and its deformities.
FrMerrin wrote:
>
> In article <6sp2ns$28n$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, jsch...@my-dejanews.com writes:
>
> >
> >
> >In article <35efc7d...@news.mindspring.com>,
> > tomb...@mindspring.com wrote:
> >> John Harkness <j...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Robby805 wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> I have just got through watching "Rosemary's Baby" and I felt totally
> >cheated
> >> >> in the end. I mean I sit for over two hours, somehow foolishly hoping
> >for
> >> >> Rosemary to kill someone in the end or something, yet everyone lives and
> >> >> absolutely nothing
> >> >> is resolved... Does anyone else feel the same way???
> >> >
M. Whittier
>and disappointed when the movie first came out. I suppose that was
>mainly because she would never have reacted the way Rosemary did-as any
>movie to have ended slasher-style, but as it is, it implies that
>Rosemary really is nothing more than the naive passive waif she's
>behaved like all along, so it's difficult to see it as "horrifying".
>Maybe if it were made today, a good subtle horror director (now who
>meets that criteria?) could write an alternative ending.
>
>Lenona.
ANCIENT SPOILERS BELOW:
If you haven't seen (or read) Rosemary's Baby, think twice before reading
further...
I think the original poster expected Rosemary to lash out at, or kill the
coven members, or Guy; that would certainly have been a different (and it
seems almost unanimous, a lesser) film. As far as Rosemary's seemingly
unlikely acceptance of her son, and his 'heritage", I think both Ira
Levin and Polanski handled that aspect remarkably well, especially given
the genre's usual proclivity for glossing over motivation and character.
To fauot Polanski for a lackj of subtlety is mighty odd, given the call
for more bloodletting action.
Rosemary's Baby was a phenomenally popular best-seller in both paperback
and hardcover, prior to the film's release. I'd guess its popularity as a
novel was roughly comparable to its success as a film. And while certainly
not everyone who went to see the film had read the novel, a great many-
I'd think even the majority- had. It was one of those novels that caught
the spirit of the times so well. Guy and Rosemary were "Beautiful People";
the beginning of the Yuppie phenomenon.
In any case, the novel ends similarly to the film, with a significant
difference: we can read Rosemary's thoughts. She actually does consider
killing the child, in the novel; she intends, briefly, to hurl it out the
window. She then backslides into her Catholic upbringing, and decides
"killing is wrong", and that it's something for the Pope to decide, the
life of this child. Significantly, she belittles her own judgement in the
matter. Not because she is a "naive waif", but because she is capable of
experiencing moral ambiguity.
Rosemary refers to the baby, initially in her mind, and eventually aloud,
as "Andy", the name she had intended for a boy, all along. She also feels
deeply concerned that the coven members are essentially insane and
elderly, and generally ill-suited to care for an infant. It takes the
remarkably overbearing Lara_Louise character (played perfectly by
once-great vaudevillian actress, Patsy Kelly*) to goad Rosemary into
realizing maternal feelings for the infant; Lara_Louise is rocking the
cradle manically, and roughly.
You have to bear in mind, too, that Rosemary had previously been told that
her child had been stillborn, and that it was implied to her that that
fact was her own fault; that if she hadn't struggled, and "gone crazy",
that her child would have lived. Eventually, she became convinced that the
child had survived, and that the coven wanted possession of it primarily
to use its blood in rituals; naturally, she would feel protective. And
when she first sees the child, she asks "what have you done to his
eyes?", suggesting that she doesn't yet grasp the situation fully.
Eventually (and we're talking about the first few minutes after she
encounters the infant- especially in the film) Rosemary reasons (in her
mind) that since the child is her offspring, it's half human, and
therefore can't be "all bad." She decides that it is her function to exert
a positive influence on the child, and to eventually win his loyalty away
from the coven.
I don't understand at all how you can say that Rosemary's passivity
(passive?- she leaves her husband, loses her best friend and father
figure, spends the second half of the movie pregnant, on the lam, and this
after being raped by the Prince of Darkness) makes the film's ending less
harrowing. We've actually seen that Rosemary has an indomitable, almost
ruthless quality (it's the casting against type that is what makes the
'waifish' Mia Farrow so perfect in the part). That, combined with her
"maternal instincts", and even a queasy sort of pride (a room full of
powerful people exhorting her firstborn as an eventual Messiah of sorts)
all add up neatly in Levin's ending. The film is a remarkably adept and
faithful adaptation of Levin's novel; I'm not sure how Rosemary's interior
monologue could have found its way into the final scenes, effectively. I
actually prefer Polanski's ambiguous ending to Levin's virtual voice-over
narration.
That she might accept the child and join the coven would seem to me,
pretty horrible. Far more chilling than if she had butchered the lot on
Minnie's new rug.
I can certainly understand how younger viewers, brought up on slasher
fare, might find the movie dull, and not understand how shocking it was in
its time. As a child, I picked up the paperback from my mother's
nightstand, and randomly opening it, glimpsed "God is dead! God is dead
AND SATAN LIVES!" I looked askance at my (suburban, Catholic) mom for
_months_, wondering just what sort of person she really was.
Anyway, if bookending the film with Mia Farrow softly crooning a gothic,
chilling take on a lullaby doesn't give you chills, then you don't know
from subtle.
Michael
-mwit...@minn.net
fyns...@webtv.net
I'm sure we'll get in the dreaded remake. If Rosemary's acceptance of
her son isn't horrifying (given that her son is the son of the Devil and
therefore the devil is going to be alive and well and wreaking havoc all
over the place) then I don't know what WOULD be horrifying. Or did you
just want the "release" of having the bad guys get their comeuppance?
BTW, whoever said the film is a faithful adaptation of Levin's
masterpiece is not giving enough credit - it's the best book to film
adaptation in the history of movies. Perfect. It IS the book down to
the smallest details, including wardrobe. Virtually almost every line
of dialogue is taken directly from the book, and details of the film
which I have always thought peculiar to Polanski, like the weird guy
drilling the peephole when Ro and Guy first go to see the apartment, are
all right there in the book. Levin has said that because it was
Polanski's first American film, he didn't know he was allowed to change
anything when he was adapting it.
Matthew Patton
logical conclusion, namely that if baby Woodhouse is the anti-christ, then
the end times must be near. Unfortunately, this film can embrace the
concept of the devil, but not God . . .
Richard wrote in message ...
>In article <6sp1ma$b2c$1...@supernews.com>, "mack twamley"
><mack...@inland.net> wrote:
>
>> Thomas Benton wrote in message <35efc7d...@news.mindspring.com>...
>> >
>> >>Robby805 wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> I have just got through watching "Rosemary's Baby" and I felt totally
>> cheated
>> >>> in the end. I mean I sit for over two hours, somehow foolishly
hoping
>> for
>> >>> Rosemary to kill someone in the end or something, yet everyone lives
and
>> >>> absolutely nothing
>> >>> is resolved... Does anyone else feel the same way???
>> >>
>> >>No
>> >>
>> >>John
>> >
>> >
>> >Not me.
BillyBond
>Unfortunately, this film can embrace the
>concept of the devil, but not God .
But that's actually the reason Ira Levin wrote the novel in the first place:
what would be the consequences, he thought, if the "God is Dead" idea that was
batting around at the time were >true<? It would be time for the Anti-christ.
God is present in the film by his absence, as it were.
Bill Warren
Henrik Larsen
<199809060122...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
I'm not a religious person myself, but if I understand the Bible
correct, the coming of Antichrist doesn't mean God is dead, but that
Armageddon is near. In which God is supposed to win.
-Henrik
BillyBond
>I'm not a religious person myself, but if I understand the Bible
>correct, the coming of Antichrist doesn't mean God is dead, but that
>Armageddon is near. In which God is supposed to win.
I'm not concerned with the Bible here; I am merely trying to point out why Ira
Levin wrote ROSEMARY'S BABY.
Bill Warren
Tansal
book and the film. Having not read the book, I found the comments
concerning the ending enlightening. Now I would like to speak for my
generation (I was born in 1979) on the matter of subtlety:
I think it all boils down to sensitivity of emotions, or rather the
ability to let go of oneself to feel emotions. I know a lot of kids
who when watching films never let themselves get into it for fear that
if they did they might lose control over their emotions and no longer
be cool amongst their peers. I could be absolutely wrong, but this is
the impression I get from them. For example, I was watching Paths Of
Glory, the ending of which I find quite emotional (I won't say how,
just in case some haven't seen it) in a film class. The class size
was about 60 or 70, and maybe a dozen kids were actually feeling it.
The rest were laughing. Laughing! I couldn't believe it. I
interpret that as a distancing of oneself from one's own emotions.
It's much to scary to actually feel the horror of what happens to
Rosemary than to watch it from a distance and not get satisfied
because you don't get the cheap thrill you would from a massacre.
Just my two cents.
-- Tansal
My e-mail address is as follows: the first two letters of my name;
numbers two, three, eight; the at symbol; the initials of new york
university; a period or dot; the first three letters of education.
jsch...@my-dejanews.com
tan...@aol.com wrote:
> Thank you very much, Michael, for that wonderful comparison of the
> book and the film. Having not read the book, I found the comments
> concerning the ending enlightening. Now I would like to speak for my
> generation (I was born in 1979) on the matter of subtlety:
>
> I think it all boils down to sensitivity of emotions, or rather the
> ability to let go of oneself to feel emotions. I know a lot of kids
> who when watching films never let themselves get into it for fear that
> if they did they might lose control over their emotions and no longer
> be cool amongst their peers. I could be absolutely wrong, but this is
> the impression I get from them. For example, I was watching Paths Of
> Glory, the ending of which I find quite emotional (I won't say how,
> just in case some haven't seen it) in a film class. The class size
> was about 60 or 70, and maybe a dozen kids were actually feeling it.
> The rest were laughing. Laughing! I couldn't believe it. I
> interpret that as a distancing of oneself from one's own emotions.
> It's much to scary to actually feel the horror of what happens to
> Rosemary than to watch it from a distance and not get satisfied
> because you don't get the cheap thrill you would from a massacre.
>
> Just my two cents.
>
> -- Tansal
>
Quite well put; I think you've hit the nail on the head. I recently watched
Psycho with my kids (who've seen it) and their friends (who hadn't); all aged
14-16. One of the friends laughed out loud at the climax. Perhaps her
reaction would've been different if her friends hadn't been around.
Leonardo Dasso
mwit...@minn.net (M. Whittier) wrote:
> In article <35F030...@gis.net>, p...@gis.net wrote:
> >Lenona (Assistant to Russ Walter) speaking.
> >
> >Well, ONE columnist-possibly Nora Ephron or Ellen Willis-was also mad
> >and disappointed when the movie first came out. I suppose that was
> >mainly because she would never have reacted the way Rosemary did-as any
> >of their readers knows well. Yes, it would have been formulaic for the
> >movie to have ended slasher-style, but as it is, it implies that
> >Rosemary really is nothing more than the naive passive waif she's
> >behaved like all along, so it's difficult to see it as "horrifying".
> >Maybe if it were made today, a good subtle horror director (now who
> >meets that criteria?) could write an alternative ending.
> >
> >Lenona.
>
Ray Bradbury wrote a short story, many years ago, that he proposed as an
alternative ending for Rosemary's baby, which he found unsatisfactory. If
memory serves, in Bradbury's story Mia Farrow ran away carrying the baby and
entered a church; there she walked up to the altar and said: 'Lord, please
take back your son' or something like that. Bradbury explained that this
ending would bring up the idea that the devil is also god's creation and the
devil's child came ultimately from god, an idea often forgotten. I thought it
was an interesting alternative to the original ending.
leo
Jeff Williams
<6soal9$tut$1...@news01.btx.dtag.de>...
>Robby805 wrote:
>>
>> I have just got through watching "Rosemary's Baby" and I felt totally
cheated
>> in the end. I mean I sit for over two hours, somehow foolishly hoping
for
>> Rosemary to kill someone in the end or something, yet everyone lives and
>> absolutely nothing
>> is resolved... Does anyone else feel the same way???
>
>did not know whether the girl was right or simply psychotic. The end
>showed that she was right,but I think it would have been more exciting
>to leave the question open and let everybody decide for himself.
Ack, I know this reply was written over a week ago but jeeze, FINALLY
someone agrees with me! I have been preaching this viewpoint to all my
friends ever since I first saw this film, and even among those whose
opinions I generally respect, I have never been able to convince anybody
that this would have been a more effective ending.
Several posts back someone replied that having Rosemary go around killing
everybody would have been formulaic - I thought the ending as it was filmed
was formulaic. If anyone has seen Polanski's other horror films - Repulsion
and The Tenant to be specific - he generally does not go for such an obvious
and superficial ending. All three of those films have a similar thread
running through them in that they all appear initially to be about someone
living in a cramped city apartment that's apparently slowly losing their
mind (the person, not the apartment). In Repulsion Catherine Deneuve really
DOES lose her mind, in The Tenant the ending is left almost totally open
ended. It's only in the American-filmed Rosemary's Baby that the terror
becomes fully externalized, and it's that externalization that I see as
formulaic - that's the type of horror almost all American horror movies are
based on, whereas Polanski is a master of INTERNAL psychological horror,
something almost no other director even attempts, and that's what I find so
satisfying about those other two films. It somehow just renders all of the
psychological buildup meaningless when you find out that Rosemary's really
actually RIGHT. It also turns Cassevettes' character from a complex shadowy
character whose motivations we don't really know into a one-dimensional evil
liar. I just don't find that very interesting.
// Jeff Williams
// jeff-w...@NOSPAMbigfoot.com
// http://www.geocities.com/soho/2024
// To send email remove "NOSPAM" from the address.
Kolaga Xiuhtecuhtli
maternal urge into a horror. All those voices are a
perverse baby shower. (or whatever party one gives after
the birth where everyone says nice things to the mother
and about the baby).
---
Remove the characters SPAMMENOT to reply via e-mail
golgo13
>A friend of mine felt the film's ending was a parable of the
>thalidomide babies.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What's that?
Kolaga Xiuhtecuhtli
Thalidomide was a minor tranquilizer -- sort of a Valium --
but a different chemical family. Women who took Thalidomide
during pregnancy (first trimester?) gave birth to babies
who had horrific birth defects like no arms and no legs.
This happened in Europe. The USDA or whatever US agency
approves drugs was still on hold with Thalidomide. This
disaster made the US agency look like they had the American
public's interests at heart rather than the pharmaceutical
companies'.
Of course, we still don't know about the "Viagra babies"...
TPGambale
The end of the film is perfect. All of this intellectual posturing sounds to me
like the typical American response when the end of a film does not include
enough "shoot 'em up, cut 'em up and blow 'em up. To all those who have
difficulty with the climax of "Rosmary's Baby" , might I suggest something more
like .... say ... "Urban Legends". Whew............ Too many film students
brought up on Wes Craven !
Jeff Williams
Ummm, no. Maybe I missed the reponses you're referencing here, but my
criticism of the ending of Rosemary's Baby came as someone who was brought
up on Polanski's horror films *before* Rosemary's Baby (Repulsion and The
Tenant). The ending of RB has more in common with any of Wes Craven's films
than Polanski's previous ones - it's a literal ending that leaves nothing to
the imagination.
kotiansh...@gmail.com
Stephen DeMay
> I have just got through watching "Rosemary's Baby" and I felt totally cheated
> in the end. I mean I sit for over two hours, somehow foolishly hoping for
> Rosemary to kill someone in the end or something, yet everyone lives and
> absolutely nothing
> is resolved... Does anyone else feel the same way???