maxwellperfect
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@maxwellperfect
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Post by maxwellperfect on Apr 21, 2017 23:15:47 GMT
Enjoyed it but that neighbor couple were more annoying than scary.  |
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Post by Chalice_Of_Evil on Oct 29, 2017 6:05:30 GMT
I recorded the movie which was on TV here Monday night and I watched it over the next two nights. I’d watched it once or twice before, but I just find it such a well-made movie that it’s worth repeated viewing. I haven’t read the book it’s adapted from, but I remember when I first saw it I found it so unnerving.
So many people have already commented on things I was going to, which I’ll try to add to (sorry for being all over the place with them/addressing them out of order)...
The terror starts immediately with that haunting song over the opening credits as the camera moves over NYC and slowly zooms in on the Dakota
Yes, that song instantly sets an ‘eerie’ feel. Perfect beginning, and I always love the interesting camera movements the director uses in his movies that I’ve seen.
The movie is so well done, even though it is clearly locked into CPW, 1968? Strangely, it doesn't seem dated.
No, it doesn’t seem ‘dated’ at all, I agree. I mean, even the glimpses of the devil that we get are just enough – if they’d shown any more, it would’ve kind of ‘ruined’ things, but seeing a hand and his eyes was plenty. Nothing really stood out to me and made think, “Yeah, that was really fake-looking and obviously it was just the best the could do for the time, but it stands out like a sore thumb now.” – anyway, that’s the way I felt about it.
Also when Rosemary gets the book "All of Them Witches" and uses the Scrabble tiles to figure out that Steven Mercato and Roman Castavet are the same person always freaks me out.
Yeah, I can’t even explain why I find that moment sort of freaky – it's just Scrabble tiles spelling out a name - but I think a large part of what makes the film successful is the music. It’s just so interesting/’different’ to the typical sort of score you get in this kind of film.
Mia gave a very good performance, well modulated , letting her hysteria and out rage build so that she had something left for the last scene.
What I loved so much about her performance on rewatch was how she gets to convey pretty much the entire range of emotions/feelings. She’s the normal housewife in the beginning. She’s nice, normal and friendly. As she meets the neighbours she reacts how I think a lot of people would – she can acknowledge to her husband that they’re a bit nosy, but is still polite enough to them anyway. Then as they get more intrusive she lets her real feelings towards them show to her husband. She has a snarky/sarcastic side (which I liked. Couldn’t accuse her of being ‘boring’. She gets a few good lines in). She’s actually very polite given when Minnie and her friend show up – I wouldn’t have been that polite to people who just barge their way in, sit down and start knitting like it’s their house.
Rosemay’s also quite ‘intelligent’. I found she noticed a lot of ‘little’ things which she found odd that others may have not. The fact that she puts things together pretty much by herself shows she’s got initiative, she takes precautions, she is sneaky and does all that she can given the situation she’s in. It was hard not to sympathise/feel sorry for her, given how everyone was treating her when she was in fact right on the money the whole time. I shared her frustration with everything everyone was saying to her/how they were treating her/their dismissal of her.
I myself have no problem with ‘slow-burn’ movies, if they’re directed in such a way as to keep your interest, and I think this one certainly was. I was never ‘bored’ by it, even in the ‘slower’ moments. It just had an overall uneasy vibe to it which made it so you could never really get comfortable with the goings on.
Once things ramp up to the 'really crazy’ stuff, Mia Farrow is utterly captivating, I think (not that she wasn’t before, but I almost felt as exhausted as she looked/seemed, just from following her on her bizarre journey). It’s quite a feat – that the movie is so unsettling, but there’s nothing ‘gratuitous’ about the violence or anything. It does indeed leave things up to the imagination and is all the more scarier for it. Her husband looks particularly freaky after she’s woken up from being knocked out by all them witches. His eyes almost look unnatural at times. I’m glad they didn’t show the child – again, another example of imagination doing more than anything they showed ever could. This is how more horror movies should be done, I think, focusing on the tone and atmosphere being creepy and less about mindless violence – though that’s just my opinion, of course. There's probably lots of stuff about the movie I've forgotten to mention, but I just really enjoyed rewatching this recently.
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Post by telegonus on Nov 2, 2017 18:22:32 GMT
The similarly themed 1943 Van Lewton picture The Seventh Victim would make an interesting feature to paiir Rosemary's Baby on a double bill. Its plot is somewhat similar, and methinks Roman Polanski was familiar with it. Like the later film, it channeled its zeitgeist, America, New York, during World War II. Devil worship figures in both films. One can, somewhat simplistically, I imagine, see the "Palladists" of the Lewton film as something like Fifth Columnists doing their bit in wartime America. It's not so easy to pinpoint what the Satanists of Rosemary's Baby represent. I think that it may be the Sixties, the entire decade, in all its weirdness,--and it was a very strange time, often felt diabolical--which in turn makes it all the more frightening, as the menace is more, shall we say, amorphous. In the air, as it were, rather than something easily specificed.
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Post by petrolino on Nov 4, 2017 19:28:33 GMT
The similarly themed 1943 Van Lewton picture The Seventh Victim would make an interesting feature to paiir Rosemary's Baby on a double bill. Its plot is somewhat similar, and methinks Roman Polanski was familiar with it. Like the later film, it channeled its zeitgeist, America, New York, during World War II. Devil worship figures in both films. One can, somewhat simplistically, I imagine, see the "Palladists" of the Lewton film as something like Fifth Columnists doing their bit in wartime America. It's not so easy to pinpoint what the Satanists of Rosemary's Baby represent. I think that it may be the Sixties, the entire decade, in all its weirdness,--and it was a very strange time, often felt diabolical--which in turn makes it all the more frightening, as the menace is more, shall we say, amorphous. In the air, as it were, rather than something easily specificed. I'm convinced Roman Polanski was riffing on 'The Seventh Victim' with 'Rosemary's Baby'. Two films with dark, oppressive, paranoid atmospheres. |
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Post by Doghouse6 on Nov 4, 2017 20:17:42 GMT
I'm convinced Roman Polanski was riffing on 'The Seventh Victim' with 'Rosemary's Baby'. Two films with dark, oppressive, paranoid atmospheres. While the two indeed share thematic and atmospheric sensibilities, what's remarkable is how sparingly Polanski employs those "dark, oppressive" visual signatures: in the opening scenes of the Woodhouses' tour; the Castavets' apartment and the laundry room; portions of the "nightmare" sequence; one or two others. But as he did later with Chinatown, he skillfully heightens the sense of paranoia by counterpointing it with visual brightness: the glossy whites and lively pastels of the Woodhouses' redecoration, among which much of the action takes place; many daylight scenes, including portions of the nightmare sequence; the comforting warmth of Saperstein's offices and so forth. Some of the most chillingly foreboding moments take place in just such a bright atmosphere, as when Rosemary solves Hutch's anagram with Scrabble letters spread across the shiny floor of her sunlit living room. In moments like this, it's not only the visual counterpoint but the aural stillness of the scene that allows a sense of dread to creep in, shattering feelings of comfort and safety instinctively brought about by visual brightness and calming silence. |
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Post by telegonus on Nov 6, 2017 23:21:31 GMT
I'm glad the Seventh Victim/Rosemary's Baby connection has been noted. It's widely known/discussed among Lewton and horror fans, and it's nice to see some recognition in the mainstream. The Seventh Victim is maybe the most unsettling of all Lewton films from his RKO period. No monster, as such; hints of evil everywhere; people disappearing for seeming no good reason; others turning up, as if out of a dream. The mood is sustained throughout and there are few (any?) gimmicks. It's a movie worthy of more respect and analysis. My sense is that it's a summation, or maybe distillation is a better word to use, of all that Lewton's films were about. There was very little "distraction", as an end in itself, a kind of purity of intent.
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