Rosemary's Baby is considered one of the best horror films of all time.

Rosemary’s Baby

Rosemary’s Baby is considered one of the best horror films of all time. Although it doesn’t use shock techniques, the mood of the film remains disturbing. The director of the film, Roman Polanski, guides us through the film suggesting that the story is going to involve a loving couple expecting a baby. However, the film slowly progresses into suspense with the aid of structural components, such as the use of space, tonal and color compositions, and foreshadowing throughout the film. The suspense and horror of the film is extremely effective. Most horror films that originated from the late 1960’s relied on setting and location, not to mention darkness and shadow. In Rosemary’s Baby, the setting and location are generally well lit, although there are exceptions during dramatic sequences. It is a completely homey, relaxed, normal setting which makes the horror even more unsettling because when it appears, it seems so out of place.

The mood of the film is first established by hearing a women’s voice singing a lull-a-by while there is a long open panning shot of downtown Manhattan. During the opening credits, the camera moves downward, changes direction, and tracks backward over an apartment building rooftop. From an aerial shot, the camera moves downward to reveal Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse, a young couple whom are the main characters of the film. The characters are at the apartment building seeking to rent an apartment previously occupied by an elderly woman, Mrs. Gardenia. As they are viewing the apartment, the camera moves throughout the residence allowing the audience to see its many areas containing massive amounts of space. The use of space plays an intricate party in executing suspense. There is a contrast between hallway and open-rooms throughout the apartment. As always, the hallways appeared narrower and extremely long creating a huge sense of depth while the rooms, such as the living-quarters, appeared wide and flat. The contrast between spaces plays an vital part in exhibiting suspense. The most dramatic scenes occured using a wide-angle lens in narrow spaces creating depth within the shot, such as in a hallway when Rosemary is stumbling around after being drugged. The more serene scenes came when the frame appeared less convoluted with objects and appeared to contain flat space, such as Rosemary and her husband eating dinner prior to Rosemary becoming inebriated.

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Although space provided a great sense of suspense within the film, it also added to the character storyline. For example, as Rosemary becomes pregnant she takes ill and is restricted from leaving the house, with exceptions from visiting the doctor. This isolation is evident due to Rosemary primarily being the only character in the frame during her pregnancy. It is as if the walls of the apartment are confining her. Moreover, this separation of Rosemary from other characters, specifically her husband, further emphasizes the isolation that she is facing. The space used in the scenes where she is alone represents extremely her loneliness. On another character, Mrs. Castavet seemed to always appear middle-to-upclose within the frame. This allowed for viewers to feel extremely close to you similarly to how close she was to Rosemary. The angles Mrs. Castavet was portrayed within particular shots seemed to compliment her extreme nosiness.

The contrast between tonal compositions, such as light and dark, as well as creating dramatic sequences by using strong color hues was used as visual components to accentuate the mood of the film. The dark scenes of Rosemary’s memory of her Catholic school upbringing contrast the bright apartment. Evil is made of all things “bright and beautiful.” The Church, on the other hand, appears mysterious and sinister. Through a drug in a dessert given to Rosemary from Mrs. Casavet, Rosemary goes from the well lit kitchen, to the darkness of the hallway eventually coming into the gloomy bedroom falling asleep. What appears to be ambiguous to the viewer is whether or not Rosemary is having a dream or a hallucination from the drug. In her “dream,” she is floating on her mattress while the ocean lies at the foot of her bed. The next sequence of events involve her being strapped to a bed while her husband, neighbors, and other individuals paint red markings on her body. Suddenly an eerie figure, resembling the devil, appears and impregnates her. All of these shots had a dark tonal composition to add to the suspense and fear Rosemary was dealing with. In the scene directly after Rosemary is in labor, the mood appears as if all the characters are against her due to the darkness that surrounds her once she wakes up from the sedative that was given to her. The entire look of the film relies on a lot of blacks and dark browns in the image, with the drab looking halls and rooms of the apartment building often filling the screen. However, the majority of the more peaceful scenes consisted of well lit and a stronger sense of color.

Color provided a distinguishable trait throughout the movie. During times of the utmost drama, color was mainly evident. Most of the vibrant examples of color come from the costumes, such as Rosemary’s bright red outfit she wore just before she was drugged. Another dramatic use of color is the scene in which a woman “jumped” to her death and she became covered in dark, extremely strong saturated red blood. On the other hand, the more serene and happy scenes tended to occur when Rosemary was unaware of the situations that lay ahead. For example, she wore a lot of desaturated yellows on her clothing at the beginning of the film and in one of the last scenes Rosemary wore a desaturated blue nightgown as she is rocking her newborn child asleep. This was a moment of happiness and content; it was not of moment of suspense.

Foreshadowing is a primary resource to build suspense within a film. In the scene where Rosemary and her husband look to purchase an apartment, the camera glides along with them, as they are moving around the unoccupied, gothic apartment. Due to the eccentric characteristics of the apartment building and Mrs. Gardenia, the previous tenant who died while she was in a coma, the audience is able to gain a sense of foreshadowing for future possible events. Hutch, a friend of Rosemary, tells her that the apartment building has a history of bad luck and multiple stories of witchcraft. Furthermore, odd incidences surround the apartment itself. Mrs. Gardenia had a fascination with herbs and cryptic writings, such as “There are signs of the….” This is a prelude of what the audience is going to see at the end of the movie once Rosemary has figured out that her neighbors, the Casavet’s, practice witchcraft. One of the most evident pieces of foreshadowing lay in the opening scene when the audience hears a lull-a-by. This peculiar beginning does not make sense until the very end when the audience hears Rosemary singing the exact lull-a-by to the newborn child as the camera zooms out of the apartment and obtains a view of the rooftop exterior again, just as was seen at the very beginning of the film. It is the reverse of the opening and the audience should understand why they heard singing at the start of the film.

Rosemary's Baby is a masterpiece of subtlety. There are very few blatant shocks as the film builds and builds to its staggering conclusion. The entire film is an exercise in suspense. Is Rosemary crazy? Is she imagining all this? With the help of tonal and color compositions, space, and foreshadowing, the audience does not determine a solution until the very end, and it's worth the wait. Foreshadowing helped to build suspense within the film as well as confuse the audience into not knowing the future for Rosemary. The use of space allowed us to identify with Rosemary in certain scenes as well as add to the suspense by showing great depth within certain shots. The compositions of tone were extremely important within the film because it was able to set the mood for a particular scene. Suspense embodied this film and luckily during the late 1960’s Hollywood was at a time where filmmakers were able to push the limits. Many religious groups were outraged with the movie but if it weren’t for the work of Polanski in Rosemary’s Baby, classic horror films, such as The Exorcist, and other suspense films would cease to exist.