ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968; w/d Roman Polanski)

Opening pan across Manhattan resolves w/ film’s main character, Bramford Bldg (many-chambered mind housing story à la Knife in Water boat + sim Repulsion + Tenant apartments) as hip young Guy + Rosemary Woodhouse are shown rooms by Elisha Cook Jr (1st bad sign) vacated on death of comatose (the sleeping mind) 89-yr-old (cf 9th Gate’s aged suicide Andrew Telfer, her coma his hanging "suspension") Mrs Gardenia (botanical name à la Rosemary [cf source-novelist Ira Levin’s Dr Cook’s Garden]: mind rejuvenating self; journal fragment, "I can no longer associate myself" both w/ Satanist neighbors + own ability to cohere + correlate mental faculties in recently "subdivided" apartment), who inexplicably barred closet (which communicates w/ next door: mind shutting off from outside world) w/ chest of drawers (cf 2 Men + a Wardrobe + Repulsion similars, former burden – body + RP’s Judaism – become latters’ defenses against encroachment of violence + unknown); old friend "Hutch" ("Cabinet," à la chest: similar barrier, he also to succumb to coma) warns about house’s seedy history, passive lapsed-Catholic Ro’s go-ahead in taking it (as dir in adapting novel) attraction to own unexplored demons.

In basement laundry rm (way down in psyche), mts perky young Terry Gionnofrio (not mistaken actress "Victoria Vetri" – played in fact by pseudonymous VV, film’s recurrent blurring of real/fantasy as Ro’s), druggie hooker (blonde Ro’s brunette darkside) recently "picked up off sidewalk" (where she returns: self-img discarded once dug up from subconscious, in order to replace her) by elderly neighbors Minnie + Roman Castevet (latter w/d’s 1st name [close also to Rosemary, she RP’s own "impressionable" neophyte-self, both new to NY/US] + approximately Guy/John Cassavetes’ last [all from novel: web seemingly naturally winding around RP’s life]); her suicide that night (credited by Roman C to tri-weekly depression: PMS, she "egg" similarly washed from system via blood) bringing together Castevets + Woodhouses (latter replacement for Terry in frmr’s Satanic scheme, devil’s manipulation of events own unconscious orchestration), elder couple previously only heard thru partition (mental divider) at G+R’s headboard (location of dreams: functional characters invoked to invoke own birth-emergence).

Dreams later that night (eyes open: hallucination is real + vice versa) of convent-school incident (institutional repression of wmn/’s sexuality [cf Repulsion’s contiguous nunnery; religious oppression also of Jewish RP], film breaking ground in cinematic depiction of latter when Ro initiates lovemaking + in frank discussions of menstruation, etc) w/ Minnie’s overheard dialog mouthed by nun (chastising Roman chastising Ro, Minnie both witch-in-nun + vice versa, reciprocal agent of self-realization) while workmen brick up window (her sex); next day, actor "Guy" (own masculine potential; also fulfilling role) seduced by Mr C’s flattery of his "performance" (in bit parts + commercials, one for Yamaha cycles wife’s own fantasy of his sexual prowess, TV window to her unconsc), after which he gets plum part (as cripple: Guy’s – all guys’ – moral disability) when lead Donald BaumGart (synonym of WoodHouse: not-the-hubby double emerging on real one’s betrayal) struck blind (Guy’s lapse of moral vision).

Suddenly romantic hubby proposes Baby Night, interrupted/augmented by Minnie’s "mouse" (mousse; w/d’s DisneyAmerica infatuation bleeding into Midwestern Ro’s New York excitement over "The Fantasticks," Vidal Sassoon, etc) laced w/ drug, 2nd dream con/fused w/ reality as she, adrift on yacht (amniotic fluid: Rosemary’s baby, in fact, Rosemary), sent below by real-life elevator operator Diego (spirit-guide, often the lot of African Americans in whitefolks’ spiritual quests, film also bearing unfortunate Asian caricature) – to further level of subconscious – where restrained + raped by clawed beast (Catholic girl’s fear of sexual aggressor; cf, again, Repulsion: RP’s fear of own sexual rapacity, which finally got him thrown out of ’States) while coven of oldsters looks on (self-consciousness + voyeuristic Older Generation at height of Sexual Revolution) + Pope appears to comfort her (blessing sexual union as euphemistic "mouse bite" belittling Guy same time, only time he aggressor when she drugged into timidity), union w/ darkside/forbidden creating new life in her.

Visits obstetrician Dr Sapirstein, who also delivered Hutch’s daughters (ubiquity of evil, "coven" reaching into all areas of life/mind) + who puts her on diet from Minnie’s herb garden (also kept by Mrs Gardenia; "Rosemary" being "cult-ivated" for service), returning home w/ unpopular boyish ’do (pregnancy "masculinizing" wmn: coming into pwr, demonic child-wmn’s nascent rebellion in early yrs of Liberation, ensuing physical changes evolution, metamorphosis), Castevets’ New Years’ party Year One for new wmn (as New York for w/d), her subsequently arranging own party for under-60s act of independence, at which Guy desperately excluded (teeming girlfriends shoring up own Girl Pwr), uterine cramps stopping on confronting him.

News of comatose Hutch (also "Shack/Shanty" – à la Woodhouse/Baumgart [each synonymous w/ Rosemary’s womb, as tho whole film dream, in fact, of unborn child]: refuge, he benevolent 2nd-father/God + patriarchy)’s death boosts self-actualization as friend "Grace" passes on book ALL OF THEM WITCHES + msg "The name is an anagram" (coding of imgs in dreams à la 9th Gate’s engravings, indicating also RP/IL’s namegames here): Roman Castevet = son-of-witch Steven Marcato, whose father was attacked outside Bramford 75 yrs ago (bldg’s corrupt history ingrained in society, unseen assault à la visualized ones in Wardrobe + Chinatown + real-life RP incident: inexplicable fate, echoing also Polanski family’s deathcamp past + foreboding Tate-LaBianca; making tightly plotted films rebellion against conspiracy of Accidental World [cf Mikita Brottman on RP’s Macbeth in NECRONOMICON Book 2]), at which point worldly Roamin’s travels began (uprooted material now gestating w/i other Ro + suggesting also other other Ro’s internationalism, making films in Poland, UK, US, Italy + France), Rosemary similarly displaced by husband’s assault.

Further detective work analysis following passive dream-life, exposing system allied against her (her nascent feminist studies; cf Stepford Wives’ similar), TIME cover "Is God Dead?" telegram from unconscious on passing of romance of benevolent-male/divine order now Hutch gone (Castevets not outta town, as claimed, but acting behind scenes, à la Macbeth Weird Sisters), as reinforced when original ob/gyn Dr "Hill" (repeated references to nature in sophisticated Manhattan persistence of same despite attempts to civilize world, he earthen complement to Sapirstein/SapphireStone) rats her out to Guy + Dr S, inducing labor on return home (to interior, Baby child of the mind).

Post-partum, knife-wielding (empowered) Ro ventures thru closet (as looking glass) to find coven gathered in parody of "Adoration o/t Magi" (foreign material + influences brought near: everything coming together) to welcome alleged son of Satan (never seen, as in 9th Gate: He is what we imagine, inverted cross above cradle equally meaningless for RP), camera following Ro’s trail of vision into bassinet to reveal, via lap-dissolve, she has given birth to...New York City (cradle drapery à la window curtain), closing aerial view of Bramford repeating opening (Ro’s lullaby ribbon around pkg) + suggesting whole film as private, "enclosed" (à la womb) drama, 136m running time condensed into "split second" it took to impregnate her, film also auto-generating own profane cinematic as well as societal offspring.