Love and Practical Reality: A Shot-by-Shot Analysis of the 'Let's Make a Baby' Scene of Rosemary's Baby

As I am ordinarily committed to the serious appraisal of films rarely taken seriously, one may wonder what purpose is served by analysing a sequence from Rosemary's Baby, a canonical film that has been analysed frequently in the journals. I often emphasize the feeling films create, one's emotional relationship to the film. I have argued elsewhere that our emotional relationship to a film is as much truth as what one can demonstrate intellectually, 'objectively.' Much more than with literature, meaning in cinema is created through the emotional impact the image conveys. What is told in words in a novel must, in film, be created within the real space of the frame and within the viewer. A novelist can tell you of a sinister atmosphere, but an adjective in the image must be shown; a metaphor must be created through the concatenation of what is said, seen, and conjoined. A master stylist like Polanski can manipulate how we feel with his images through the use of framing, movement, colour, contrasts; and from this he can convey much more information than we would ordinarily recognize. This is all obvious to the student of cinema: it's called film language and Polanski is a recognized master of it. Yet I've been challenged for writing too much of the feeling films create and evading hard evidence in film language. This analysis, a close-reading I ordinarily simplify for my readers, shows a master constructing our feelings from the raw elements of the image and from these feelings revealing to us the essence of the film.

While the hallucinogenic dream sequence that immediately follows the romantic dinner sequence of Rosemary's Baby gets more attention, the telling twenty shots that comprise the romantic dinner sequence are very densely packed with visual information about Guy's personality, the nature of the Woodhouse marriage, and the effects Guy's deal with Roman has upon it. Though there are doubtless several important themes in Rosemary's Baby, not the least of which the issue of ownership of one's body, a major theme often neglected is Polanski's cynicism about love and romance. The way he manipulates our sympathies in the romantic dinner sequence reveals a central conflict between Guy's pragmatism and Rosemary's idealism and with that the conclusion that both are mistaken extremes.

(1) The first shot begins with red roses coming into focus. As Rosemary enters, the camera tracks slightly to the right, giving us a clear look at Rosemary who, startled and curious by the flowers, approaches them. Polanski purposely makes the flowers the subject of the shot before Rosemary. She is, as it were, the afterthought. The next shot explains the first.

(2) We see more flowers in the kitchen. Again, Rosemary walks into the shot and approaches the flowers, the flowers being the subject first. The camera then pushes in toward Rosemary, pans and reveals Guy, in the shadows, at the end of the hall, the visual answer to the question in her mind and our minds: Who put the flowers there? At this point in the film we aren't aware of Guy's involvement with the Castavets, other than his having spent some time with Roman. Yet there is an effect created here. By placing the roses in the frame before Rosemary, we get the sense of the flowers coming before her. The flowers, of course, are trivial, but what they mean is not. They are the instruments by which Guy initiates the conception of their child. Guy is putting his interest in the child before Rosemary. Of course, that might not be especially sinister or even a valid distinction had the shot not continued to make an important point.

As Guy walks down the hallway to meet Rosemary, still in the same shot, he says, "I've been a creep" and explains how he's been hoping his fellow actor, whose blindness resulted in Guy getting an important role, remains blind. We expect Guy to say he's been a creep for neglecting Rosemary, but instead he reveals this perverse desire. What's important is that he reveals this in the same shot that began with the flowers. The flowers, symbolizing the couple's romance, the conception of their child, and thus their hopes for the future, is linked to Guy's acting career and how it has come to flourish. Once again, we're not, at this point, aware that Guy is conceiving the child in order to further his career, but Polanski's direction subtly implies it for us long before we know.

The shot goes on, following Guy to the calendar as he points to two dates he has circled in red: he's 'figured out' the dates they must conceive by, he explains. We can surmise, from the rest of the film, that he's been directed to impregnate Rosemary at a certain time. The use of red to circle the dates and the red of the flowers informs us of this, initially on a subconscious level: the first real glimpse of red we get in the film is Roman's smoking jacket during the scene in which they first meet. Rosemary's colours are yellow and white; only after meeting the Castavets do reds start to bleed into the Woodhouse household, starting with the red flowers. The red of the flowers indicates the Faustian nature of their romance, insofar as it is now stamped by Roman, the red of the dates how Guy's been directed by Roman: he's sold the soul of their relationship for his career.

(3) Polanski cuts to an insert of the gramophone playing some romantic, instrumental music. The object is the paraphernalia of romance, manufacturing the mood. Guy is an actor and is skilled in the use of props to create emotions. Insofar as Guy must disguise his motives from Rosemary and create a particular mood for her, this is a performance for Guy: this is the performance, in fact, that will make his career.

There is a perverse irony in how Polanski depicts Guy's career-making performance as not on stage, but in his very life. The more I watch the film, the more I find myself feeling some sympathy for Guy. His very pragmatic and unromantic thought-process has been, 'She carries the baby; we tell her it died; get over the grief; and, with my new career, I'll be in a place to have the family we dream of.' Guy is not evil. He perhaps believes he has Rosemary's interests in some sense at heart, that he is making this sacrifice for his family. Unfortunately, he doesn't get his family's permission first and therein is Guy's major fault: he sells Rosemary's womb as though he owns it.

The cynical depiction of Guy stands in for the married couple in general, at least the urban married couple. Polanski seems to be depicting modern marriage as a stage upon which people perform roles for the good of the marriage. The conception of children is not, for Polanski, done out of True Love, but for practical motives; the couple merely represents their motives to themselves as ideal and romantic. Polanski seems skeptical about the possibility of true romance unpolluted by pragmatic calculations. In this sense, perhaps it's Rosemary and not Guy who has the problem.

(4) After the record starts, we're shown Guy lighting a fire in the fireplace. In another subtle indication of Guy's sacrifice, then, we see the paraphernalia of romance followed immediately by the paraphernalia of hell. Lighting a fire can be a romantic act, but Cassavetes's/Guy's performance in lighting the fire is vaguely sinister and also shows signs of discomfort, his head tilted slightly downward, gazing from under his brow with a nervous smile.

(5) Polanski now gives us a shot of the living room, Rosemary seated to the left and Guy at the fireplace in the center. What stands out most is that Rosemary is now wearing a red dress, her whole body covered in red satin. Until now Rosemary's colours have been light, usually yellow like her hair. The only time she wears red is during the romantic dinner, after which she is raped by her husband/the devil. My claim is not that red is symbolic of any particular concept, but rather that its placement has an effect and Polanski uses this. Red is a warm and yet dangerous colour. When we first see it on Roman, we're put on alert, despite his gentlemanly ways. The red flowers were linked to Roman for this reason. Now the red dress links Rosemary to Roman; seeing it, we feel something is off, that the romantic evening is tainted and Rosemary is in danger. Rosemary's body has been sold out to Roman's interests.

After lighting the fire, Guy approaches Rosemary at the coffee table, decapitated by the frame. Rosemary suddenly becomes alarmed over the smoke from the fireplace. Guy has forgotten to open the flue, risking the white paint. The white paint Rosemary has used to decorate the home in which she wants to build their life together conveys her hopes for the purity of their future together, a purity she wants to preserve. Rosemary believes in True Romance, even if Guy and Polanski don't. That the smoke enters the frame as Guy's head exits is important. The only sight of smoke in the film prior to that moment is during dinner at the Castevets. While Rosemary and Minnie talk, Rosemary glances into the den where Guy and Roman are speaking, seeing only smoke wafting from around the corner. Here, again, Guy is (partially) out of frame when the smoke begins, linking, like Rosemary's dress, this moment and Guy's intentions to the satanic influence of Roman Castevet and particularly to the deal Guy and Roman were presumably making. The smoke that can ruin the white paint is the influence of Roman that threatens to sully their innocence and happiness. If my analysis of Guy is correct, that satanic influence in the narrative is representative of pragmatism in life.

Rosemary and Guy both sit on the floor, Rosemary on the left and Guy on the right, the fire between them as the camera slowly pushes in. In another context, that fire could easily be read as the passion between this young couple; but in this context, the fire seems somewhat hollow, the prop in an act.

(6) Polanski cuts to the candlelight dinner. Rosemary is again on the left, Guy on the right, the table and two yellow candles between them. There are a few dinner scenes in Rosemary's Baby. The first is the dinner with Hutch, during which he relates the twisted history of their new building, including baby-eating witches. The second is the dinner with the Castevets, during which the unseen deal between Guy and Roman takes place. The third is this dinner between Rosemary and Guy alone. This context is important. The discussion during the first dinner informs us of the building's history naturally prepares us for the sinister tone of the second, the Castevets taking the place of the baby-eating witches. During this dinner, Guy is seduced to the building's dark history. The third dinner is Guy seducing Rosemary to the same, in an inverse of Adam and Eve.

As they eat and drink, the doorbell rings. Guy feigns annoyance and hurries to answer the door. For a man who, later in the scene, is quite content to leave Rosemary do all the housework, his readiness to answer the door is suspicious. The camera pushes in on Rosemary, listening intently. She hears Minnie's voice; "Not tonight," she says. The sense Polanski communicates is that Minnie is an invasive force diametrically opposed to romance and love.

(7) Guy returns with desserts, jokingly explaining them as Minnie's "ESP." Polanski pushes in to Rosemary and we see she's too relieved to be suspicious. (8) Guy, sitting at the table, does an impression of Minnie, setting Rosemary's and, to some extent our, worries at ease. (The way Guy makes fun of Minnie's pronunciation of "mousse" as "mouse" returns, in fact, in Rosemary's dream sequence, when Rosemary claims to have suffered a mouse-bite. This is also a humourous reference to Minnie as the Disney character, Minnie Mouse.) (9) Rosemary takes their dinner plates into the kitchen, disappearing into the white for a moment, perhaps indicating her security in their relationship, then returns to the table, Polanski's camera staying on her the whole time. (10) Guy starts eating the dessert, chocolate mousse. (11) Rosemary starts eating as well, but complains of a 'chalky undertaste.' At the very moment Rosemary tastes the chocolate and recoils at the undertaste, the record of romantic music reaches its end. Guy has sold out their romance by giving her the drugged dessert. The 'undertaste', moreover, parallels the sense we get throughout this whole romantic dinner sequence, the feeling, created by Polanski's mise-en-scene, that something is off. We are wholly allied with Rosemary throughout this scene and experience the unsettling undertones with her. (12, 13, 14) Strangely, Guy, who has just been mocking Minnie, becomes annoyed by Rosemary's complaints, eventually telling her, "Eat it!" Although the table is positioned evenly between them, the shots of Rosemary in this back-and-forth contain a yellow candle, whereas there is only the black void out the window for Guy. The step of giving Rosemary the mousse is the giving up of his soul; Guy is committed to fulfilling his deal with the devil. (15) Rosemary gives in and once again begins eating the mousse. She's putting on a performance that she enjoys it, yet the performance is clearly a performance, unlike Guy's. She asks Guy to change the record and while he's away dumps most of the mousse. He returns to loom behind her, hands on her shoulders, his head cut off by the frame again. Polanski uses the technique of framing-to-obscure throughout the film, most famously when Minnie is blocked by the doorframe while on the telephone. (Preview audiences literally craned their necks to try see around the doorframe.) He used it, as I noted, when Guy and Roman are speaking together. Putting someone partially out of frame makes us feel the missing information, our need to know drawing our attention not to what's in frame but to what's not in the frame; we sense that the character is hiding something and indeed has something to hide, in this case his guilt over feeding Rosemary a drugged dessert.

(16) Polanski cuts from the dinner to Guy sitting alone, back to us, in the dark den. He's watching the televised appearance of the Pope at Yankee stadium. (17) Rosemary is busy in the bright, white kitchen cleaning up, without Guy's help. The shot is not initially of Rosemary's face, however, but of the trashcan into which she's emptying the mousse, leaving behind a stain resembling dried blood on the white cloth. Perhaps I'm reading too much into the image to say it conveys a sense of desecrated virginity; yet the visual contrast of the brown and the white is established earlier in the film, as Rosemary repaints the dark brown apartment white and pale yellow. It's as though the old colour, or character, of the building is coming through in their lives.

"Christ, what a mob," Guy says from out of frame. We tilt up to see Rosemary feeling ill. This is the drug taking effect. Yet Polanski's linking of the Pope ("Christ, what a mob") to her sudden dizziness reminds us that she was raised a Catholic, amongst strict nuns. Earlier in the film she dreams of a nun and apologizes for 'telling about the window.' In her second dream, during which she dreams she's raped by the devil, she explains to the Pope that the "mouse bite" kept her from coming to see him. She obviously suffers some anxiety over her abandonment of religion, her absence from the "mob".

(18) Guy is still watching the Pope. Not the least bit interested in the Pope, he states this would be a great place for his Yamaha commercial (the ad he starred in). Guy, again, subordinates higher values to his career. Guy's rejection of ideals is, as the events are linked within the shots, a cause of Rosemary's dizziness. (19) As Guy laughs, Polanski cuts to Rosemary stumbling from the white kitchen toward the dark livingroom, where Guy has been sitting. (This contrast of light and dark can be found throughout the film, most obviously in Rosemary's redecoration of the apartment.) She knocks over a chair along the way, intimating chaos entering the domestic order. She falls into Guy's arms and simultaneously into total dark, her (and his) features no longer visible against the background of the bright kitchen. (20) Guy escorts Rosemary down the hallway, blaming the alcohol for her dizziness. After she falls, he carries her the rest of the way to their bedroom, leading into the dream sequence and the rape. Now that, as the sequence of shots up to this point has established, Rosemary's defenses have been broken down and the colours of Roman and the building have begun invading the Wodehouse world as much as callous practicality has invaded Guy's heart, she can be led off for the rape, the real nail in the coffin for the couple's romance.

I've been referring to the attitude toward relationships in Rosemary's Baby as 'cynical.' However, I would like to qualify that statement. In Foucault's terms, the current discourse is that our liberal age has allowed relationships to be based on love whereas they used to be based on practical concerns, such as wealth and power. A relationship based upon money or any practicality today is denigrated. Like all discourse for Foucault, its truth is questionable. In reality, relationships in the past were often based upon a mixture of emotional and practical concerns and the truth is they are still based upon a mixture of emotional and practical concerns. When choosing a man, women do consider how financially stable he is. This is a practical concern. We're to believe, of course, that this is a "requirement for love"; but that claim is no more accurate today than it was for Elizabethan England. Seeing the modern, urban family as partially motivated by practical concerns is realistic, not cynical.

Rosemary buys into the discourse of our time and desires a family based upon pure love. So Guy, more pragmatic, must play the part for her--and he's good at it. As Rosemary detects the 'chalky undertaste,' as it were, in his performance, she begins to imagine a Faustian conspiracy. Polanski never gives the viewer indisputable evidence that Rosemary's suspicions are true. The final revelatory scene is, like her dream sequences, slightly out of sync. Moreover, the eyes she sees as she looks at the child are exactly the eyes she sees during the rape dream sequence. Possibly Rosemary's inability to accept the unreality of her fairytale idea of love leads her to villainize Guy's practicality as downright satanic. That is, of course, completely speculation. The film is purposely ambiguous. There may indeed be a Faustian conspiracy. At the very least, the viewer is led to strongly sympathize with Rosemary and to share her perception; and from her perception, Guy has indeed sold their hopes and dreams for his career.