Rosemary’s Baby (1968) **

(There could possibly be spoilers in this post.)

What’s worse: delivering Satan’s son or having divorce papers delivered to you in front of the entire cast and crew on a movie set?  Such was life for Mia Farrow during the filming of Rosemary’s Baby (1968).  Director/writer Roman Polanski’s taut horror tale is widely considered one of the best horror films ever made.  For me, it’s mildly creepy, but not really that scary. 

Rosemary (Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) are a young married couple who make a fateful decision when they opt to lease an apartment at the Bramford in New York City.  The mammoth building has a bad reputation as a hotbed for witches and other unpleasant types. Guy makes quick friends with their senior citizen neighbors Minnie (Ruth Gordon) and Roman Castevet (Sidney Blackmer), but Rosemary finds them crass and nosy.  Their overbearing nature takes new hold when Rosemary discovers she’s pregnant. Minnie plies her with a tannis root concoction of a drink and insists Rosemary change her OBYGN to a friend of theirs, Dr. Abraham Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy).  The pregnancy is wrought with unpleasant stomach pains and a dramatic weight and color loss for Rosemary—not to mention cravings for raw meat. Realizing that something is obviously not right, Rosemary starts to envision some sort of nefarious plot is afoot when it comes to her unborn child.  She was right.

Other than the fact that she becomes impregnated by Satan, the plot is quite plausible.  Polanski had a habit of making ordinary things like domesticity and friendship vulnerable to human baseness and ulterior motives.  Who could suspect the friendly, elderly couple next door are Satanists who would drug you so that Satan could rape and impregnate you?  And, who would ever imagine that their husband would go along with such a scheme to ensure that his acting career took off?  Now, the end of the film is way too much of a stretch for me—I just don’t envision any woman changing her mind about raising the child of Satan—not even the most Catholic woman on the planet.

Polanski earned an Oscar nomination for his adapted screenplay of Ira Levin’s hugely popular 1967 novel of the same name. I suppose Polanski wondered why mess with a good thing, so the script was very faithful to the book and those who read the book surely recognized huge sections of dialogue taken directly from the novel. While Farrow was far from Polanski’s first choice for the role of Rosemary, he ended up being very pleased that he had an actress so amenable to some of the crazy things he asked her to do.  In particular, there’s a scene in the film where Rosemary wanders into New York traffic—a scene that was shot by Polanski using a handheld camera—which was not cleared with the city of New York. That’s right, it wasn’t a blocked, staged scene—it was freaking real!  Did Farrow have a death wish following the delivery of divorce papers?  Yes, it is up to you, New York, New York, indeed!

While I’m not a big fan of Farrow, she does a nice job of playing a mouse-like waif who is almost too willingly led down a path paved in not-so-good intentions.  It’s hard to feel sorry for someone that stupid, though.  Her complete opposite is Ruth Gordon as Minnie.  Even when her character is doing very bad things she comes off as the helpful crazy lady next door.  Gordon won a Best Supporting Oscar for her turn as Minnie, and she deserved it.  The voice, hair, clothes, and mannerisms were perfect for the role. While Minnie didn’t come off as evil incarnate, her husband Roman did.  Rosemary’s Baby was Blackmer’s final film, and he went out as one of the best minions of Satan ever.  Perhaps it was his eyes, but he looked the part.

So, did Rosemary’s Baby live up to its storied reputation as one of the best horror films ever?  I guess it matters who you ask.  For me, when I watch a horror film I want to be scared.  At no point during the movie’s 136 minute run was I frightened.  Films such as The Exorcist (1973), Candyman (1992), and The Omen (1976) are far more scary than Rosemary’s Baby. I don’t know if this is because most of the horror is implied or not, but, for me at least, Rosemary’s Baby was more a study of elongated dread with not much payoff in the end.

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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) *1/2

No, I don’t like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).  I’m sure I have offended countless sci-fi fans and cinephiles, but I don’t care because I find the film beyond boring. Yes, there are several interesting visual images, and for 1968, at the height of the Space Race, it was ahead of its time, but that doesn’t mean I have to revere it or recognize its perceived “greatness”.  The only thing I do like about it is the music—and even that contributes to the overall tedious effect the movie has on me.  If you fall asleep every time you watch something I think that sends a clear message. 

Based on sci-fi author and futurist Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “The Sentinel”, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a plodding look at humankind’s relationship with the universe.  There is a monolith that keeps popping up: on Earth at the dawn of man, on the moon, and on Jupiter.  I expect all of these “sightings” are supposed to be tied together, but having not read Clarke’s series I have no idea how, as the film gave me no conclusive answer. I’m a historian by trade, but I minored in philosophy, so I kept asking myself if Kubrick chose to open and close his movie with Richard Strauss’ “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” because he was trying to make some sort of nihilistic statement about Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence and the Übermensch. I suspect this is the case.  Okay, I somewhat understand what he was doing, but what about the average person on the street who never read Nietzsche or Clarke, do they get it?  Probably not, but I don’t think Kubrick cared, either. 

I have been told that people liked to drop LSD and then go watch this—I can see that.  There is an abundance of vast spatial dissonance and towards the end there is a plethora of psychedelic images, so I understand how this might appeal to Dead Heads.  For me, these images did one of two things: made me sleepy and/or gave me a headache. I’m not a special effects geek, and so while it is obvious that Kubrick and his crew were way ahead of their time, it does nothing for me.  Maybe I lack the ability to be awed by these endeavors because so much has been seen and discovered since this film was released.  Still, I can’t see how Pauline Kael wrote in 1968 that 2001: A Space Odyssey was "a monumentally unimaginative movie.” There is plenty of imagination, but, for me, that’s not enough to make me like it. 

Minimalism has its place, but too much of it in a film can leave viewers feeling completely detached.  That is the effect that 2001: A Space Odyssey has on me.  Sparse, minimal dialogue; sterile set designs; and, a complete denial of human pathos makes for bad cinema in my book.  To makes things worse, when Kubrick does attempt to make an emotional appeal he does so with the supercomputer HAL (voiced by Douglas Rain), who is represented as both creepy and evil.  Is Kubrick making a statement about emotions?  Is there no room in his future world-view for feelings, and if you do have them does that make you deficient and/or deviant?  For a humanist like myself, that is an unbearable bitter pill to swallow.

The one element of the film that I liked was the music. Kubrick wanted to create a non-verbal experience, and you will notice that he uses music throughout the film except in the rare cases where there is actual dialogue.  While he bookends his movie with Strauss’ “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, he also creatively uses Johann Strauss’ “On the Blue Danube” and György Ligeti’s Requiem.  Still, even though I found Kubrick’s musical choices inspired, I also think they contribute to my desire to fall asleep every time I watch his movie. 

Overall, I don’t dig this film.  To me, it is boring and lacks any emotional appeal.  Yes, there are a number of enticing visuals, but that just isn’t enough for me. Plus, the creepy baby at the end gives me nightmares.

 

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Once Upon a Time in the West (C’era Una Volta Il West) 1968 ***

 

(This article is from guest contributor Rick29 and first appeared at http://classic-film-tv.blogspot.com/.  The rating in the title is my own.)

"Big," "epic," and "sprawling" are the words critics frequently use to describe this now-revered 1968 Spaghetti Western. Yet, despite its lengthy running time and visually massive backdrop, Once Upon a Time in West focuses tightly on the relationships among four people over a relatively short period of time. These characters are: Frank (Henry Fonda), a ruthless gunfighter who aspires to be a powerful businessman; Cheyenne (Jason Robards), a rascally outlaw with killer instincts; Jill (Claudia Cardinale), a former prostitute in search of a more meaningful life; and a mysterious revenge-minded stranger whom Cheyenne calls Harmonica (Charles Bronson).

Each character is introduced to the accompaniment of his or her own musical theme, memorably composed by Ennio Morricone. The mood of these themes range from playful (for Cheyenne) to bold and abrupt (Frank) to sweetly old-fashioned (Jill) to eerily disturbing (Harmonica). The last theme--an almost off-key four-note piece--is often played by Bronson's character on the harmonica he wears around his neck.

In addition to the musical motifs, director Sergio Leone employs natural sounds in unique ways throughout the film. For example, the film's opening fourteen-minute sequence contains virtually no dialogue--but we hear cracking knuckles, buzzing flies, water drops plopping, birds, and a train whistle. Later, Leone introduces Cheyenne by letting us listen to a ferocious gunfight from inside a quiet desert cantina.

As in most Leone Westerns, the storyline takes a back seat to the interesting characters and overarching theme, Leone's stylish direction, and some marvelous set pieces. For the record, Jill inherits a valuable property from a husband she hardly knew. Frank, working for a railroad baron, wants the property for its future value as a railroad way station. Cheyenne takes an interest in Jill and decides to protect her.

Harmonica helps Jill and Cheyenne, but his motive is revenge against Frank. Indeed, his reason for wanting to kill Frank is a riddle that lurks in the background until their epic showdown at the film's conclusion. Then, in a concise flashback that immediately proceeds the gun shots, Leone reveals the incident that fueled Harmonica’s vengeance.

Bronson and Robards give fine performances, but Henry Fonda steals the film in a great change-of-pace role as a villain who kills defenseless children and kicks out the crutches from underneath cripples. When Frank is making love to Jill, he remarks casually: “I think I might be a little sorry killing you.”

The only subpar performance is from Cardinale, who is also burdened with the least interesting character. Nevertheless, Jill is the strongest female character in any Leone Western and central to the film’s theme. Unlike the male characters, Jill is willing and able to adapt to the “New West.” Frank wants to become a businessman, for example, but he can’t change his violent ways.

Once Upon a Time in the West features one of the best openings of any Western: the aforementioned fourteen-minute sequence in which three gunfighters arrive at a train station to kill Harmonica after he unboards. They walk around the empty town and then wait and wait--and we wait with them as the credits appear slowly across on the screen. After thirteen minutes, the trains finally arrives, but Harmonica is nowhere in sight. As the train pulls out of the station and the gunfighters turn to leave, they hear Harmonica play his eerie tune. They turn around and he becomes visible on the other side of the tracks as the train rolls out of view. That leads to the following exchange:

Harmonica: "Did you bring a horse for me?"
Head Gunfighter (laughing): "Looks like we're shy one horse."
Harmonica (shaking his head): "You brought two too many."
In a flash, guns are blazing and four bodies hit the ground in a matter of seconds. It's a textbook example of how a filmmaker can manipulate his audience's perception of time and space--and it's also an incredible way to start a movie.

Amazingly, Once Upon a Time in the West flopped miserably when released in the U.S. in 1969. Part of its failure can be attributed to Paramount’s poor decision to cut thirty minutes from the film’s running time, thus rendering some of its plot incomprehensible. Still, the film did brisk business in Europe and helped make Charles Bronson an international star (ironically, Leone had tried to convince Bronson to play the Eastwood role in the earlier A Fistful of Dollars). As Leone’s status as a Spaghetti Western auteur grew in the 1970s and 1980s, Once Upon a Time in the West came to be rightfully hailed as his masterpiece.

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