Rosemary’s Baby: Christian Themes in Different Scenes

A more academic piece on Rosemary’s Baby. Please note that some of the formatting did not transfer very well from microsoft word.

Academy-Award winner director Roman Polanski is known for being a jack-of-all-trades. He writes, produces, acts and, of course, directs. Polanski’s personal life is equally eccentric: his former wife was brutally murdered by Charles Manson; he pleaded guilty to the statutory rape of a 13-year-old American girl, and grew up in Poland during the Holocaust. All of these events have had an effect on Polanski’s moviemaking process, but none so much as his battles with religion. Born to Jewish and Catholic parents, neither of whom practiced his religion at home, Polanski was raised agnostic. As a cultural Jew, Polanski suffered hardships after Nazis forced his family into the Kraków Ghetto during the German invasion of Poland. Later in life, Polanski admitted that he now considered himself an atheist. Despite his nonreligious background, Polanski includes a number of ambiguous religious references in his films. The Knife in the Water (1962), for example, has subtle religious imagery including Andrzej attempting to walk on water and a young boy lying on a boat as if he were crucified, with a halo of light over his head. Polanski’s most evidently religiously themed film, however, is Rosemary’s Baby (1968), a psychological thriller about a young pregnant woman whose devil worshiping neighbors begin taking over her life. In this film, Polanski illustrates religious ambiguity to underscore his overarching theme of futility in the face of evil.
Rosemary Woodhouse, the movie’s protagonist, is a newly married, twenty something year old housewife living in New York City with her husband Guy, an actor. Rosemary and Guy decide to have a child, and soon she becomes pregnant. Unbeknownst to Rosemary, Guy cuts a deal with the devil, allowing him to impregnate her in exchange for a more successful acting career. As time progresses, Rosemary suspects that her neighbors are plotting to kidnap her baby and sacrifice him to Satan. Only at the end of the movie do we learn that the baby is actually the embodiment of Satan. This fact surprises not only Rosemary but most of the members of the coven as well. Like most of Polanski’s films, Rosemary’s Baby ends on a mysterious note. The devil baby is not destroyed, nor are we any more aware of Rosemary’s fate. This illustrates Polanski’s basic view of religion; he believes that it is a positive force, but ultimately has no lasting effects. Before she knows the truth about her baby, Rosemary attempts to escape and save him, but, despite her best efforts, the Satanists win. In his autobiography Polanski explains that he incorporates a certain level of absurdity in his films because his wife’s murder destroyed any religious faith he may have otherwise held. Similarly, while filming The Pianist (2002), Polanski aimed to paint Władysław Szpilman’s life as that without God or the Devil.
Despite this lack of faith, Polanski also incorporates Catholic imagery into Rosemary’s Baby and other films. Rosemary’s neighbors, the Castevets, invite her and her husband to their apartment for dinner and continue providing Rosemary with exotic food and drink throughout the film. The initial dinner can be seen as a communion with the devil with the food representing them consuming the body and blood of Satan, rather than Jesus . The chocolate mousse that Minnie Castavets brings to their apartment immediately before conception can also be seen as a communion. The drugged dessert causes Rosemary to pass out, allowing the devil to rape her. While she is unconscious, she dreams about many Catholic symbols. Her mind floats to images of the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam . She then pictures herself on a “Catholics Only” yacht and is upset that her friend Hutch will be unable to join her aboard the ship. She meets the Pope who tells her that”” you have been bitten by a mouse.” The mouse refers to the tainted mousse, and by “bitten” he really means “impregnated”. This image shifts to Hutch in another scene, only this time he is wearing the Pope’s hat and his papal ring. The ring, however, does not represent religious purity and sanctity, and Rosemary soon learns that it contains Tannis Root, like the necklace Minnie gave her. Minnie and her husband represent evil, while Hutch is eternally good, yet in this movie evil prevails over good. Even the Pope is corrupted in her dream by being associated with the dangerous Tannis Root . The word Tannis is derived from the Greek word Tanith, meaning Serpent lady and can also refer to the Phoenician god of fertility – hence why Tannis would be a good herb for a woman impregnated in a serpentine manner.
Rosemary continually attempts to see the good in others. Even her name, “Rosemary”, is a play on Jesus’ mother, the Virgin Mary. She is more open-minded than Terri , the Castavets’ previous candidate for carrying Satan’s child. On one of her outings, Rosemary stops to gaze at a nativity scene in a window. If Rosemary is considered the embodiment of good, and the Castavets the opposite, why are they both portrayed as likeable characters in the film? Dr. Saperstein, another Satanist, is highly regarded in the ob-gyn community, and even Dr. Hill doubts Rosemary’s suspicious about him. Polanski chose to make religion in this movie ambiguous, not favoring one group over another. Both groups are shown in good and bad light.
The Castavets mock Rosemary’s Catholic upbringing but she continues to talk positively about her religion. She remains impartial even when Roman makes awkward comments like “that’s exactly what it is. All the costumes or rituals, all religions” and “You don’t need to have respect for him because he pretends that he’s holy…A good picture of the hypocrisy behind organized religion was given I thought in Luther .” The second remark illustrates a parallel between the Castavets and the Lutheran Church. Both groups were unsatisfied with the current status of the Catholic Church, and broke off into a new religion; Martin Luther formed Lutheranism, and the Castavets helped to find a surrogate mother for Satan’s child. The Satanists are in line with the devil, yet Polanski compares them on many levels to Christians. During their New Year’s Party, for example, Roman toasts to 1966 as Year One. This incorporates the devil’s number, six, as well as the birth of Satan (as soon as Rosemary delivers the baby).
Adding to the religious ambiguity of the film, the devil worshipping coven is pictured as jovial eccentrics, a bit weird but genuinely good people. After all, Minnie and Roman care for Rosemary during her pregnancy and even recommend her to their friend, a well-respected gynecologist. At another point in the film, during the dream sequence, Rosemary is tied down to her bed by First Lady Kennedy. Aboard the Catholic’s only ship Rosemary also spots a sailor who looks strikingly similar to President Kennedy. It is a well-known fact that Kennedy was the first Catholic US President. In this scene, Catholicism is almost equated with devil worship.
The release of Rosemary’s Baby prompted an outcry among conservative moviegoers and religious groups and was condemned for its “perverted use which the film makes of conventional Christian beliefs and its mockery of religious persons and practices. ” Polanski responded to these remarks unabashed, “I can only look at religion with a certain dose of irony, because I’m not a religious person. ”Critics wondered why Polanski would portray Satanists so positively, wondering if perhaps he, like the fictional Castavets, was a practicing Satanist. Speculation about Polanski’s possible affiliation with Satanists continued after the release of his film The Ninth Gate (2002), which also featured satanic rituals. To these remarks Polanski simply scoffed again stating “I’m totally disinterested, personally, with that sort of thing. … It does absolutely nothing for me. I’m neither religious nor superstitious. At best I can be counted as an agnostic. Science and technology get me a lot more excited. ”
Unlike the religious imagery portrayed in Polanski’s other films, the satanic worship is an almost universally unacceptable form of worship. Still, it is not unlike Polanski to follow unconventional paths in plotting his films. His thriller Repulsion (1965) follows Carol’s downward spiral into insanity, resulting in the death of other seemingly innocent bystanders. Rosemary’s Baby takes his taste for the unusual one step further by blurring the lines of religion and cult status while ultimately demonstrating futility in the face of evil.

Endnotes:

Communion Rituals [Corinthians 10: 20-22]
The “creating” can also be connected to the creation/conception of the devil baby.
Tannis is not, in fact, a real herb of any sort. It was invented by Ira Levin for his novel and used by Polanski in the film of the same name
Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary
Rosemary’s open-mindedness allows her to believe in Satan and his evil powers. Her purely good life forces allow her to survive without going insane like Terri, who commits suicide early on in the film.
It is also noteworthy that Guy’s last role was as an understudy for a stage production of Luther
Roman Catholic Office For Motion Pictures
From an interview with Todd R. Ramlow
New York Post Interview, March 2000