connielane (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
connielane) wrote2008-06-23 05:59 pm
connielane) wrote2008-06-23 05:59 pm
Entry tags:
What the Movies Have Taught Me About NYC, Chapter 5
What Rosemary's Baby has taught me about NYC.
Shelves in the closet - happy thought indeed!
Lesson learned: If it seems too good to be true, Satan is probably involved.
Rosemary's Baby is the prime example of something I call Pipe Dream New York Real Estate. Movies and television are an alternate universe in which college students, struggling artists, and people who live paycheck to paycheck can swing a huge apartment in Manhattan (Friends, that's you I'm pointedly looking at). I may not live there yet, but I've done a lo-ho-hot of research and looking at apartment listings, and the only thing I can say is "all evidence to the contrary." Rosemary doesn't work, and her husband is an actor who can't quite get his big break. Not exactly a landlord's dream. And yet they're able to score a HUGE apartment in a fictional building called the Bramford. Yeah, right. I'm not holding my breath for such a residential windfall.
The role of the Bramford, incidentally, is being played by the real-life Dakota building (pictured below) - possibly the most elite and difficult-to-get-into apartment building in Manhattan, which makes the idea of the young married couple in Rosemary's Baby being able to sign a lease there (even when it's subbing for a fictional building) even more amusing. Lauren Bacall used to live there. Billy Joel applied to live there, but was rejected. John Lennon lived there in the last years of his life, and in front of the building is the spot where he was killed. It's a gorgeous, gothic-looking building whose east windows look out onto Central Park, and it's definitely a New York landmark. I should add that only the exterior shots of the fictional Bramford were shot at the Dakota, because photography is not allowed inside the building, even if you're a bigshot film director.
So yeah, the chances in the real world of Rosemary and her struggling actor husband living in a building like that and having a nice, cushy life are slim to none, unless the devil is in it somewhere. Because that has to be literally one hell of a co-op board. *rim shot*
No really, here's the real lesson: The world (and perhaps New York in particular) can be a scary place and just might hand you your ass if you betray vulnerability.
This is one of those perspectives that will evolve over time, I'm sure, but it's certainly one of the main filters through which I'm looking at The Move (to say nothing of the journey to writerhood). I'm heading into this with the shields up, and I can't even count the number of times I've wondered if I can really cut it. It also strikes me that being a woman will (or at least could - oh, who are we kidding? - will) make it that much more of a struggle if I'm not somewhat made of stone. As any of you who know me well can attest, I definitely am not made of stone, and that is perhaps my chief concern regarding what I'm about to do. And with that context, I can't help thinking of Rosemary. Not that being a woman living in NYC would make my life even remotely comparable to her fictional one. But there's a connection in my mind, nonetheless.
There's a kind of backwards misogyny about Rosemary's Baby. Rosemary isn't a weak woman, but she's kind of beset on all sides by people who are using her in the most vile manner imaginable. I've never been a fan of Mia Farrow, but there's kind of an understated brilliance about her performance, which I sometimes find it easy to mistake for egregious aloofness. I may be showing my unmarriedness here, but I'm always appalled at the nonchalance with which Guy claims that he had his way with Rosemary while she was unconscious. It's a lie, of course, and what he really did was far worse. But the reality that he gives her - she wasn't feeling well, went to bed early, and he did his business with her while she was unconscious so that they wouldn't miss the window to conceive a child - is kind of sick to me. I mean, I know they're married, but that's still not consensual. And Rosemary, while she's clearly disturbed by it, is never quite as indignant as she should be, as I see it.
However, Rosemary is not the typical Strong Movie Woman. Farrow plays her as a real woman, who has weaknesses but is not at all weak. I think a lot of women can identify with the feeling of men who they perceive as being stronger kind of patronizing them and saying "Why don't you just lie down, honey." That may not be something we like to talk about, but I think it's something that many women deal with in their own way. Rosemary is in a very vulnerable position, but she holds her ground when she thinks it's important. And when she finally her Strong Movie Woman moment, it's actually rather impressive. More so, I think, than if she'd been stereotypically "strong" all along.
The role of the Bramford, incidentally, is being played by the real-life Dakota building (pictured below) - possibly the most elite and difficult-to-get-into apartment building in Manhattan, which makes the idea of the young married couple in Rosemary's Baby being able to sign a lease there (even when it's subbing for a fictional building) even more amusing. Lauren Bacall used to live there. Billy Joel applied to live there, but was rejected. John Lennon lived there in the last years of his life, and in front of the building is the spot where he was killed. It's a gorgeous, gothic-looking building whose east windows look out onto Central Park, and it's definitely a New York landmark. I should add that only the exterior shots of the fictional Bramford were shot at the Dakota, because photography is not allowed inside the building, even if you're a bigshot film director.
So yeah, the chances in the real world of Rosemary and her struggling actor husband living in a building like that and having a nice, cushy life are slim to none, unless the devil is in it somewhere. Because that has to be literally one hell of a co-op board. *rim shot*
No really, here's the real lesson: The world (and perhaps New York in particular) can be a scary place and just might hand you your ass if you betray vulnerability.
This is one of those perspectives that will evolve over time, I'm sure, but it's certainly one of the main filters through which I'm looking at The Move (to say nothing of the journey to writerhood). I'm heading into this with the shields up, and I can't even count the number of times I've wondered if I can really cut it. It also strikes me that being a woman will (or at least could - oh, who are we kidding? - will) make it that much more of a struggle if I'm not somewhat made of stone. As any of you who know me well can attest, I definitely am not made of stone, and that is perhaps my chief concern regarding what I'm about to do. And with that context, I can't help thinking of Rosemary. Not that being a woman living in NYC would make my life even remotely comparable to her fictional one. But there's a connection in my mind, nonetheless.
There's a kind of backwards misogyny about Rosemary's Baby. Rosemary isn't a weak woman, but she's kind of beset on all sides by people who are using her in the most vile manner imaginable. I've never been a fan of Mia Farrow, but there's kind of an understated brilliance about her performance, which I sometimes find it easy to mistake for egregious aloofness. I may be showing my unmarriedness here, but I'm always appalled at the nonchalance with which Guy claims that he had his way with Rosemary while she was unconscious. It's a lie, of course, and what he really did was far worse. But the reality that he gives her - she wasn't feeling well, went to bed early, and he did his business with her while she was unconscious so that they wouldn't miss the window to conceive a child - is kind of sick to me. I mean, I know they're married, but that's still not consensual. And Rosemary, while she's clearly disturbed by it, is never quite as indignant as she should be, as I see it.
However, Rosemary is not the typical Strong Movie Woman. Farrow plays her as a real woman, who has weaknesses but is not at all weak. I think a lot of women can identify with the feeling of men who they perceive as being stronger kind of patronizing them and saying "Why don't you just lie down, honey." That may not be something we like to talk about, but I think it's something that many women deal with in their own way. Rosemary is in a very vulnerable position, but she holds her ground when she thinks it's important. And when she finally her Strong Movie Woman moment, it's actually rather impressive. More so, I think, than if she'd been stereotypically "strong" all along.