Film Analysis: Rosemary's Baby

Based on the novel by the same name, the film Rosemary's Baby follows the life of a submissive housewife named Rosemary who becomes unknowingly impregnated by the devil after her husband joins the witch coven from their new apartment building. She gives birth to a son but is horrified to see how inhuman he looks. Despite this her instincts as a mother takes over and she accepts her faith. The poster of Rosemary’s Baby serves as false advertisement by highly embellishing the idea that an explicit evil (any force or person that corrupts and or maltreats its victim for immoral reasons) is present throughout a majority of the film. It takes on details from the climax and magnifies it to the point where it gives the audience an exaggerated impression
Contrasting with the black background, in white letters the phrase “Pray for Rosemary’s baby” can be seen in the lower half of the poster. The phrase is about the same size as the stroller and rest just a few inches below the stroller. This causes the audience to view the baby first in order to feel the anxiety about it possibly falling to its death before looking down towards the words that seek help for Adrian. By using religious context it appeals to people morals. It says this child is pure and that there is something wrong. In fact the phrase orders the audience. The straightforward use of pray is the artist way of insisting that something is hurting the baby and thus needs religious intervention to be safe once again.The use of the term ‘baby’ instead of Adrian continues to push the idea of his innocence. ‘Baby’ tells us that he is young and most likely virtuous because he has not had time to sin in his life. Adrian does not hint toward what age the person would be and thus it is harder to feel empathy because the need to protect an adult is not as strong as the need to protect a child. Even if Adrian is a baby it is ironic to use the term pray seeing as who his father is, but that is why the artist choose to use “ Rosemary’s baby.” We are told to pray for Rosemary’s child so that as the audience watches the film they can focus on the fact that Adrian is a baby not on who the father is. The artist could have choose to use the phrase “ pray for Satan’s baby” so that it would not appear that the baby is in danger of an evil. Some would say that the phrase just plays on the title of the film, but the title is repeated toward the end of the posters and thus there is no need to chose Rosemary unless to hide that there is no true risk