All of Them Witches...
It dawned on me that I hadn't written in months. My beloved cat companion Tanith of 11 years past right after my piece in January, and I am just now managing my way through a life without her snuggles and purrs. Tanith was a familiar, a companion that was more than a cat, but a soul-part that knew me and I knew her. It wasn't until today that I made myself laugh at one of my own dark jokes that I felt like myself again, and prompted me to put words down here. The joke? Glad you asked!
I saw a gentleman in a motorized scooter who could have been a twin for Sidney Blackmer portraying Roman Castevet in Rosemary's Baby. The man was entering the grocery store as I was leaving. I only wanted one thing: a nice Cabernet Sauvignon to close out my week of recovering myself from the last few months of sorrow, bone-deep tiredness, and a continuance of spiritual immersion. A week of crows and doves visiting my balcony has also been inspirational, as I am emerging anew. Anyway, to the joke.
As the Roman Castevet look-a-like rolled into the store and I exited, I popped off in my head, "That devil baby didn't help you none now did it?!" I cackled all the way home. Now, nearly 60 years after the film's release, it can still cause a stir - as it should. 12 June 1968, Rosemary's Baby was released, and just over a year later, Roman Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, along with Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, and Abigail Folger were murdered at 10050 Cielo Drive. This all made me think, the real story wasn't truly about Rosemary's shithead husband Guy selling her as a vessel to a coven of so-called witches to birth some supernatural being. It was about a young woman in love with her life, her friends, and her husband, whilst the one she held dearest the most not only betrayed her, but sought to strip her of agency and sovereignty for his own selfishness.
In the film, Guy and Rosemary move into this incredible apartment. The building Polanski used was the Dakota, a historic luxury apartment building on West 72nd Street and Central Park West in NYC. The Dakota served as the exterior for "The Bramford" in the film - the same building would be the one where John Lennon would be murdered years later. The "Bramford" in the film is home to many an elderly couple, with Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse being, at least seemingly, the only child-bearing age couple in residence. Guy (played by John Cassavetes) is a promising yet struggling actor from Baltimore with sweet, naive Rosemary from Omaha. Rosemary should've spent more time in Baltimore - I saw many a deal go down between Congressmen's aides and pimps there on Lombard Street near the old Hustler Club. Sex and drugs - the oldest witchcraft on the planet.
Rosemary's naivety, however, is an asset until it isn't in the film. Her beloved friend, Hutch, keeps an eye out for her, as do her girlfriends who attend the soiree she throws in the film, looking like a ghost drawn on parchment. She appears so because she is pregnant - unknowingly NOT by her husband. Rosemary's first doctor, C.C. Hill (played by Charles Grodin), requests additional blood draws that never happen. What was the issue with her prior samples? Did they pick up on the date-rape drugs Guy allowed Minnie to spike the chocolate mousse with? Would that even be possible? Was it to do with the fact that she was assaulted by something non-human in a ritual, and the conceived offspring bore some strange set of biomarkers detectable even to late 1960's lab standards?
After we learned recently of a "Rape Academy" online allowing for the tutelage of millions of men to learn and get away with drugging, raping, and filming their partners, this film now hits home in a new and terrifying fashion. The betrayal and loss of agency and sovereignty in even the most sanctified of relationships, marriage. The Gisèle Pelicot case in France detonated the illusion that marriage is a sacrament - which Rosemary's Baby clearly illustrated in 1968. The closest to us will betray us not only the fastest but in the most vile ways possible.
We do not need to have Covens or secret rituals; the real witchcraft is that of illusion. I had a partner tell me one time that our relationship was " what I wanted to believe was real." He was correct. I've found myself pondering that phrase for nearly 11 years now - perhaps all our relationships with our most intimate partners are what we want to believe is real. What exactly is that illusion anyway? Do we glamor ourselves into believing this person, this job, or this home/apartment is in alignment with our true self or the wounded (aka shadow) one? Guy Woodhouse was a handsome actor from Baltimore, whereas Rosemary was simplistic from Omaha. Was she glamored into a life she thought she wanted - and the glamoring was committed by her own psyche?
How often do we all participate in such rituals? I sometimes ponder that, ponder if that was really what happened with Sharon Tate, a child of an Army Intelligence Officer and a homemaker from Texas. The allure of Hollywood, yet beneath the exterior, we now know, many monsters lurk. The film seems to mirror so much of the inner workings of relationships and the promises of fame. And what of the consequences?
Rosemary discovers her baby is alive near the end of the film in the Castevet apartment. The camera never shows the child, only that the eyes she saw during her assault are those inherited by her son Adrian - interesting that Roman names the child after his own creepy father. Rosemary's agency to even name her own child is taken from her. I ask myself how the feminine is to recover from such a world as this that Polanski showed us clearly exists. Maybe it doesn't.
Perhaps the answer is to reclaim that part of ourselves that wishes to remain untamed and seated in sovereignty. To be uncompromising with those who would seek to compromise for their own ill-gotten gains.
Maybe that's what felines can teach us. Maybe that is what Tanith taught me.
I leave you with Fog by Carl Sandburg -
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
