Rosemary (Mia Farrow) doesn’t know who she can trust in Roman Polanski’s horror classic
CABARET CINEMA: ROSEMARY’S BABY (Roman Polanski, 1968)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, March 8, free with $7 bar minimum, 9:30
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org
Based on the frightening novel by Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby is one of the greatest psychological horror films ever made — and one of the best ever about the hell that apartment life in New York City can be. When Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) move into the fancy Upper West Side apartment complex the Bramford (the Dakota), ready to start a family, Rosemary slowly grows suspicious of Guy’s new friends, particularly the sweet old couple next door (Oscar winner Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer), with good reason. Written and directed by Roman Polanski, Rosemary’s Baby works primarily because it is so believable, with recognizable characters and situations that never go over the top. It’s not just about a satanic underworld gathering in New York City; it delves headfirst into urban paranoia and the fear of adulthood and responsibility, focusing on career success and parenting, with the baby-faced Farrow expertly cast as the mom-to-be. The frightening thriller, which is filled with truly scary scenes, has held up well over the years, so beware if you’re afraid of the dark. In any case, be prepared to have the bejesus scared out of you. Rosemary’s Baby is screening March 8 at 9:30 as part of the Rubin Museum Cabaret Cinema series “Illusions Revealed,” consisting of films that address misperception, and will be introduced by neuroscientist Ioana Carcea. The series continues with such films as Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso, Louis Malle’s Black Moon, and Sam Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron through April 26.
Based on the novel by Keith Waterhouse (which he also adapted into a play with Willis Hall and which later became a musical), John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar is a prime example of the British New Wave of the 1950s and 1960s, which features work by such directors as Lindsay Anderson, Joseph Losey, Ken Russell, Nicolas Roeg, and Karel Reisz. Tom Courtenay stars as William Fisher, a ne’er-do-well ladies’ man who drudges away in a funeral home and dates (and lies to) multiple women, all the while daydreaming of being the president of the fictional country of Ambrosia. Billy lives in his own fantasy world where he can suddenly fire machine guns at people who bother him and be cheered by adoring crowds as he leads a marching band. Reminiscent of the 1947 American comedy The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, in which Danny Kaye dreams of other lives to lift him out of the doldrums, Billy Liar is also rooted in the reality of post-WWII England, represented by Billy’s father (Wilfred Pickles), who thinks his son is a no-good lazy bum. Shot in black-and-white, the film glows every time Julie Christie appears playing Liz, a modern woman who takes a rather fond liking to Billy. The film made Christie a star; Schlesinger next cast her in Darling, for which she won the Oscar for Best Actress. A 35mm print of Billy Liar is being shown March 7 at the IFC Center in the special program “Movie Night with Michel Gondry”; the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Be Kind Rewind, and The We and the I, which opens at IFC on March 8, will participate in a discussion following the screening. “John Schlesinger’s film certainly had an influence on my films, especially The Science of Sleep, just like Walter Mitty or other films intercutting layers of consciousness,” Gondry explains on the IFC website. “Only Billy Liar is one of the few to achieve that in the context of a social satire. All Billy’s visions are like explosions coming out of this very crude and bleak reality. And his personality is very unique, nailed in his lack of ambition. This is one of the films that taught me how magic can come just from editing.”
