This is one of the most intelligent, engrossing, chapter-by-chapter “making of” docs I’ve ever seen. Absolutely necessary viewing if you love Rosemary’s Baby. It’s included in the Criterion Bluray of Rosemary’s Baby, which came out in October 2012.
From my 10.22.12 review: “I only know that the Baby Bluray doesn’t have that special plus quality, that look of ‘whoa!…this looks better than ever!’ that Blurays sometimes provide.
“Criterion’s Sunday Bloody Sunday Bluray has that look, or at least it looks significantly better than I’ve ever seen it on a home screen before. But their Rosemary’s Baby Bluray, truth be told, looks roughly the same as it did when I bought the DVD ten or 12 years ago and played it on my Sony 32″ analog flatscreen. And it looks roughly the same as it does when I play the Netflix version on my iPad 3. And it looks about the same as it did the last time it played on Turner Classic Movies. And it looks roughly the same as when it opened in Boston’s combat zone on June 13, 1968.
“The Rosemary’s Baby Bluray, in short, wasn’t mastered with the idea of taking your breath away, or at least the idea of taking away the breath of someone like myself, a Bluray-worshipping, semi-sophisticated cineaste and ex-projectionist who doesn’t mind a little tasteful DNRing. It’s made for the grain dweebs who will say ‘whoa, really nice grain structure!’ It looks like it’s being projected at the Criterion theatre a week after Bobby Kennedy was killed with a first-rate projectionist in the booth. Grain purists like Glenn Kenny will probably be happy, and I’m not putting Kenny down when I say this. So I’m not ‘complaining.’ Really. It’s fine. I’m just saying ‘it is what it is.’
“I’ve given up on seeing Rosemary’s Baby at 1.66 in my lifetime, but I would have been just a tad happier if Polanski and Criterion guys had at least used a full-screen 1.78 to 1 aspect ratio and given it just a bit more height instead of faintly cropping at the tops and bottoms in order to give it a 1.85 aspect ratio.”
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