Rosemary's Bissage

Last night Mrs. Bissage and I watched “Rosemary’s Baby.” We did this motivated largely by the recent controversy surrounding the arrest of internationally acclaimed movie director Roman Polanski.

Mrs. Bissage asked me why they had that bit in the movie about Rosemary cutting her hair.I gave a long-winded, rambling, pointless answer. That’s what I do.

But here’s the short version: Part of it was to capitalize on the “swinging London” phenomenon and appropriate it for New York City. Part of it was to turn the audience against her husband, Guy Woodhouse, because he sees the haircut for the first time and reacts like a true cad.

But mostly, cutting Mia Farrow’s hair made her look like a vulnerable little girl; a child, really, who would soon enough end up drugged and raped by no one less evil than your Dark Lord, and mine, Satan, himself.

Reality is the stuff of fiction, after all, no matter how grandiose it might seem.

Call it artistic license.

And this is how you can tell you are looking at a work of true genius, when you see one.