THE BABY OF MACON

Yet the child’s biological mother does not fit the story of a local miracle. In the eyes of those in power at the Medici court, she is too old and too unattractive to belong in a tale of divine intervention. She is hidden from the public and replaced by her grown-up daughter, who convinces everyone that she is a virgin and the mother of the miraculous child.

From that moment on, the boy becomes the most valuable commodity in the city. Whoever has access to it holds the power – and it is this power that the father, the self-proclaimed Madonna, the Church and the court are all fighting for. Blessings are given a price, while the miracle itself is manufactured and sold like any other product.

Greenaway spares no one: neither the powerful nor the clergy nor the mindless crowd. The story unfolds as a play within a play, performed in the 17th century for an on-screen audience who watch alongside us. THE BABY OF MÂCON dazzles with saturated colour, sumptuous costumes and compositions that resemble Baroque paintings, while never shying away from acts of cruelty, degradation and violence.

When it premiered at Cannes in 1993, the film caused an uproar and remains one of Greenaway’s most controversial works. It is a merciless portrait of elites for whom faith becomes spectacle, and a critique of greed that cuts across every social class.

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Text: dr Adrianna Woroch