{ "id": "ep9b32ee17", "slug": "the-baby-of-macon", "title": "The Baby of Mâcon", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1990s", "label": "Drama films 1990s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1990s" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1990s.drama-films-early-1990s", "label": "Drama films early 1990s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1990s.drama-films-early-1990s" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1990s", "label": "Western Europe · 1946 to 2000: Drama films 1990s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1990s", "path": [ { "id": "geo.weu", "label": "Western Europe", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946", "label": "Western Europe · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1990s", "label": "Drama films 1990s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1990s" } ] } ], "excerpt": "The Baby of Mâcon (Das Wunder von Mâcon) is Peter Greenaway's 1993 avant-garde drama about a staged miracle virgin birth exploited by a sister and the Church; premiered at Cannes 1993, critically reviled, never US-distributed.", "snippet": "The Baby of Mâcon (Das Wunder von Mâcon) is Peter Greenaway's 1993 avant-garde drama about a staged miracle virgin birth exploited by a sister and the Church; premiered at Cannes 1993, critically reviled, never US-distributed.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1990s.drama-films-early-1990s", "markdown": "# The Baby of Mâcon\n\n**The Baby of Mâcon** is a 1993 avant-garde drama film written and directed by [Peter Greenaway](https://www.edgepedia.org/peter-greenaway), produced by Kees Kasander as a United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, and Germany co-production.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/f8f07413-0268-59cf-ae4d-e94e44544db6/the-baby-of-macon) Set in the 17th-century court of Cosimo III de' Medici, it shows a company of players performing a drama about an apparent virgin birth in the French town of Mâcon, and the exploitation of that \"miracle\" by the child's sister and by the Church.[2](https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-the-baby-of-macon-1993-online) The film premiered out of competition at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival, was received with overwhelming hostility by critics, and never received formal theatrical distribution in the United States.[3](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/the-baby-of-macon/) • [4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-peter-greenaway) • [5](https://notcoming.com/reviews/thebabyofmacon/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director and writer | Peter Greenaway; produced by Kees Kasander[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/f8f07413-0268-59cf-ae4d-e94e44544db6/the-baby-of-macon) |\n| Production countries | United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Germany (1992/1993)[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/f8f07413-0268-59cf-ae4d-e94e44544db6/the-baby-of-macon) • [6](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/das-wunder-von-macon_ea43d4a78b455006e03053d50b37753d) |\n| Premiere | Cannes Film Festival, 17 May 1993, Séances spéciales (out of competition), 119 minutes[3](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/the-baby-of-macon/) • [6](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/das-wunder-von-macon_ea43d4a78b455006e03053d50b37753d) |\n| Principal cast | Julia Ormond (the Daughter), Ralph Fiennes (the Bishop's Son), Philip Stone (the Bishop), Jonathan Lacey (Cosimo Medici), Nils Dorando (the Baby)[7](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106335/fullcredits/) • [8](https://www.offi.fr/cinema/evenement/the-baby-of-macon-2712.html) |\n| Key crew | Cinematography Sacha Vierny; editing Chris Wyatt; production design Jan Roelfs and Ben van Os[3](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/the-baby-of-macon/) |\n| Budget and UK box office | £2.00 million budget; £0.122 million UK box office as of May 2003[9](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?doi=56c9b3a3bb00c5896acab018c641ab0ee30803c0&repid=rep1&type=pdf) |\n| Reception | 38% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (8 reviews); 81% audience score from 1,000+ ratings[10](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/baby_of_macon) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Premise and structure\n\nThe film depicts the 1659 staging of a medieval morality play, invented by Greenaway, in a provincial Italian theater at the height of the [Counter-Reformation](https://www.edgepedia.org/counter-reformation).[11](https://www.ellenlens.com/the-baby-of-m%C3%A2con.html) Within the play, the town of Mâcon is beset by plague, famine, and a plague of infertility, and the cycles are broken when a beautiful baby boy is born to an old, ugly woman.[12](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2024/great-directors/greenaway-peter/) • [13](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/the-baby-of-macon) The child's ambitious 17-year-old sister, the Daughter ([Julia Ormond](https://www.edgepedia.org/julia-ormond)), proclaims herself the true mother by virgin birth and exploits the child's powers, selling blessings from the baby and pitting herself against the Church.[13](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/the-baby-of-macon) • [14](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-baby-of-macon) When she attempts to seduce the Bishop's Son ([Ralph Fiennes](https://www.edgepedia.org/ralph-fiennes)), the Church exacts a terrible revenge.[14](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-baby-of-macon) After the Daughter's downfall, the baby's body is partitioned by a crowd in the Church as the Church secures valuable relics.[15](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20004214.2024.2318816) • [16](https://filmcommission.nl/database/production/the-baby-of-macon/)\n\n**Nested theatricality.** The entire film is staged in a theater, with the camera often moving in enormous uninterrupted single takes, and the play's audience is included in the scenario.[5](https://notcoming.com/reviews/thebabyofmacon/) Greenaway intentionally dissolves the dividing lines separating the drama from the world beyond it, and the performers from those watching them, with the result that the performance turns into one more corrupted act of religious ritual.[14](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-baby-of-macon) The setting appears to be a Church rather than a theater proper, and the stage area never stabilizes its contours, expanding sideways, upward, and downward into new levels of artifice in what the published script calls an \"ever-growing set of Russian-doll illusions.\"[15](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20004214.2024.2318816) At the film's conclusion, the on-stage actors bow to their theater audience, who in turn bow to the modern cinema audience.[11](https://www.ellenlens.com/the-baby-of-m%C3%A2con.html)\n\nThe film's most notorious sequence comes in Act III, when the illusion of a staged rape is dispelled and the actress playing the Daughter is submitted to a \"real\" gang rape, described by Greenaway as \"a scene played with shadow-theater figures, where the spectator imagines the action based on sound effects.\"[15](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20004214.2024.2318816) The BFI rates the film 18 for graphic scenes of rape and violence.[2](https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-the-baby-of-macon-1993-online)\n\n## Production\n\nGreenaway shot the film in Germany and the Netherlands with the production companies Allarts, Union Générale Cinématographique (UGC), La Sept Cinéma, Channel Four, Cine Electra, and Black Forest Films.[11](https://www.ellenlens.com/the-baby-of-m%C3%A2con.html) • [6](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/das-wunder-von-macon_ea43d4a78b455006e03053d50b37753d) • [10](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/baby_of_macon) Sacha Vierny, who had lit Greenaway's earlier films, served as cinematographer and won the Golden Frog at the 1993 Camerimage festival in Łódź, as well as Best Cinematography at the Catalonian International Film Festival in Sitges, where Greenaway won Best Film.[3](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/the-baby-of-macon/) • [11](https://www.ellenlens.com/the-baby-of-m%C3%A2con.html) The score draws on baroque music, including [Henry Purcell](https://www.edgepedia.org/henry-purcell), and marks the end of Greenaway's collaboration with composer [Michael Nyman](https://www.edgepedia.org/michael-nyman), who had parted ways with the director over *[Prospero's Books](https://www.edgepedia.org/prosperos-books)* (1991).[6](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/das-wunder-von-macon_ea43d4a78b455006e03053d50b37753d) • [4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-peter-greenaway) Around 800 extras were recruited for the film in Amsterdam and Cologne; Greenaway photographed them in costume for a portrait exhibition titled *The Audience*, extending the film's blurring of actors and spectators.[15](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20004214.2024.2318816)\n\nGreenaway framed the film as a study of innocence exploited. In a Cannes interview he said that at the end of the century \"it seems that the Good is rarely rewarded, Evil rarely punished, and that innocence is generally flouted. This film is devoted to innocence exploited and mistreated.\"[17](https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1993/05/13/le-46eme-festival-de-cannes-les-britanniques-reviennent-the-baby-of-macon-de-peter-greenaway-l-innocence-victime-de-la-manipulation_3955269_1819218.html) He also said he wanted the difficult and graphic scenes presented with \"nothing glamorised and nothing safe,\" a response to what he saw as sanitized representations of sex and violence elsewhere.[2](https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-the-baby-of-macon-1993-online)\n\n## Reception and controversy\n\nThe film was highly controversial from its first screenings. Charges of sacrilege and misanthropy marked the reception, with many viewers taking issue with the punitive rape scene, which played with their willingness to suspend disbelief; at the Alfieri Atelier Cinema in Florence the director clashed with an audience that had booed the film, telling a protesting spectator, \"Is that why you go [to the movies]? To have your prejudices massaged?\"[15](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20004214.2024.2318816) At Cannes in 1993, a goodly proportion of the critics did not wait to see the end.[18](https://thesis.ncad.ie/T1284_The%20films%20of%20Peter%20Greenaway%20a%20tissue%20of%20lies_NC00204986.pdf) British reviews were largely hostile: Philip French in the Observer called it \"the most determinedly disgusting film from a major director since *Salo*,\" while [Geoff Brown](https://www.edgepedia.org/geoff-brown) in [The Times](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-times) wrote that watching it was \"like being locked for eternity in a hideous religious painting.\"[10](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/baby_of_macon) Dennis Schwartz, by contrast, gave it an A-, calling it unpleasant to view but rewarding for viewers open to its anti-religious treatment of the nativity.[10](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/baby_of_macon)\n\n**Career impact.** According to the BFI, the overwhelmingly negative reception of *The Baby of Mâcon* caused many viewers to break the habit of following Greenaway's career, and his subsequent feature films became more sporadic and sometimes barely released.[4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-peter-greenaway) The same BFI retrospective nonetheless calls it one of the richest of all his films in ideas, and notes that Greenaway responded to its box-office failure by attending every evening screening during its second and final London week to defend it in person.[4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-peter-greenaway) Later scholarship has reexamined the film's politics: a 2024 study by Marco de Waard of Amsterdam University College argues that the film is a political-ontological fiction whose critique of voyeurism and audience exploitability is more democratic than its initial blasphemous and misanthropic reception allowed.[15](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20004214.2024.2318816)\n\n## Distribution\n\nThe film's commercial circulation has been unusually restricted. It debuted at Cannes in 1993, screened in Europe and the UK, and in the years since has gone virtually unseen; it has never had distribution in the United States beyond a short, independently programmed run at a Washington, DC art house, and has been legally available only on a New Zealand DVD.[5](https://notcoming.com/reviews/thebabyofmacon/) In France it was released on 5 January 1994 by UGC.[8](https://www.offi.fr/cinema/evenement/the-baby-of-macon-2712.html) In Spain the film was rated not suitable for viewers under eighteen.[19](https://infoicaa.mcu.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=137493) A BFI Player subscription streaming release later made the film available in the UK, though it has at times been listed as currently unavailable there.[2](https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-the-baby-of-macon-1993-online)\n\n## References\n\n1. [The Baby of Mâcon (1993), British Film Institute](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/f8f07413-0268-59cf-ae4d-e94e44544db6/the-baby-of-macon)\n2. [Watch The Baby of Mâcon online, BFI Player](https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-the-baby-of-macon-1993-online)\n3. [The Baby of Macon, Festival de Cannes](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/the-baby-of-macon/)\n4. [Where to begin with Peter Greenaway, BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-peter-greenaway)\n5. [The Baby of Mâcon review, Not Coming to a Theater Near You](https://notcoming.com/reviews/thebabyofmacon/)\n6. [Das Wunder von Mâcon, filmportal.de](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/das-wunder-von-macon_ea43d4a78b455006e03053d50b37753d)\n7. [The Baby of Mâcon (1993) full cast and crew, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106335/fullcredits/)\n8. [The Baby of Mâcon, L'Officiel des spectacles](https://www.offi.fr/cinema/evenement/the-baby-of-macon-2712.html)\n9. [Producing the Goods? (UK film production data)](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?doi=56c9b3a3bb00c5896acab018c641ab0ee30803c0&repid=rep1&type=pdf)\n10. [The Baby of Macon, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/baby_of_macon)\n11. [The Baby of Mâcon, Ellen Lens costume design page](https://www.ellenlens.com/the-baby-of-m%C3%A2con.html)\n12. [Greenaway, Peter, Senses of Cinema](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2024/great-directors/greenaway-peter/)\n13. [The Baby of Mâcon (1993), MUBI](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/the-baby-of-macon)\n14. [The Baby of Mâcon review, Time Out](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-baby-of-macon)\n15. [Marco de Waard (2024). Staging division: power, violence, and theatricality in The Baby of Mâcon. Journal of Aesthetics & Culture.](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20004214.2024.2318816)\n16. [The Baby Of Macon, Netherlands Film Commission](https://filmcommission.nl/database/production/the-baby-of-macon/)\n17. [Le Monde, 13 May 1993: The Baby of Mâcon at Cannes](https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1993/05/13/le-46eme-festival-de-cannes-les-britanniques-reviennent-the-baby-of-macon-de-peter-greenaway-l-innocence-victime-de-la-manipulation_3955269_1819218.html)\n18. [The Films of Peter Greenaway: A Tissue of Lies (thesis, NCAD)](https://thesis.ncad.ie/T1284_The%20films%20of%20Peter%20Greenaway%20a%20tissue%20of%20lies_NC00204986.pdf)\n19. [Niño de Macon, El, ICAA film catalog, Spain](https://infoicaa.mcu.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=137493)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1990s › Drama films early 1990s*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-baby-of-macon", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-baby-of-macon.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"The Baby of Mâcon\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-baby-of-macon. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[The Baby of Mâcon](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-baby-of-macon)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/the-baby-of-macon](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-baby-of-macon). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"The Baby of Mâcon\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-baby-of-macon. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Baby of Mâcon is Peter Greenaway's 1993 avant-garde drama about a staged miracle virgin birth exploited by a sister and the Church; premiered at Cannes 1993, critically reviled, never US-distributed." }