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| A Still From "The Baby Of Macon" |
In 1993, Director Peter Greenaway, in response to an ad showing a newborn baby being taken down for being "too disturbing" decided to make the most disturbing movie he could. Like the ad, he used familiar visuals and resources to make his point: plot elements borrowed from classical literature, Biblical stories, and classical history. What came together was a surreal movie that served as a warning against child exploitation: The Baby Of Macon. Yet, Greenaway performed his role too well: The Baby Of Macon was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993 before it was suppressed for (at least) four years: elements of the plot caused outcry from The Catholic Church, and it ended up banned nearly world-wide. It was re-released in 2002 thanks to director Andrew R. McElhinney. Today, it stands as a rare cult classic, known widely from Youtube clickbait calling it "The Most Disturbing Movie In History."
!!!SPOILERS FOR THE BABY OF MACON!!!
The Baby of Macon is a play about a play about a Prince watching a play. The plot centers around the city of Macon suffering a baby bust, and the only child having been born in years being exploited by his immediate family. The Child, as he is called in the movie, has the gifts of speech and prophecy, and is an allegory for not only Christ, but the exploitation of children. Many people have heard of this movie thanks to its gratuitous sexual assault scene, in which the Sister (played by Julia Ormond) is violated 208 times per the request of Prince Cosimo Medici III, a real-life historical figure portrayed in the film as a bumbling, naive teenager.
Throughout the film, Cosimo is shown not understanding the lines between the play and reality, even going so far as to buy the relics from the actor playing a priest or even dedicating a holy cow to the child. The movie muddies the water even further with the perspective of the viewer being the same as Cosimo’s, and we experience this very subtle and disturbing break from reality alongside him. Many scenes in the movie are not real, they are what Cosimo thinks is happening, and I’ve noticed many people miss this part of the plot: there are no children backstage being nursed by their mothers: there isn’t even a real child in the whole play. You can even pinpoint when reality becomes blurred with the events of the play: in the beginning, one of the midwives brings a paper mache doll onto the stage, and it miraculously transforms into a child.
!!!End of Spoilers!!!
Yet, who was the real Cosimo? And is this portrayal accurate to history?
Prince Cosimo was born to Fernando II and his wife Vittoria on August 14th, 1642. He was only one of two children who survived infancy: he was predeceased by two siblings, both having died within a year of their birth. Cosimo’s childhood was very pious and very sheltered, although Cosimo was a very active youth: he loved shooting and hunting, and was very good at both.
It is widely accepted by historians that Cosimo was gay, and that he had a lover named Petrillo, who was a court singer. When Petrillo fled Florence due to the hue and cry made from Cosimo’s public displays of affection towards him, Cosimo then moved onto another lover, named Cecchino, who was a castrato. Yet, behind closed doors, his father tried to remedy his son’s urges, which caused Cosimo to cease smiling publicly and to become incredibly religious.
Cosimo was married to Marguerite Louise D’Orleans by proxy on 17th of April 1661. She would arrive in person two months later, and was greeted with much celebration. Records show that Ferdinand presented his daughter-in-law with a pearl “the size of a pigeon’s egg” as a wedding gift. Yet, all would not be well for the couple: the marriage was incredibly unhappy, and the couple almost immediately began quarrelling. Nevertheless, the couple had three children: Ferdinando, Anna Maria Luisa, and Gian Gascone.
As Marguerite became more and more unhinged, it was agreed that she would be sent back to France. This proved to be a mistake: Marguerite, feeling scorned as ever, took whatever opportunity she found to humiliate her in-laws. She tried to accuse the Medici of trying to poison her, and when she caught smallpox after the birth of her daughter, she blamed that on them as well. In order to distract himself and the world from his marital turmoil, Cosimo went on a journey across Europe, visiting Amsterdam, Hamburg, Florence, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, England, and back through Holland. This trip did Cosimo “much good” and allowed him to meet men confidants on his travels. His travelling companion, Lorenzo Conte Magalotti recorded much of their adventures together.
In 1670, Ferdinand II died of dropsy, leaving the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the hands of Cosimo. Yet, his own mother vied for power, and won the right to administrative roles. Cosimo proved to be a very poor ruler, and lost interest altogether in it soon after gaining his titles. Cosimo went on to send Marguerite to a convent, where she stayed until her death. She settled into the convent of Montmartre in France.
With Marguerite out of the picture, Cosimo proceeded to persecute the Jewish population living within his fiefdom. He made it illegal for Christians and Jewish citizens to not only work but sleep together, and if the law was broken, the fine was 50 crowns. If 50 crowns (and incredible amount for the time period) could not be procured, torture on the rack was then used.
Even as a nun, Marguerite could not keep out of trouble, and after she accidentally lit an abbess’ dog on fire, the convent wrote some stern letters to Cosimo. Cosimo tried to reprimand his ex-wife via letter, which did not work in the slightest. Louis XIV later became involved, having to tell off Cosimo personally, which apparently caused Cosimo to fall ill in shame. Soon after, Cosimo joined the Turkish Wars, which further flamed his antisemitism. Cosimo soon became known to the public as a despot, and Tuscany began falling further into poverty, which became even worse with Cosimo’s children’s debts and even worse political intrigue on his part, which included betting on the wrong heir after the death of Charles II.
On the 22nd of September 1723, Cosimo suffered what seems to be an epileptic seizure that lasted 2 hours. He never fully recovered, and died a month later. Cosimo left Tuscany a shell of its former self: weary of persecution and bankrupt, it was worth nothing by the time he was done with it. With his three children, his lineage died, as none of them produced children.
It seems that the portrayal of Cosimo in the Baby of Macon would be historically accurate: he does come off as a sheltered idiot. From his persecutions to his mishandling of…well…everything, Cosimo seems like the type of person who would’ve benefitted from doing the opposite of whatever he wanted to. Yet, whether his mental health was bad enough for him to hallucinate a whole child, who knows?
Resources:
A cartografia Urbana da Província d’Entre Douro e Minho, em meados do século XVIII: a urbivisão de
The E-Journal of Portuguese History
This post is the first of two parts, tune in soon for the second part, where I speak about The Sister and her parallels to the tragic Roman figure of Junilla.
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