Meet Big and Little Edie Beale—high society dropouts, mother and daughter, reclusive cousins of Jackie O.—thriving together amid the decay and disorder of their ramshackle East Hampton mansion. An impossibly intimate portrait and an eerie echo of the Kennedy Camelot, Albert and David Maysles’s 1975 Grey Gardens has since become a cult classic and established Little Edie as fashion icon and philosopher queen.Although it’s typically described as a cult phenomenon, Grey Gardens is something more than that by now. The 1975 documentary by brothers Albert and David Maysles (who filmed the proceedings and co-directed with Muffie Meyer and Ellen Hovde) has been turned into a hit Broadway show, with plans for a feature film in the offing; it’s also the title of a song by Rufus Wainwright, and has been referenced on TV shows like The Gilmore Girls, The L Word, and even Rugrats. In the process, Grey Gardens has become part of the cultural zeitgeist, at least in the gay community, a circumstance that no doubt had some influence on the decision to package it with The Beales of Grey Gardens, a 90-minute assemblage of outtakes and other unused material from the original film supervised by Albert Maysles and released in 2006.
One wonders if any of this would have transpired had Edith Ewing Bouvier (known as “Big Edie”) and daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (“Little Edie”) merely been garden variety eccentrics, instead of quasi-celebrities (the aunt and cousin, respectively, of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, nee Bouvier). On the other hand, there’s a certain can’t-turn-away-from-a-car-accident fascination that comes with watching the two Edies at home in their rundown, squalid East Hampton, Long Island estate (they were ordered to fix the place up before the documentary was shot, but it’s still a dump, albeit a large one). With her endless parade of different “costumes,” every one of them featuring a scarf, a towel, or some such material wrapped around her head (then in her mid-fifties, she had an oddball fashion sense that’s a big part of her now-iconic status), Little Edie is quite a character. Considerably less appealing is her mother, a bitter, poisonous woman who apparently pressured her daughter to move back home and care for her after Big Edie’s husband quite understandably abandoned her in the early 1950s. “My whole life, I’ve been ground down and insulted every minute,” Little Edie confides to the camera, but she gives as good as she gets; the two of them squabble endlessly, mostly about past events and the careers they might have had (Big Edie as a singer, her daughter as a dancer and model). There are obviously many viewers who find this sort of terminal dysfunction appealing, even charming. For others, words like annoying and tedious may be more appropriate. And while The Beales of Grey Gardens offers more evidence that the two women actually cared for one another (there’s also a good deal more interaction between the Beales and the filmmakers, along with various other visitors), it’s essentially just more of the same. –Sam Graham
Stills from Grey Gardens (Click for larger image)
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March 18, 2008
#1
There’s enough material here for a fascinating short subject film, but nowhere near enough for a feature-length documentary, nor are these crazy bats interesting enough to hold my attention for that long. Unfortunately, what starts out as intruiging, almost haunting, becomes labored beyond compare. Essentially, the huge moment is seeing how beautiful both women were at one time and piecing together how their bizarre psychology could lead to this pathetic situation. Certainly food for thought but I found those very thoughts occupying my mind and not this increasingly bland film.
March 18, 2008
#2
Two ultimately uninteresting women are the basis of this documentary, an exploitive film, which I’m sure was only made because of that “slim” Kennedy connection. Puh-lease!
The two women are dull and their lives aren’t explored enough to justify the film. It’s just constant bickering and Edie showing off to the camera (and her totally dull philosophy). The filmmakers seem more obsessed with showing us two eccentric women and the hole they live in than anything else. Considering the filmmakers involved (the Maysles namely), the film is a huge disappointment.
March 18, 2008
#3
This documentary shows two annoying old biddies (relatives of Jackie Onassis) in their vermin infested and falling apart 75 room mansion on Long Island. Ok, so they’re insane, they’re related to Jackie O and their once beautiful place is trashed.
We are never given any real biographies of the two women, other than hints of singing and/or stage work here and there. It was distracting trying to figure out why anyone would even care about these two. Nor are we given any real history of the mansion.
Without the history, there’s nothing interesting about these lunatics other than the Jackie O connection. I’d rather have seen a documentary on the racoons in the attic.
This film is essentially a train wreck for intellectuals looking for camp that’s not as mainstream as, say, Beavis and Butthead.
Personally, I’d take Beavis any day.
If nothing else, this film will make you want to clean your house, which is pathetic if you’re the filmmaker.
March 18, 2008
#4
Felt as if I was peeping through the Beale’s key hole. Price for rental was more valuable than the insight, ahem, or should I say the lack thereof, into the Beale psyche. If you’re a celebrity-gone-broke voyeur, you’ll love this show.
March 18, 2008
#5
Frankly I enjoyed the movie better. I realize this was a “documentary” but in the movie, things were explained. The documentary just portrayed them as two crazy old women, “which they were”! The only reason the documentary was made is because they had famous relatives. Had this been my relatives, or your relatives, it would just be two crazy old women living in a rundown house with too many cats and too many raccoons. Don’t spend one dime on the documentary.