Grey Gardens
Directors: Albert Maysles, David Maysles
7 p.m. Monday, March 23
TCM
A
Documentary filmmaking lost one of its true pioneers earlier this month with the March 5 death of Albert Maysles. For decades, he and his brother David made a host of captivating and evocative docs, including three that will air consecutively on Turner Classic Movies next Monday: Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens and Salesman.
While all three are masterpieces — and were recognized in a Sight & Sound poll as being among the 50 best docs of all time — it is Grey Gardens that proved to transcend the documentary genre and register in the popular zeitgeist, inspiring a sequel, a Broadway musical and a critically acclaimed HBO movie.
In the 1975 film, the Maysles detailed the strange world of Edith Beale — well, two Edith Beales, to be exact: mother “Big Edie” and daughter “Little Edie.” The pair were part of the über rich Bouvier family, and therefore relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, but fortune had not been kind to the Beales. Big Edie’s husband had squandered their money and abandoned the family many decades earlier, leaving the two in East Hampton, N.Y. Little Edie opted to forego a life of independence by returning to Grey Gardens — the nickname for their crumbling home — and live with her domineering mom.
And I do mean crumbling. Big Edie and Little Edie essentially resided in a single room in a house without running water, surrounded by cats and raccoons that invaded through ever-widening holes in the walls. And this in a neighborhood more suited for an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.
The Maysles came to this bizarre environment to film more than 70 hours of footage. What they captured wasn’t wholly the freak show one would expect. Well, there is some of that, to be sure, but Grey Gardens would simply be a fascinating oddity if that were solely the case. In developing a rapport with the Beales and giving them room to be themselves, the Maysles memorialized two indelible characters — particularly in Little Edie and her penchant for off-kilter fashion choices — and their complicated mother-daughter relationship.
Grey Gardens is, by turns, quirky, warm, despairing, poignant, tragic and a little magical. It is also impossible to shake from your consciousness.
