cnycitylady Not the people who star in this wanton documentary, oh no. They have souls and they pine for their pasts and they regret profoundly, the way that we all do. They simply have the misfortune of having their innermost regrets and thoughts splayed out comically for all the world to see.I felt for these women so acutely. They love each other and fit together like a favorite pair of well worn shoes, but their devotion to each other seems to have robbed them of the vibrancy that they used to posses. They bicker and poke at each other because it's all they have left of the joys of life, a life that was more than enough for the both of them until these movie makers decided to bring up 'what ifs' and 'could have beens' from the past. It just seemed so cruel to put them through it. It was also unkind the way that they present the house as a dump when, from where I'm sitting, it looks like a perfectly comfortable and homey place to live. Just because these women don't adhere to the standard of the one percent doesn't make their home--full of warmth and genuine affection, a squalor shack. I cannot get behind this famed documentary because it cruelly dramatizes the wasted hopes and past dreams of a mother and daughter who lived, by any standards, a full life. Cruelty should not be regarded as art.

evanston_dad I had a very complicated reaction to "Grey Gardens," the Maysles brothers' cult classic 1975 documentary. I felt by turns creeped out by Edith and Edie, the mother and daughter at the film's center, and very sorry for them. They rot away in a derelict and disgustingly dirty mansion, swarmed by cats and other wild animals, bickering and reminiscing about the lives each of them left behind, Edith's as a singer and Edie's as a model and dancer. There shouldn't be anything wrong with not realizing your ambitions when those ambitions lie in artistic fields that only a very select few succeed in, yet the fact that these two didn't replace their disappointments with anything else turns them into grand guignol caricatures. Edie especially is like Norma Desmond if Norma had never been successful in the first place. I couldn't decide whether she was just deeply eccentric or actually suffering from a mental disorder. There's a scene where some people they know come over for Edith's birthday party, and the young female guest looks the entire time like she can't wait to get out of the house and away from the weirdness. That's exactly how I felt watching the film. Even though they volunteered to have their lives filmed, and despite the fact that Edie at least thrives on the attention, I couldn't help but feel a little shamed being a voyeur. The film is like rummaging through someone else's dirty underwear.Grade: A

MisterWhiplash If creepy-as-s**t "aristocratic" Americans attachment disorders were McDonald's happy meals, Foxcatcher would be for the boys while Grey Gardens would be for the girls... weird analogy, perhaps, until you realize that one of the Bouvier/Beales (or both) knew the Duponts, and one of their photos is pointed in the film out as being shot by those other delightful bunch of blue bloods.This is the original 'Hoarders', a reality show before that concept had polluted the TV airwaves, only here given a natural boost and clarity by the Maysles brothers - they're unmistakable as being part of this whole thing and even try to sing along once or twice in good favor with these wombats - and thus they are all-too human depictions of decay and disorder. You might almost think going on, as I did, mistakenly, that there may be some laughs to be had, whether at their expense (cruel, but it's part of the whole Schaudenfreude thing with reality TV) or with them (a few of the elder Edith's observations are funny in a scathing way).But it's not really. This is a disturbing film precisely because the Maysles just show the place for how it is. And yet it also has some good historical context amid the mother and daughter squabbling (which makes up a good 55% of the film) - just one panning shot across the various homes along the Long Island sound, homes that were very likely at one time the sort one saw in Gatsby, speaks a lot of words.It's meant to be uncomfortable many times, though there's a lot of tragedy in the air as well. 'Little Edie' may or may not be here against her will in a way; but then the questions arise, and one goes into another. One might ask, why doesn't she just leave? Well then, who would take care of her mother? Maybe it's her mother's 'time' to go to a "home" for the elderly - her eyesight is quite terrible, and though she has some of her marbles she spends much of her time singing (not terribly, it should be noted) to old show-tunes and petting and feeding the stray cats. But then why even keep the house at all? Memories, perhaps. Or just the whole 'Old-Money' thing that came with being the cousin of the former wife of the president of the USA. Marriage is brought up a lot in the film - failed ones, (semi) successful ones, relationships that could have been that Little Edie resents her mother for, and her mother just thinks 'Eh, whatever'. In a way it's almost like the Maysles have no choice but NOT get in the way of these women. They only ask a question here and there to move a thought forward, not to press any point. Clearly, as one can see in Grey Gardens, these ladies can do that all on their own. Of course the house itself is another character, a gangly and rancid thing in the midst of "All those leaves" (as Little Edie points out) looking like something that should at BEST be considered for a *good* cleaning and at worst should be burned to the ground (those cute raccoons in the attic optional). Ultimately, the power of this creepy saga of the underbelly of the upper class is sometimes very hard to watch or take in, but that's the idea. After five minutes you'll either know to go along for the other hour and a half with these pieces of work, or not. I did, and I'm glad I did - whether I return, I'm not sure.

Sindre Kaspersen Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer, David Maysles and his brother Albert Maysles' documentary feature about American socialites Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (1895-1977) and Edith Bouvier Beale (1917-2002) was shot on location in the town of East Hampton in southeastern Suffolk, New York in USA and is an American production which was produced by American documentary filmmakers Albert Maysles and David Maysles (1932-1987). It tells the story about Edith aka Little Edie and her mother Edith aka Big Edie who whilst living on an estate called Grey Gardens in the mid 1970s where they had been living quite isolated for many years, were faced with eviction after being ordered to clean up the house by the Suffolk County Health Commission.This Direct Cinema documentary which examines the everyday life, relationship and personalities of a singer in her early 80s and a fashion model and cabaret performer in her mid-50s, draws an utterly intimate and condensed portrayal of a very contradictory relationship between a mother and daughter who ever since the daughter put her career on hold and left New York in the early 1950s, lived on their own in a descending house with eight cats and other wild animals. Besides the fact that Little Edie was the first cousin and Big Edie the aunt of former First Lady of the United States and book editor Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929-1994), it early on becomes evident why this somewhat eccentric pair was chosen as subjects for a documentary feature.In this close look into the private and personal lives of two human beings who was in a far from ideal situation, one becomes more concerned with the people who are unveiling their lives in the most candid way than the story itself, and begins to question if this is more than just a quest for attention and fame and weather or not they really wanted someone to see as much of themselves and their lifestyle as this revealing portrait shows. As the outgoing and outspoken Little Edie unlike her mother acts as if she is the center of this documentary, she becomes the main character and it is therefore also mostly narrated by and from her point of view. Due to a style of filmmaking where surprises are frequent and where anything can happen at any given moment, this real-life soap opera which was screened Out of competition at the 29th Cannes International Film Festival in 1976, becomes an at times melodramatic and very truthful depiction of two adult women who despite hardly ever, while on camera, being able to maintain a civilized conversation, is tightly connected and cares for as much as they resent one another. A lingering and astonishing true story that underlines the theory about the truth being stranger than fiction.