Grey Gardens - the documentary

Oh yes one of my favourite topics...

Grey Gardens is a 1975 documentary film by Albert and David Maysles. The film depicts the everyday lives of Edith "Big Edie" Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale who were the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. The two women lived together at Grey Gardens for decades with limited funds, resulting in squalor and almost total isolation.  Albert and David Maysles the two young filmmakers became interested in their story and received permission to film a documentary about the women, which was released in 1976 to wide critical acclaim. Their direct cinema technique left the women to tell their own stories. The film was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition which is a shame but then they probably would have won!

The most beautiful thing about this story for me is that not only did these two women really love and understand each other they survived and found reasons to smile despite living in such destitute squalor.  




Comments