by Gray Gardens, released in 1976, is the incredible and above all truthful story of Edith Bouvier Beale and his eldest daughter, aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Mother and daughter lived recluses for years, in a large ruined property.
If it differs naturally by its form of fictional works, the emotional field opened by the documentary can be of absolutely devastating power. Because he tackles subjects concerning the intimate, questions that hit us and question us, about our relationship to the living, the world and the others. In this logic, Gray Gardens stands out as a capital discovery.
Unlikely that you have already heard of the Albert and David Maysles brothers. American directors, producers, editors and screenwriters, they are known for their work on what we have called direct cinema or truth cinema; A typology of documentary cinema that has emerged in North America, Quebec and the United States, between 1958 and 1962. It is characterized by a desire to directly capture its real and to transmit its truth.
This particular approach has given several absolute masterpieces of the genre, such as the documentary Harlan County, USA of Barbara Kopple, classified in 2019 by Sight & Sound among the 50 largest documentaries of all time.
The Maysles brothers will thus make a sensational documentary, Salesman in 1969; Tragi-comic adventures of four representatives in Bibles followed for two months in their door-to-door, Webster, Massachusetts, Opa-Locka, Florida. A year later, they signed one of the most famous documentaries ever made, Gimme Shelter, behind the scenes of a concert by Rolling Stones who will be bereaved by the murder of a fan by a member of the security service provided by Hell’s Angels.
An extraordinary portrait of a mother and her daughter
In 1976, the Maysles brothers, assisted by the directors Muffie Meyer and Ellen Hovde, signed their most famous work; An extraordinary portrait of two terribly endearing women: Gray Gardens. The incredible and perfectly truthful story of Edith Bouvier Beale and his eldest daughter Edith, nicknamed Little Edie, aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Mother and daughter have lived in isolated years in the world, in a vast ruined property of East Hampton (New York State) called Gray Gardens.
They live in the most complete destitution, but also in the most total freedom in the middle of cats, rats washer and filth that clutter the 28 pieces of the imposing residence, a second home bought by Edith Bouvier and her husband Phelan Beale at the time of their splendor. Formerly attending the (very) large of this world, they now only have a daily routine in one place where time seems to have stopped, watching over each other.
Here is the trailer …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hnhlry-ggg
“It was very difficult to build a story and a structure”
“One of the great difficulties in this documentary is that it was not much going on. Day after day, Edith and his mother were always arguing about the same things, had the same interactions … It was very difficult to build a story and a structure. It still appeared very early that it would be a documentary on the relationship between a mother and her daughter“” Tells Ellen Hovde in the audio commentary on the film, recorded on behalf of the editor Criterion.
Disatedly by her father and separated from her husband, Edith Bouvier had to settle definitively to Grey Gardens where she was quickly joined by her daughter, who failed to break through on Broadway, nor to find the ideal husband. However, it was not the pretenders who lacked, like the wealthy heir Paul Getty, who will be renewed, like so many others …
Not at all intimidated by the camera, on the contrary, the two women chat and bicker, taking as witnesses of their eccentricities David and Albert Maysles, who during the weeks of filming are based in this incredible and whimsical universe. The same carelessness and disinterest in conventions animate them.
Janus Films
If her mother rarely leaves her room, it is Little Edie who most often occupies space. Playful and mischievous, in love with dance, displaying clothing creations that will even make her an authentic fashion icon in the 70s, she sprinkles the film of reflections and personal considerations on her life, sometimes wearing old memories, however precise as on the first day. And it is, ultimately, absolutely overwhelming.
Because behind the bickering of a mother and her daughter, an unconditional love bursts the screen, revived by mutual admiration as touching as disturbing. If, several times, Little Edie announces that she will leave the home to finally go and live her life elsewhere, she will never do it, preferring to stay alongside her mother. Until the end.
Criterion
Thirty years after Grey Gardens, Albert Maysles will use rushes to set up a second portrait of Edith Beale and his daughter, with The Beales of Gray Gardens. A film that will remain as the final tribute to two exceptional women. Little Edie died in 2007, thirty years after her mother.
It is absolutely incredible that this cult work (the story will even be adapted to a musical on Broadway!), Affective in its place in the history of the documentary gender and very short cinema, never had the favors of a DVD edition with us, and even less in Blu-ray. If an editor could happily look at the question …
