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The Maysles brothers’ documentary film Grey Gardens (1975) chronicles the everyday lives of two eccentric upper-class women, Edith Bouvier Beale and her mother Edith. The film has gained the status of cult classic since its release, inspiring both a Broadway musical and a 2009 feature film. In this first single volume study, Matthew Tinkcom argues that Grey Gardens reshaped documentary cinema by moving the camera to the heart of the household, a private space into which film-makers had seldom previously ventured.
By the time the film-makers appeared on their front porch, Grey Gardens’ two central figures, ‘Big Edie’ and her daughter ‘Little Edie’, had been living for two decades in squalor in their beachside East Hampton mansion. However, the women were hardly victims of their poverty; rather they saw themselves as artists who were willing to make any sacrifice for their singing and dancing talents. When the Edies perform for the camera, audiences are challenged by the question of how much anyone would be willing to give up in order to lead a life of eccentric pleasure. Tinkcom argues that Grey Gardens is innovative in blending documentary with the conventions of melodrama, and that the film’s appeal lies in the fabric of the Beales’ everyday lives in which they argue, dress up, flirt, laugh, sing, dance and reminisce about their experiences in New York’s social elite in the first half of the twentieth century.
In his afterword to this new edition, Matthew Tinkcom reconsiders Grey Gardens fifty years after its release, addressing its cult status and the Edies’ continuing influence on popular culture.
