Grey Gardens (1975) [The Criterion Collection #123]

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Grey Gardens (1975) [The Criterion Collection #123]

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Although Salesman (their breakthrough film) and Gimme Shelter (their most accessible film) are better known in the canon of Maysles brothers' movies, arguably their most moving film is this portrait of two aging women stuck in time and locked in a mother-daughter relationship for the ages. Edith Beale and Edie Beale are related to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, which presumably brought them to the attention of the Maysles when the women were almost evicted from their rundown mansion on Long Island. But the Kennedy connection is really only incidental; this could be any mother and daughter whose past lives of wealth and privilege are all they have to go on in their respective old and middle age. The third character here is their house, slowly succumbing to age and neglect, but, especially for Big Edie, the supreme symbol of her once glorious past. The film is both heartbreaking and unexpectedly funny. Little Edie (as the filmmakers call her) loves confiding to the camera, and her sense of fashion (which runs to interesting head wraps and inverted skirts) and her way with words make her an endlessly entertaining subject, even as you sense the desperation beneath her dancing and singing routines and her whispered monologues. The film's most common image – of Little Edie confiding to the Maysles that she has to get out of Grey Gardens while her mother calls her from another room to come and help her – goes beyond even the specificity of wealth gone to ruin. What middle-aged offspring of an aging and needy parent hasn't experienced the same tug of emotions?

Tom Wiener, Rovi

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Grey Gardens (1975) [The Criterion Collection #123]

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I was speechless and devastated after my first viewing of this - many parts of GREY GARDENS are very funny and unbelievably surreal - documentary of not, this really gives Fellini or David Lynch a run for their money in the weirdsville sweepstakes. I kept focusing on how these women (who are clinically way beyond eccentric) reveal their own humanity in the most surprising of ways, and I wonder whether their retreat from the world was prompted by something beyond the stuffiness of life in the unreal blue-blood universe, perhaps some abuse, or perhaps simply a streak of defiance and rebellion that spiralled out of their control and took on a life of its' own. This might be one of the greatest ever films that comes dangerously close to exploitation, without going completely over the edge - as the Edies do their thing, I kept noting things like the empty gin bottles in the rubble-strewn bedroom, cats urinating on the bed, racoons emerging from holes in the walls, and the final scene seemed incredibly sad - like a child's birthday party gone seriously wrong. Very definitely worth seeing and seeking out - you'll never forget it, but very disturbing.

IMDB Reviewer

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Grey Gardens (1975) [The Criterion Collection #123]

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The film was made almost by accident. Albert and David Maysles, the directors of such documentaries as "Salesman" and "Gimme Shelter," were approached, by the two Bouvier sisters, Jacqueline Onassis and Lee Radziwell. Would the Maysles like to make a movie about the Bouviers? They might. Jackie and Lee supplied them with information about the family, including their two reclusive cousins in East Hampton, NY The Maysles shot, on and off, for several months. Then they reviewed their footage and decided there wasn't a movie in Jackie and Lee - but there seemed to be one in Edith and Edie.

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Grey Gardens (1975) [The Criterion Collection #123]

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They went back to Grey Gardens and all but moved in for two months, using portable cameras to follow the Beales in their daily routines. Many of the routines seem intended for the stage, Mrs. Beale, once a highly regarded concert singer, sings several songs for them. Edie, who'd always dreamed of a career as a dancer, improvises a soft shoe to the Virginia Military Institute fight song. And the two women, in ways that have been exquisitely refined over the years, fight a little among themselves.

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Grey Gardens (1975) [The Criterion Collection #123]

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It is here that the film has its fascinating, mysterious center, We gradually realize that these two women are absolutely dependent on one another; that they form a composite personality (or, as the Maysles put it, a "closed system"), Edie never married. She brought a few boys home, but her mother didn't like them. So that's one thing to fight about. "That was just after the fall of France," Edie says at one time, dating a memory. "France fell," her mother says, "but Edie didn't." The house is surrounded, as Edie observes, by a "sea of green." The grounds have grown wild. "I lost a lovely blue scarf in there one day and never found it again," she muses. Inside, plaster is crumbling from the walls, and raccoons coexist amicably with the Beales and a large family of cats. Old phonograph records are played once again, and on Sunday night the girls tune in Norman Vincent Peale from New York. "First, think," he advises. "Then, try…"

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Grey Gardens (1975) [The Criterion Collection #123]

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Edie dresses up in bizarre costumes. She likes to wear skirts upside down. She is never seen without a turban. She dresses in lace curtains, in bedspreads, in bathing suits that were last seen on the cover of Life, circa 1948. She and her mother talk all the time, sometimes at the same time – they both know all the words. And out of this existence comes a movie that, curiously enough, is comic and bright, as well as sobering. It's hard not to find these two odd women likable.

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Grey Gardens (1975) [The Criterion Collection #123]

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Moments: Edie feeding the raccoons a loaf of Wonder Bread. Edith placidly observing that a cat is defecating behind her portrait. Edie, nearsighted, standing on a scales and reading her weight with binoculars. Edith confessing that she can't turn around just at the moment because her bathing suit has no back. The two women at night, alone in their room, the crumbling mansion extending around them, listening to old songs and replaying old memories. Me for you, and you for me, can't you see, how happy we will be…..

Excerpt from Rober Ebert's Review

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Grey Gardens (1975) [The Criterion Collection #123]

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Grey Gardens (1975) [The Criterion Collection #123]

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Edition Details:
- Audio commentary by filmmakers Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer, and Susan Froemke
- Excerpts from a recorded interview with Little Edie Beale by Kathryn G. Graham for Interview magazine (1976)
- Video interviews with fashion designers Todd Oldham and John Bartlett on the influence of Grey Gardens
- Behind-the-scenes photographs
- Trailers
- Filmographies
- Cover, DVD Scan, Booklet