Den sommaren

This is a magnificent memory piece about a time and place that no longer exists...for good or ill. The Hamptons were being discovered, soon to be over-whelmed with tourists drawn to rub shoulders with the very people portrayed in the film. Their reality was unique and not something anyone could just enter.

While primarily centered on the eccentric Beale's, cultural icons Big Edie and Little Edie, others floating around are Warhol, Capote, Peter Beard, Aristotle and Jackie Onassis, all defy what we assumed or knew about them from the media. The film is an aching meditation on change and loss, treating everyone with enormous compassion, which we often don't necessarily attribute to this set of people.

Artfully assembled, the opening Prologue about Peter Beard's artistry is hard to leave, but the unedited footage of 16mm "home movies" that was to be later assembled by Beard and Lee Radziwill--who is stunning in her kind acceptance of her Aunt and Cousin's "reality," as is Beard--is the heart of the film.

The project was abandoned, and Beard discovering the footage after the fame of "Gray Gardens", simply runs four undiscovered reels without any editing. It's an extension of his techniques as a photographic collage artist. The jarring occasional intrusion of "normal," represented by Building Code inspectors, electricians, plumbers and Health Department personnel really highlights how rarified this group of celebrities and artists were. It recalls a period, for those who lived through it, that's realized casually but vividly; and, along with the creators, you mourn the loss and passing of an era.

This is a movie about a movie that was never made, and about another movie that was made, instead. I really don't know what this adds to the story of Big Edie and Little Edie of Grey Gardens, and the film footage of the beautiful people of the 1970s is not interesting. I kept hoping for some insight, some reason to revisit Grey Gardens, but this movie doesn't have it.

Least interesting: Peter Beard, his collages, photographs, house and the quick footage in the beginning of his celebrity pals.

Most interesting: Big and Little Edie in all their time-capsule glory, and Lee Bouvier Radziwell's visits with them at Grey Gardens.

That Summer is comprised of mostly archival footage, interspersed with Beard's reminiscences and images. The loose premise of the early footage was to capture something of the old Hamptons, before it was saturated with the super wealthy. Lee, Beard and the Maysles fall into the wormhole of the Beales's lives, and the women's eccentricities end up being more fascinating than anything else.

If you are curious about what inspired the Maysles to make their film, this is definitely worth watching. Lee is a lovely presence who is kind to and appreciative of her relatives.

That Summer is not so much for fans of Grey Garden but to those who wanted an even deeper look into the real characters (Big and Little Edie) of Gret Garden. In fact, That Summer is harder to watch for several reasons. For Starters, Grey Garden showcases the truth with kiddie gloves. While That Summer truly shows how unstable and unpredictable Little Edie was. Let alone mentally ill, Little Edie was beyond delusional. Big Edie's so-called imprisonment of each other was not only for their protection to shelter and to hide from reality, but to avoid the shame of what had happened to the family. Grey Gardens may have always been grey but not broken. It was not until the downfall of the family when the men left, the money dried up and the once beautiful mansion fell to disarray. The result is what we see in Grey Gardens and Last Summer exploits. Bottom line, although family and friends helped them by fixing up the house and feeding them, the price for such was to exploit their fall to the public eye. Like Charlie Chaplin's the Tramp kicking the backside of someone higher up than him is the same reason why we as an audience have showcased the two Edie's, it makes us feel superior as the Rich have fallen without their wealth. We sadly embrace the pathetic-ness of the two Edie's to make us feel better, rather than to observe and to dissect an economic observation on what happened to these Long Island aristocrats. Much like the Artists mentioned in the first half of the story, the two Edie's lived in a fantasy. One more glamorous than the other within the eye of the beholder, one still needs to question the overall moral their story tells the audience. As a study of Art or the study of Class or the study of the Human condition, one can argue that their story still is worth exploring, whether it be deemed exploitation or entertainment.

Narcissism run riot and for collectors of celebrity gossip and curios only. "That Summer" is something of a companion piece to "Grey Gardens" featuring some of the same characters, (the Beales, mostly), but it's really nothing more than the home-movies of Peter Beard, whose friends included Lee Radziwill, Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, Truman Capote. Andy Warhol etc. and it's full of the indolent doodlings of the super-rich. These people are so cut off from the real world they may as well be living on Mars. What's more, the cheap home-movie look of the picture is positively headache-inducing at times and like "Grey Gardens", there's something ghoulish about it but at least "Grey Gardens" felt like a real film, despite being highly intrusive. This is more like a vanity project gone wrong; a road-kill of a movie if there ever was one.