Grey Gardens

I saw this doc many years ago on TV and had a recent viewing.

It's still challenging to watch it without enormous compassion for these obviously disturbed, mentally ill mother and daughter duo living in squalor and filth in a dilapidated old mansion on the coast. The aunt and cousin of the late Jackie Onassis.

Cats and racoons run amok in this horror of a place (and I understand it was cleaned before the film makers came to intrude and document the lives of the two women.

This time I found it exploitive. Today (not back then) we recognize that hoarding and living in such appalling surroundings, no running water, holes in the walls, cat urine, eating cat food (they spread it on crackers) is a sign of severe mental illness.

Edith and Edie are immune to it all, savouring the past - they were beauties in their time - and have a passive agressive endless argument going with each other. Clothing is optional.

Edie wears blouses and sweaters tied up around her head due to skin condition of baldness.

Like a train wreck, it's impossible to look away but I am shocked that a health department wasn't called in to fumigate and rescue these two.

A huge level of exploitation by the two brothers who filmed it all and the final insult was in not putting the names of the women in the credits.

They were used in their utmost vulnerability.

I took this out arbitrarily from the library the other night, having no idea of the film's cult, influence, or that it is currently being staged as a musical.(!) Most of the comments here are on target, it's moving, funny, sad, and yes, a tad exploitive despite the best intentions of the filmmakers. The expanded Chriterion edition is a must for anyone who loved it when it came out.

I think you can also see in little Edie the fall of a class that sort of disappeared, you can hear it in old films of Jackie O too; people just don't talk like that anymore. I think as a documentary, it would have been interesting to get more information about how the home fell into disrepute, Old Edie at least still seems aware of what's going on to a certain degree; couldn't She see the once spectacular home disintegrating?

Yet the film's subject is the life the two women have constructed for themselves now, a real life Tennesse Williams one act. Well worth your time.

... such as what happened to the Bouvier/Beale money that bought the 28 room mansion that mother and daughter live in and is in disrepair? I know that Big Edie was divorced in 1931, and it sounded like "little Edie" had the advantages of an expensive education through college, which would have been right before WWII. What changed? There is no narration here, nor do the documentary makers ask questions. They just let the cameras roll and record whatever happens. Big Edie is in her late 70s yet retains a kind of beauty. However, she talks over little Edie whenever they are in the same room, making it difficult to understand either woman.

What is clear visually is that they are both living in squalor. A cat defecates behind a very old portrait of Big Edie and both Edies laugh about being glad somebody gets to do what they want? Nobody tries to clean it up. Big Edie spends her time on a filthy mattress with stuff she might need stacked on top, yet seems to have no trouble with mobility. They make food for the cameramen including pate on crackers that looks like cat food on crackers. I would want a tetanus shot first.

Little Edie has a mountain of regret. She talks about how she wanted to be a dancer, how somebody wanted to marry her but her mother drove him away, and how she has been taking care of her mother due to her health on and off since the second world war. She mentions how much she hates the country and misses the noise of the city. Little Edie is remarkably well preserved. When this film was made she was 56 but she could pass for forty. She color coordinates all of her wardrobes including her scarves and headdresses that hide her alopecia, yet she won't mop the floor. Shades of faded feelings of being aristocracy perhaps?

Another question I had that went unanswered was where were big Edie's sons? Both lived into the 1990's, yet they are nowhere to be found. Maybe they had the sense to get out of Dodge.

Why are these recluses the subject of a documentary in the first place? Because big and little Edie are Jackie Kennedy Onnasis' aunt and cousin, respectively, and because Suffolk County was trying to evict them based on the condition of the house and grounds - there was no running water at one point - until Jackie supplied the funds to get the estate up to snuff.

Don't look for lots of answers here, because there are really none. It is just a fascinating portrait of two recluses who have slipped into their own form of normality although it looks horrifying to outsiders.

An old mother and her middle-aged daughter, the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, live their eccentric lives in a filthy, decaying mansion in East Hampton.

Plenty has been written and said about the Kennedy family, and Irish political dynasties, but far less is out there about the Bouvier (?) family... and these odd black sheep of the family make me want to know more. I had never heard of them. How is that possible? This documentary has been floating around for forty years, and is really mandatory viewing for anyone who is interested in either Kennedy, the Hamptons or mental illness.

"Big Edie" died in 1977 and "Little Edie" sold the house in 1979 for $220,000 to Sally Quinn and her husband, former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee,[7] who promised to restore the dilapidated structure (the sale agreement forbade razing the house). "Little Edie" died in Florida in 2002 at the age of 84. According to a 2003 article in Town & Country, after their purchase, Quinn and Bradlee completely restored the house and grounds.

The first time I viewed Grey Gardens, I was as mesmerized as the other people who have written comments. So many elements of this film are fascinating, there are so many things going on there. The ultimate passive-aggresive relationship of the mother and daughter. So co-dependent. One moment Edie is blaming Edith for her loneliness, the next she is about to swim in the ocean and saying out loud how she hopes her mother does not pass on anytime soon, she would miss her. Yet one has to wonder if Edie really wanted to leave so badly, why didn't she? Maybe Grey Gardens was where she most wanted to be after all.

Edie never leaves the home or rarely sees anyone, yet she still has the rich, white woman's concern over her weight. It is hilarious to see her peering at the scale through binoculars. When you see pictures of the women as young beauties, it takes your breath away. Edie is still a beautiful woman, and her coquettish behavior at times makes her seem like a young lady.

The language is entirely witty and it is hilarious to see the two women go on and on. Favorite comments -

"France fell but Edie didn't. Edie never fell for anyone." "Why didn't you marry Getty?" "I'm a staunch character! S-T-A-U-N-C-H!" "Lost in a sea of green leaves. I'll never see that scarf again." "This is the revolutionary outfit." "You don't say luh-ove! You're not Czechoslovakian!" "All I need is to find this Libra man!"

The cats and racoons are a site to see, as is the faded mansion. A wonderful window into the world of two compelling characters, their lives, and their memories. Yes it is at times sad, but at the same time, these two are fabulous!