Grey Gardens

Meet Big and Little Edie Beale: mother and daughter, high-society dropouts, and reclusive cousins of Jackie Onassis. The two manage to thrive together amid the decay and disorder of their East Hampton mansion, making for an eerily ramshackle echo of the American Camelot. An impossibly intimate portrait, this 1976 documentary by Albert and David Maysles, codirected by Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer, quickly became a cult classic and established Little Edie as a fashion icon and philosopher-queen.

This screening includes a special introduction by author Joyce Maynard.

“Grey Gardens is evidence of Albert and David Maysles’ unique brilliance as portraitists, actively engaged by subjects who do not so much sit for them (the Beales have too much energy, wit, and imagination to be passive subjects) as help them shape the film by exposing their emotional trajectories. That is the film’s ostensible narrative. Its haunting subtext is this: The truth is best presented through metaphor.” —Hilton Als, Criterion.com

Film Details

Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 1976
Running time: 94 min
Directors: Albert Maysles, David Maysles
Producers: Albert Maysles, David Maysles
Cinematographers: Albert Maysles, David Maysles
Editors: Ellen Hovde, Susan Froemke, Muffie Meyer

Print Source: Janus Films

Films and schedules may be subject to change.