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GREY GARDENS – The DVD Review – We Are Movie Geeks

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GREY GARDENS – The DVD Review

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Review by Sam Moffitt

I used to work with a woman who smelled like cat piss.  Not making this up, not trying to be mean, this woman and her daughter (I won’t name them I don’t want to embarrass anybody) lived in a rented home here in St. Petersburg with so many cats they didn’t know how many they actually had.  I couldn’t stay in the house longer than a minute, the smell was unbelievable.  The really sad part this woman was letting the cats breed, she had kittens and grown cats all over the place.  They were, in common parlance what Is known as “crazy cat ladies.”

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I say this as an introduction to an incredible HBO movie about two of the most famous crazy cat ladies in history,  Edith Bouvier Beale,(Mother and Daughter have the same name,) Big Edie and Little Edie as they are better and more fondly known.  They were Aunt and Cousin to Jackie Kennedy Onassis and came to the attention of documentary film makers David and Albert Maysle’s when their mansion in East Hampton, New York was condemned in the early seventies and they were in danger of losing their once opulent home.

The Maysles did what they always try to do, they were flies on the wall while the Beale’s went about what passed for lives, although both Edie’s talk to the film makers throughout the incredible documentary, also called Grey Gardens by the way.  And I recommend anyone reading this to please see the documentary first.  The Criterion Collection edition of this film is beautiful and the movie won’t mean as much if you don’t see the original film, one of the best loved documentaries ever made and one of the few that is not about music to garner a serious cult following.

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The Maysle’s shot so much footage of the Beale’s there is a sequel made up of outtakes called The Beale’s of Grey Gardens which is just as wonderful.  Mother and Daughter live in a crumbling mansion that was once one of the show places of East Hampton.  They share the house with dozens of cats and an equal number of raccoons, which Little Edie feeds.   They argue, exhibit some strange behavior, talk to the film makers and go about their daily business.

I can recall reading a review of the documentary in the East Village Other in 1976 after the film was released and it was the first documentary I recall being described as like watching a train wreck in slow motion.  I wanted badly to see it when I read that review but it would take the dvd revolution for me to get there. It is by turns, fascinating, horrifying, hysterically funny,  not to mention tragic and all too human.

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This wonderful HBO movie attempts to fill in the blanks, to give us the back story of the Beale’s, who they were and how they got to their state in the 70s of living in one of the richest neighborhoods in the world in a state of dire poverty and decrepitude.

We see Grey Gardens in its prime, Big Edie hosting sumptuous parties, largely ignoring her husband and spending lots of time with a “piano teacher” who spends precious little time tutoring Little Edie in music.  Little Edie has dreams of going to New York and starting her own career in dance, singing, acting, anything creative to get the hell out of Grey Gardens.

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Jessica Lange as Big Edie and Drew Barrymore as Little Edie are mesmerizing, astonishing, right on the money with the accents, the sense of entitlement, the body language, everything we see in the documentary.  Both are incredible but it is Drew Barrymore who really hits one out of the park, she disappears, becomes the Little Edie who gained a cult audience all her own from the Maysles documentary.  Add her name to the list of actors who not so much act a part as become another person entirely.  I’m thinking of Forest Whitaker in Last King of Scotland,  Jim Carrey in Man in the Moon, Val Kilmer in The Doors.  Add Drew Barrymore’s name to that list, this is acting taken to a whole other level.

The film makers have accurately recreated more than one time period, the clothes, the cars, the attitudes are spot on.  We learn who the mysterious “married man” was that Little Edie was briefly involved with, that Big Edie could indeed have had a career as a singer, how the cats came slowly but surely into their lives.  How they lost what income they had and why Mother insisted the Daughter stay in this benighted realm.  How and why both were unsuited for any ordinary job, indeed what could they have done for a normal income?

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And most horrifying of all we see how Grey Gardens itself deteriorated and became what was deemed by the Department of Health “unfit for human habitation.”  These scenes in particular I found difficult to watch, even more fascinating, we learn that Grey Gardens, as seen in the Maysle’s film, was after a certain amount of rehab work was done!  We see workmen come in and clean out debris, fix the roof, clean and paint one bedroom, the “Yellow Bedroom” as seen in the documentary where the Beale’s did most of their “living.” We are not told where the money came from for this work, unless I missed something. We also learn the Maysle’s put flea collars around their ankles to lessen the bites from the flea infested home.

And time and again the movie cuts between the past and the movie’s present, how choices made in the past lead to this odd and more than a little depressing circumstance.

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The dvd has a terrific making of documentary where we see how much work a professional actor can put into a role.  Both Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore watched the Maysles documentary obsessively, on portable dvd players.  Many of the costumes, props and even furniture are not just the same as what the Beale’s had, they are the actual household items we see in the documentary!  It’s not mentioned but I’m wondering if the film crew let the cats shit and piss everywhere to give it that verisimilitude they were reaching for.

It is eerie indeed to see moments captured on film by the Maysle’s in the 70s recreated so flawlessly, every gesture, every glance, all the rancor and bitterness of a life that was never lived to its full potential.  And oddly enough we do get a happy ending.  After Big Edie’s death Little Edie lived in several different places, got to travel and even did a cabaret act?!  She achieved a certain amount of celebrity from the documentary and actually had fans who wrote to her and wanted to be like her?  Huh?  Say what?

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There is a terrific scene with Jeanne Tripplehorn as their famous cousin Jackie Kennedy Onassis.  Little Edie’s delusions and Jackie’s tragedy are equally heartbreaking.

The only thing I missed from the documentary , the HBO film makes no mention of “The Marble Faun!”  A long haired, probably pot smoking kid who did odd jobs for the Beale’s and who Little Edie was convinced wanted to do her and drive a wedge between herself and her Mother at the same time.  In the scenes in the Maysle’s film where he appears he just looks like he’s hanging around Grey Gardens because he has nothing else to do and is probably too baked to give a shit.

The Beale’s story reminded me of the writing of Shirley Jackson, I’m thinking especially of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, watch these films and then read the book and you’ll see what I mean.

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For this is the amazing hat trick of both the Maysles documentary and this welcome tribute film about the Beales’ of Grey Gardens.  Despite all the bizarre behavior, the living in squalor and the delusional rants, despite everything our “rational” mind tells us about the Beale’s we come to respect, admire and even love these “crazy cat ladies”.  As someone wiser than me once said, “there but for the Grace of God…..”  Someone else wiser than me also made mention of “the road not taken”.   It’s all there, at Grey Gardens.

Now I have to go and walk my dog, be seeing you!

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