Albert and David Maysles' classic GREY GARDENS immortalized the estate of Edith and Little Edie Beale, relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, who lived in alarmingly poor conditions. But there is more to the story: it was Lee Radziwill and Peter Beard who first brought the Maysles to the Beales, when the two set out to make a film about Radziwill's childhood. The reels of that first contact were shelved for 45 years. This documentary recovers the lost footage. Anchored in Beard's recollections and artistic vision, we are returned to "that summer" in 1972, a seductive dream world and collage of radically unconventional creative personalities—Warhol, Bacon, Jagger, Capote—practicing the art of living amidst oppressive forces of class expectation and prejudice.
Cinematography
Peter Beard's Super 8 footage—sun-drenched, rotting beauty.
Editing
Olsson weaves 1972 fragments into something hauntingly coherent.
Director
Göran Olsson
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The original 1972 footage was discovered in a storage unit, not some vault—Hollywood glamour, folks.
This is essentially the DVD extras to Grey Gardens that accidentally became its own thesis on documentary ethics.
DK
US
