Grey Gardens

The Maysles brothers' documentary film Grey Gardens (1975) chronicles the everyday lives of two eccentric upper-class women, Edith Bouvier Beale and her mother Edith. The film has gained the status of cult classic since its release, inspiring both a Broadway musical and a 2009 feature film. In this first single volume study, Matthew Tinkcom argues that Grey Gardens reshaped documentary cinema by moving the camera to the heart of the household, a private space into which film-makers had seldom previously ventured. By the time the film-makers appeared on their front porch, Grey Gardens' two central figures, 'Big Edie' and her daughter 'Little Edie', had been living for two decades in squalor in their beachside East Hampton mansion. However, the women were hardly victims of their poverty; rather they saw themselves as artists who were willing to make any sacrifice for their singing and dancing talents. When the Edies perform for the camera, audiences are challenged by the question of how