Whirled Docs: Grey Gardens

Doors open 7.00pm Two reclusive upper class women, Edith Bouvier Beale and Edith Beale (“Big Edie” and “Little Edie”), live together in a decaying mansion in East Hampton, New York. The Beale’s are a mother and daughter whose life of eccentricity and dependence is fantastically captured by the Maysles’ in this cult 1975 documentary. “Big Edie” was aunt to Jackie O, the most photographed women in America in the 60’s and 70’s, and “Little Edie” was a hopeful actress and great beauty before putting her life in New York on hold to take care of her mother. Although repeatedly reminiscing about the thrills and joys of her city life, “Little Edie” has not left her mother’s side since returning to Grey Gardens. When Albert and David Maysles enter the Grey Gardens home, the Edies’ world is revealed and the audience plays witness to an existence that has not been shared with anyone before, a life described by “Little Edie” as “beautiful and precious”. The Beales’ share the same pleasure in being seen as the Maysles’ do in watching and the documentary successfully unfolds into a bizarre, entertaining and truly touching exhibition of the Beales’ extraordinary tale of “riches to rags”.