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List Price: $49.95 | | Label: Criterion
Salesrank: 858
Released: December 5, 2006 |
| Our Price: $30.99 |
| Used Price: $37.61 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Meet Big and Little Edie Beale—high society dropouts, mother and daughter, reclusive cousins of Jackie O.—thriving together amid the decay and disorder of their ramshackle East Hampton mansion. An impossibly intimate portrait and an eerie echo of the Kennedy Camelot, Albert and David Maysles’s 1975 Grey Gardens has since become a cult classic and established Little Edie as fashion icon and philosopher queen.
Description of Grey Gardens / The Beales of Grey Gardens - Criterion Collection (2-disc set):
Although it's typically described as a cult phenomenon, Grey Gardens is something more than that by now. The 1975 documentary by brothers Albert and David Maysles (who filmed the proceedings and co-directed with Muffie Meyer and Ellen Hovde) has been turned into a hit Broadway show, with plans for a feature film in the offing; it's also the title of a song by Rufus Wainwright, and has been referenced on TV shows like The Gilmore Girls, The L Word, and even Rugrats. In the process, Grey Gardens has become part of the cultural zeitgeist, at least in the gay community, a circumstance that no doubt had some influence on the decision to package it with The Beales of Grey Gardens, a 90-minute assemblage of outtakes and other unused material from the original film supervised by Albert Maysles and released in 2006.
One wonders if any of this would have transpired had Edith Ewing Bouvier (known as "Big Edie") and daughter Edith Bouvier Beale ("Little Edie") merely been garden variety eccentrics, instead of quasi-celebrities (the aunt and cousin, respectively, of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, nee Bouvier). On the other hand, there's a certain can't-turn-away-from-a-car-accident fascination that comes with watching the two Edies at home in their rundown, squalid East Hampton, Long Island estate (they were ordered to fix the place up before the documentary was shot, but it's still a dump, albeit a large one). With her endless parade of different "costumes," every one of them featuring a scarf, a towel, or some such material wrapped around her head (then in her mid-fifties, she had an oddball fashion sense that's a big part of her now-iconic status), Little Edie is quite a character. Considerably less appealing is her mother, a bitter, poisonous woman who apparently pressured her daughter to move back home and care for her after Big Edie's husband quite understandably abandoned her in the early 1950s. "My whole life, I've been ground down and insulted every minute," Little Edie confides to the camera, but she gives as good as she gets; the two of them squabble endlessly, mostly about past events and the careers they might have had (Big Edie as a singer, her daughter as a dancer and model). There are obviously many viewers who find this sort of terminal dysfunction appealing, even charming. For others, words like annoying and tedious may be more appropriate. And while The Beales of Grey Gardens offers more evidence that the two women actually cared for one another (there's also a good deal more interaction between the Beales and the filmmakers, along with various other visitors), it's essentially just more of the same. --Sam Graham
Stills from Grey Gardens (Click for larger image)
Grey Gardens / The Beales of Grey Gardens - Criterion Collection (2-disc set) Reviews:
Not quite as good as I had hoped. 
2009-11-23 - I bought the two disc collection and watched both this weekend as well as all the bonus material. These two women are interesting and easily watchable when they are alone, but when they are together, which is most of the time, they are annoying as hell with all their bitching at each other. I really preferred watching it with the commentary on. I had to laugh when one of the editors said how unselfconscious little Edie was. Seriously? She fiddled with her clothes and that damn head scarf/towel/sweater thing on her head the whole time. I think she was bald or nearly so. She did say something like "if I had hair".
I was hoping for a "Brothers Keeper" type of story but it was more like someones bad home movies. I still give it 3 stars though. It's hard to look away from a train wreck.
A love story 
2009-11-21 - This is a beautiful love story of a mother and daughter who are quite idiosincratic. If you like quirky you will love this documentary. There is a lot more than meets the eye on this film. The directors commentary is quite interesting.
It is just two crazy old women 
2009-10-28 - Frankly I enjoyed the movie better. I realize this was a "documentary" but in the movie, things were explained. The documentary just portrayed them as two crazy old women, "which they were"! The only reason the documentary was made is because they had famous relatives. Had this been my relatives, or your relatives, it would just be two crazy old women living in a rundown house with too many cats and too many raccoons. Don't spend one dime on the documentary.
Grey Gardens
2009-10-25 -
My wife rented the DVD Grey Gardens, she became so interisted that she wanted to find out more. We, I say we because my wife does not do the computer, looked for the best possible price. Found it at Amazon.com.
My wife and I watched the Grey Gardens/The Beales of Grey Gardens - Critenion Collection ( 2-disc set) which we both found very interisting. I watched the frist time, but my wife has watched it several times, the number I am not sure, more the three times. It has been seen with her friends and some of the family members. She has been telling every one about Grey Gardens, that they should watch it.
It is unbelevable how many people have never heard of Grey Gardnes and never knew it was on or made for HBO. We do watch HBO. Never saw it advertised or even a promo for it.
I am glad we were able to fined the Documintry thru Amazon.com
Thank You
amazing...intriguing
2009-10-12 - I ordered this through Amazon after seeing the HBO special, and it is absolutely fascinating. While watching the HBO account, I assumed they were exaggerating some things to make them a bit more interesting, but the real thing is MUST-see if Big and Little Edie interest you.
I write this before I have even finished it, because I only give myself the gift of watching for a few minutes at a time...and find that I continue to << so I can make sure I don't miss any of the words or inferences of these women who often talk over each other. What a treat to have this documentary in it's original form.
