IT is not often that a documentary film enjoys the kind of afterlife that
Albert and David
Maysles’s “Grey Gardens” has had. Since its release in 1975 their portrait
of an eccentric, squabbling mother and daughter living together in a dilapidated
mansion in East Hampton has inspired plays, songs, television episodes, comedy
routines, fashion collections and a dedicated cult following that recalls that
of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
Now there is an addition to the odd canon of the two Edith Beales, who
happened to be aunt and cousin of Jacqueline
Kennedy Onassis. On Saturday HBO will begin showing a dramatized film version of “Grey Gardens” that features Jessica
Lange and Drew
Barrymore in the roles of Big Edie and Little Edie.
How to explain the continuing resonance of the Beale family spectacle? At
times the “Grey Gardens” phenomenon has seemed mainly an exercise in camp, a
real-life mix of “Sunset Boulevard,” “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” and
“Mommie Dearest.” And the Jackie O. connection provides an additional dollop of
titillation. But the story of the two Edies is unusually malleable: it can be
read as a cautionary riches-to-rags tale or a psychological study of a
mother-daughter relationship so complicated that it could have come from a Greek
tragedy.
“It’s a rich, rich story that can be and has been told in many different
ways, because the two of them are such amazing characters,” said Michael Sucsy,
who directed and helped write the film. “When I saw the documentary for the
first time, I was immediately drawn to them, because both of them managed to
remain true to who they are despite adversity and social constraints.”
The identical title notwithstanding, Mr. Sucsy’s dramatized version of “Grey
Gardens” covers ground much different from that of the Maysles brothers’
documentary. Rather than focus exclusively on the two women when they are aged,
isolated and living in squalor, with raccoons and an army of cats infesting
their house, he turns the clock back as far as the 1930s in an attempt to
explain how they came to find themselves in such bizarre circumstances.
“There was no point in recreating the documentary, because people would ask,
‘Why are you touching a classic?’ ” Mr. Sucsy said. “Instead we’ve gone the
extra step.”
Little Edie is first glimpsed as a teenager, fleeing her debutante ball in
New York City, and shown later as an aspiring model and dancer whose ambition
clearly outstrips her talent. The Beale summer home, which supplied the
documentary’s title, is displayed in its days of splendor, with Big Edie
presiding over a salon of hangers-on and nursing illusions that she could have
been a great singer if only.
Mr. Sucsy also attempts to answer other questions left dangling or merely
hinted at in the documentary, including the identity of Little Edie’s “secret
true love.” He suggests that what sent her scurrying back to Grey Gardens and
her mother’s suffocating embrace was a failed affair with a politically
influential married man: Julius Krug, who was secretary of the interior under Harry
S. Truman and is portrayed here by Daniel Baldwin.
Besides interviewing the Beales’ friends and relatives, “I did investigative
work, digging into microfilm and tracking down and going through all their
stuff” in order to move the complicated back story beyond speculation, Mr. Sucsy
said. “There were journals, letters, poetry, pictures, check stubs,” all of it
smelling of cat urine. “It was a big old fantastic mess.”
Another difference is that in the original documentary the Maysles, who came
to “Grey Gardens” after making documentaries about the Beatles and the Rolling
Stones, edited their footage so as to keep themselves off camera as much as
possible. Mr. Sucsy, in contrast, makes them full-fledged characters in the
movie, playing to the vanity of the two Edies and patiently listening to stories
of their days of glory and wealth.
Little Edie, who died in 2002 at the age of 84, seems on screen to have had
something of a crush on David Maysles, about 15 years her junior. (He died in
1987, at the age of 54.) Albert, who is now 82, served as a consultant to the
HBO film, and his fondness for the Beales led him to have strong views about the
script.
“The relationship between those two women can be defined all the way from
crazy to the most sensible, healthy people in the world,” he said. “They veered
it too much in the direction of craziness,” he said of Mr. Sucsy and his
production team, “but then squared that away, and I feel pleased they got it
correct.”
It is tempting, Mr. Maysles acknowledged, to regard the Edies as pathetic,
delusional figures. When the original “Grey Gardens” documentary was shown in
theaters, several reviews, including one in The New York Times, took that
position, and also criticized the Maysles for manipulating and exploiting the
Beales.
“All those accusations are wrong,” he said. “You can’t dismiss these women as
mad. As someone else said, they are just like anybody else, but more so. Every
human relationship has its good or bad. It would be hard to find so-called
normal people who exhibited so many signs of good health. They really loved each
other, and what a grand success it was for them to be watched by millions upon
millions of people and given the respect of having attention paid to them.”
The actresses who play the Beales seem more dispassionate about the
characters. “The thing that Jessica and I had a hard time wrapping our heads
around was the level of squalor they had to put up with,” Ms. Barrymore said.
“That’s where I couldn’t connect, where I couldn’t find a justification. They
didn’t take baths, they were living with cat food cans up to their necks, with
litter and garbage everywhere, with raccoon” urine in closed rooms. “It’s
insane.”
Since the new “Grey Gardens” is essentially a character-driven study in which
both leads must age 40 years, the actors knew they were in for long mornings
before filming even began. Ms. Lange, who broke a collarbone in an accident last
month and was not available for an interview, is at times almost unrecognizable
as Big Edie, thanks to matted hair, prosthetics and makeup that took up to four
hours to apply each day.
Ms. Barrymore, who endured a similar process in order to replicate a medical
condition that made Little Edie lose her hair and forced her to wear the gaudy
head scarves that became her trademark, underwent the transformation willingly.
Fairly or not, she is perceived primarily as a star in romantic comedies, and
she saw the part as an irresistible challenge.“I know I was not Michael’s first
choice for this, that he had apprehensions and wanted an established dramatic
actress because this is such a demanding role,” she said. “But I was so
passionate about this that I couldn’t see straight, and I didn’t mind that I had
to lobby.”
The new “Grey Gardens” film may be the latest manifestation of the cottage
industry inspired by the original documentary, but it is hardly the only one.
The Maysles brothers themselves contributed to that phenomenon with “The Beales
of Grey Gardens,” a second documentary released in 2006 that was drawn from
dozens of hours of unused footage and was closely studied by cast members
seeking clues to the accent, body language and clothes of the two Edies.
More recently “Grey Gardens” was turned into a successful Broadway musical,
with Christine
Ebersole playing both of the Edies at different stages of their lives. Built
around a fictitious first act in which Little Edie is to be engaged to Joseph P.
Kennedy Jr., the play won three Tony
Awards in 2007.
There are other songs about the Edies, including one by Rufus
Wainwright, and books, beginning with “Grey Gardens,” a collection of
collages, photographs, film stills and production notes that Albert
Maysles’s daughters, Sara and Rebekah, will publish next month. Also in the
works are a full-scale biography of Little Edie and, Mr. Maysles said, a
book-length analysis of why “Grey Gardens” has such appeal to gay men.
Only half facetiously an article on “The Cult of Grey Gardens” in this
month’s issue of the gay magazine The Advocate attempts to explain why that
might be so: “What gay man wouldn’t identify with somebody who wore outlandish
outfits, starred in her own movie and was related to (and prettier than)
Jackie?”
As in the first documentary the aura of Cousin Jackie and her celebrity loom
over the film, though mostly unseen. Jackie, played by Jeanne
Tripplehorn, appears in just one scene, which focuses on her complicated
reaction to a visit to the ramshackle house.
“I thought that by being in this project I would have some questions answered
about exactly what was going on psychologically with Little Edie,” Ms.
Tripplehorn said. But that special insight into what bound daughter and mother
together in such an unhealthy way didn’t surface, which “just goes to show that
these relationships are endlessly fascinating and will continue to be
interpreted and reinterpreted,” Ms. Tripplehorn added. “I don’t see an end in
sight. Maybe we’ll have the ‘Grey Gardens’ Nintendo or Wii version next.”