Grey Gardens

Hey it's a thread about Grey Gardens because I can't stop thinking about Little Edie. And "Tea for Two." And raccoons.
I've watched it s couple times now and the first go-round I found it eerie and surprising and more than a little grating. Grating because I can't handle two people talking over each other as conversation. OTOH I do that all the time, the movie made me think when you're that impossibly close/entangled with someone that's how conversation is. Just two overlapping streams of consciousness that sometimes get catty or snide, and sometimes get dear.
I had first heard about the movie in the context of 'shut-ins who hoard things' which always kind of give me the creeps – and I was viewing it first through that context – so I was surprised the Criterion DVD extras were primarily interviews with Todd Oldham and John Bartlett (who it turns out are fashion designers). Who did make some very persuasive cases for Little Edie being a 'style maven' (–Oldham) and for it being a quotable cult/camp thing. So I watched it thinking about that and it works that way, too. Anyway I liked this movie enough to watch it four times in a week.

They have this whole house and they just hang out in the one room on their beds, or out on the patio, it's like me in my studio but if it had a giant decaying manor attached.

Which is exactly why I never want a bigger house – I think I'd treat it the same way – minus feeding vermin their own feast of Wonder bread and cat food. I think I just wouldn't use it so why have it.

Anyway I liked this movie enough to watch it four times in a week.

Best week ever.

"How can you resist it?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfZI7blXg2c

"He always compliments me on the way I do my corn."
JERRY – what was going on with that kid?

GG feels very much like the sort of strange hazy memory of visiting my eccentric relatives. Lots of casual moments that stick with you. The weight of time crushing everything around you, so you smoke cigarettes and drink wine atop the rubble.

JERRY – what was going on with that kid?

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/03/06/060306ta_talk_green

Though she didn’t appear in the Maysleses’ movie, Jacqueline Onassis turns up in the musical, as the young Jackie Bouvier. Torre recalls meeting Onassis when she visited Grey Gardens. He says that she used to call the house occasionally, to check on her aunt and cousin, and that she once asked him to take her out clubbing. He remembers bringing her to the Anvil, where they watched a fire-eating drag contortionist perform. Afterward, Onassis’s driver took them back to her building, where she invited Torre up for a drink. “I said no thanks,” he said. “I went back to the Anvil.”

There's a musical? What?

There is actually a full-out song about Jerry liking Big Edie's corn.

I love this movie. I also like the psychological interplay between Little Edie and Big Edie...and for all her helplessness Big Edie is still, even in squalor, so incredibly manipulative. And successfully! I always end up watching it and thinking about the roles you end up playing in your own family, and how some of them survive well into adulthood.

and it's just so captivating in general. Big Edie's bed scares me. and all the cats. I get a little squeamish sometimes but it's also sort of weirdly charming and oh I do love it

i could talk about this movie for hours. and maybe i will.

I have never seen it. I kind of want to, but at the same time, I'm kind of afraid to.

Why?

Because from descriptions of it, it just sounds like the life my mother and I would now be living if I hadn't moved back to the UK, and we'd stayed living in that giant decaying house in Upstate NY, driving each other crazier and crazier.

Ha, sure. Mom and daughter in a folie à deux is both a resonant and repellant theme in a lot of movies.

Not that I can name any other ones.

Mildred Pearce
Mommie Dearest
Female Trouble ... it just occurred to me that mom/daughter dance of death might be my favorite genre ever

mine too

See I knew they existed. I should start making more claims and waiting for people who can actually remember things to fill in the evidence.

All I could think of is 'Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?' which is sisters but has that kind of dynamic.

They're in a caregiver/caretaker relationship.

omg

JBR and I talked about this a couple years ago when I first saw this and became obsessed with them/it. I actually made my parents drive out East Hampton with me the next day so that we could find the house (I grew up about 20 mins west of there and was at their place when I first saw it).

Also, I'll go ahead and say it, I thought Drew B was pretty good in the remake. It was one of the few times she was obv just not playing herself.

otm

Who did make some very persuasive cases for Little Edie being a 'style maven' (–Oldham)

I definitely went through a Little Edie phase after seeing the movie. Also:

http://greygardensnews.blogspot.com/2011/11/little-edies-fashion-sense-is-alive-and.html

Yeah in the Todd Oldham interview they show some fashion spread that is a straight up rip of her blue towel/military dress outfit, little brooch on the towel and all.

Love this movie so god damn much. Why don't I own this?!

This was a trip to see last night.

http://gawker.com/5987006/this-is-the-best-ever-impression-of-little-edie-bouvier-beale

I feel so sad that I keep missing Drag Race.

Should I be watching RuPaul's Drag Race? I kind of think I should be. Especially now.

x-post

They stream all the episodes on the website, block out some time!

Meantime where HAVE you all been.

'...and DON'T *bleep* IT UP!' -- the RuPaul's Drag Race thread

If I were Ru, I would've dismissed each and every one of those drag queens who don't know about Mother Darling and those racoons in the attic.

Like, that's such basic homework.

Hahah I know -- I could have easily figured one or two of them might not know, but when it seemed that NONE of them did aside from Jinkx I was all "Wait, what?"

Love some of the Gawker comments:

themudlark 34 minutes ago
It's a tragedy when people don't know GG or Little/Big Edie (such a tragic and intriguing story). It's like not knowing all fifty states, or not being registered to vote.

Upper-Middlebrow
And for a group of drag queens, it's like not knowing how to spell USA.

And then to impersonate Marilyn and not know JFK? The hell?

And for a group of drag queens, it's like not knowing how to spell USA.

Or how to spell MGM backwards.

Yeah there were some WEIRD disconnect moments that whole challenge.

holy shit that was fantastic

I am so watching this show. I kept seeing clips on the Soup and going 'I really should watch that' and never doing it. Curse my lazy ass!

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/18/that-summer-grey-gardens-documentary

I kind of preferred it to the Maysles' own feature length deleted-scenes effort, The Beales of Grey Gardens.

It was kind of interesting seeing the two Edies interacting with Lee Radziwill, though for the most part the conversation was not nearly as interesting as what the Mayles would capture later. Probably for completists only.