The Maysles brothers' 1975 documentary is a masterfully assembled, deeply troubling piece of work. It is, on the one hand, one of the best documentary films ever made, a stunning piece of filmmaking. On the other, it's a rather lurid exercise in gawking at two women solely because they have the name Bouvier, and are respectively the aunt and cousin of former First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. The film’s very existence invites uncomfortable questions about Americans’ knotty relationship with the concept of an aristocracy, and whether our need to prove our lack of need for the institution invites cruel attitudes toward the moneyed (or formerly moneyed) classes. And, paradoxically, whether we make certain concessions for our would-be/has-been aristocrats that we don’t make for the never-were/never-will-be’s. In any case,
Grey Gardens is undoubtedly, by purely aesthetic standards, a great film, but it is a great film that is exceedingly difficult to sit through. Much like its moral paradox, it is a film at once confined to Grey Gardens as its protagonists are, and yet, through that confinement, stretches out in all directions in an eternity of discomfort.
By
Danny Bowes