123, 361 Grey Gardens and The Beales of Grey Gardens

[Gregory]

So is the BR set worth buying if you have the DVD pack?

It was an upgrade that I looked forward to quite a bit. It depends to a great extent on the size of your screen and how important moderate improvements in picture quality are to you, not to mention seeing more of the frame. I bought the new disc but am waiting to have some people over to watch it. Looking at the DVD Beaver comparison, I'm pleased to see the combing evident in the Criterion DVD go away, but I'm troubled by the jagged edges I'm seeing all over 2 of the 3 caps from The Beales of Grey Gardens. I'm away from home so can't check how it looks in motion, but I hope that if the combing were visible in motion then Criterion would have done a new transfer.
The Blu-ray.com review gave the release 5/5 for video, but I suppose that's for the main feature.
Side note: Wow, DVDBeaver misspelled the title of the supplementary film 13 times.

[cdnchris]

The Beales transfer still has all of the issues the DVD had and is still interlaced. It's also murky and nowhere near as sharp as the main feature. I'm pretty sure their 5/5 is just for the main feature.

[manicsounds]

The picture quality is significantly better, but I'm not going to upgrade.
I don't really have the urge to watch a decrepit old house and flabby arms in 1080p.

[Gregory]

A film like this, that's unlike any other, looking essentially like the original 16 mm is something I wouldn't pass up. Plus, I sold the 2-DVD set a while ago for a little more than I paid for the new blu-ray.

[LavaLamp]

I saw the regular Criterion DVD release of Grey Gardens years ago, and it was unquestionably one of the most depressing, disturbing films I've ever seen. I don't question the movie's importance & relevance to those of us who love film (especially documentaries), but that doesn't change the fact that I found this quite horrific.

It's obvious that noone would ever have heard of (or cared about) these two women if they hadn't been related to the K's, and there definitely wouldn't have been a film made about them if not for that family connection.

In fact, I would have to say that this film disturbed me as much (if not more than) Fritz Lang's Freaks.....

[Matt]

What, specifically, did you find so horrific and disturbing about it?

(Tod Browning's Freaks, by the way.)

[matrixschmatrix]

I mean, the connection to the Kennedys is relevant because these women are relics of an aristocratic heritage, which is very much part of the text of the movie- but I imagine the aristocracy in question could have been just about anybody, I don't think it's Camelot fetishism driving the interest in them.

[LavaLamp]

I mean, the connection to the Kennedys is relevant because these women are relics of an aristocratic heritage, which is very much part of the text of the movie- but I imagine the aristocracy in question could have been just about anybody, I don't think it's Camelot fetishism driving the interest in them.

You may be correct, but would anyone have even heard about these two women if it hadn't been for the K. connection? IMHO the fact that these two were living in squalor while being related to a wealthy & famous family (even if that relationship was only by marriage, not blood) had a lot to do with their notoriety. If they were just two unbalanced women living in a run-down house (even if it had once been elegant) and they weren't related to anyone famous, would there still have been a documentary about them? Perhaps, but possibly not...

[knives]

I think you are misunderstanding why people like either movie and even just connecting the two highlights that. Grey Gardens isn't a freak show. Maybe the Beales seem unusual to you (and me and I'm sure a lot of other people), but that doesn't make them freakish and in fact the best parts to the movie show a great love of the two and treats them as you would any distant if beloved relative. The movie works because it decides they are not freaks, but rather real humans with all that entails.

[Matt]

would anyone have even heard about these two women if it hadn't been for the K. connection? IMHO the fact that these two were living in squalor while being related to a wealthy family (even if that relationship was only by marriage, not blood) had a lot to do with their notoriety. If they were just two unbalanced women living in a run-down house (even if it had once been elegant) and they weren't related to anyone famous, would there still have been a documentary about them? Perhaps, but possibly not...

It's difficult to determine the intent of the film given the Maysles' direct cinema approach, but no, the film would not have been made had these women not been related to the Bouviers/Kennedys. But so what? I think you're reading in a cynical attempt at exploitation of celebrity that's not there, where I think it's more appropriate to see an indictment of a wealthy family that would let their relatives decline to such a point. Yet it's not the Maysles' project to point a finger in shame, but more to marvel at the continued dignity of these women (even if that dignity seems woefully self-deluded to well-adjusted outsiders). It all seems to boil down to the Beale women saying "Fuck the Bouviers and Kennedys, we don't need 'em." The whole film shows the two of them bucking against conformity (even the conformity they expect of each other in roles of mother and daughter) and trying to carve out their own identities. Big Edie was able to do so, but she didn't allow her daughter the same privilege, and that's where the tension in their relationship comes from.

Sorry, but I think to see this film as "horrific" and "disturbing" denies these women their basic humanity. If you pity them, you're missing the entire point of not only the film but their very lives.

[swo17]

The movie works because it decides they are not freaks, but rather real humans with all that entails.

The freaks in Freaks are real humans too though, with all that entails...

[knives]

I agree, but I think (to muddy my point further) that is the purpose of Freaks while I get the feeling that is the assumed default for the Maysles who take these humans in as strangers and eventually turn them into friends. The question of 'freakiness' is never really present in the film which I guess is why it makes some people so uncomfortable. They accept the Beales in an entirely sincere and genuine way from the first frame. The lack of commentary on them is what makes the film work.

[matrixschmatrix]

I also always get the feeling from the Maysles that they totally would make a documentary about just about anybody, which I think contributes to the feeling of genuine comradery in the movie. For me, they're masters at creating the feeling that they just had this footage from hanging out, and thought hey maybe there's a movie in this stuff- which is fundamentally inaccurate, I suppose, but that's always the impression their work gives me.

[zedz]

I've got to say that I've always seen the Kennedy connection in Grey Gardens as pretty much beside the point. The Maysles make very little of it beyond simply referencing it as a convenient hook for positioning the Beales within American society, and the film could have worked just as well if it hadn't been mentioned or didn't exist (the filmmakers would simply have had to establish that social context in some other way). As far as I know, that connection was never a big factor in the marketing of the film, and the cult that's grown up around it (and the Beales themselves) has been entirely earnt on its / their own merits, and isn't the epiphenomenon of Camelotian nostalgia.

The idea that the Maysles are only interested in these people because of their relations is not at all persuasive. Who's the celebrity relative we're supposed to be vicariously enjoying in Salesman? No doubt the media coverage of the Beales that drew the Maysles' attention was motivated by the celebrity connection, but I daresay if the filmmakers' van broke down outside Grey Gardens and they stumbled across the family entirely fortuitously, they'd still be falling over themselves to make a film about them.

[jindianajonz]

If they were just two unbalanced women living in a run-down house (even if it had once been elegant) and they weren't related to anyone famous, would there still have been a documentary about them?

Isn't this how most reality TV shows start?

[comicfan1969]

What, you guys didn't enjoy such insightful commentary as this?

In 2003, Entertainment Weekly named Grey Gardens one of the top fifty cult movies of all time—in fact, it’s so culty that the DVD should probably come with some Kool-Aid.

And no, I don't know what it means either.

I guess he thinks it's cute, but he's referring to Jonestown and the urban legend regarding the Kool-Aid there.

[domino harvey]

Yes, and so that others don't think this question went unanswered, it actually spawned a multi-page thread

[Gregory]

That quote was from the old booklet essay by Michael Musto. I once flipped through his book La Dolce Musto: Writings by the World's Most Outrageous Columnist, and the result was:

[sir_luke]

New 2K restoration premiering in March

[jbeall]

Some rarely-seen stills from Grey Gardens