'Grey Gardens' is theatrically released

Grey Gardens, directed by brothers Albert and David Maysles, opens February 19, 1976, as a limited theatrical release.

The documentary follows Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale, known as “Big Edie,” and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale, “Little Edie." Set inside Grey Gardens, their sprawling East Hampton mansion, the film offers an unfiltered portrait of their unique bond, deteriorating living conditions and mounting financial instability.

This exploration of the estranged and eccentric relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis opened to mixed reviews but later inspired pop songs, parodies and a Broadway musical. The film is praised for its innovative narrative structure but also raises debate around the ethics of documentary filmmaking.

The Maysles began directing documentaries in the 1960s, breaking through with Salesman (1969), about a door-to-door Bible salesmen. In the 1970s, they made Gimme Shelter, documenting the Rolling Stones’ disastrous concert at the Altamont Speedway that resulted in the death of a fan. Their work exemplified the principles of direct cinema; they entered into projects without an editorial plan, let the camera roll and discovered a story in the process. “Remember, as a documentarian you are an observer, an author but not a director, a discoverer, not a controller,” Albert Maysles once said.

The brothers became interested in the Beales family after exposés in New York Magazine and the National Enquirer documented their living conditions. By that point, the Suffolk County Health Department had intervened, demanding the house be cleaned. Onassis and her sister Lee Radziwill provided money to fix the house and keep the Beales in it.

The Maysles were granted permission to film the Beales and followed Big Edie and Little Edie inside their garbage-filled house that had no running water and was infested by fleas, raccoons and countless cats.

The film made its first premiere at the New York Film Festival in 1975. Some critics argued the Maysles had exploited the women’s vulnerability. In 1976, New York Times critic Walter Goodman questioned the ethics of the project, asking, “Why were they put on exhibition this way?”

The Maysles rejected accusations of exploitation. In a 2014 interview, Albert Maysles maintained the Beales’ “behavior was just their way of asserting themselves. And what could be a better way to assert themselves than a film about them asserting themselves? Nothing more, nothing less. It’s just them. They were always in control.”

Since its debut, Grey Gardens has endured as both a cult classic and a historically significant work of documentary cinema. Big Edie and Little Edie similarly became cult celebrities.

Big Edie died in 1977 and Little Edie sold Grey Gardens in 1979 to Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. Little Edie moved to Florida, where she died in 2002. In 2009, HBO portrayed the Beales in a TV movie starring Jessica Lange as Big Edie and Drew Barrymore as Little Edie.