Directors Albert Maysles and Muffie Meyer will be at the IFC Center to discuss their classic documentary about the Beales of East Hampton
GREY GARDENS (David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer, 1976)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
Wednesday, January 19, $16, 8:00
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.mayslesfilms.com
One of the most influential documentaries ever made, GREY GARDENS looks at the bizarre lives of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edie, in their dilapidated home in East Hampton. The elder Edie was the sister of Jackie Onassis’s father, so it was hard for the American public to believe that in the mid-1970s, relatives of Jackie O’s were living in such squalor. Little Edie bandies about in odd clothing, singing and dancing, believing that she can still resurrect her once-promising career as an entertainer. Meanwhile, her elderly mother cracks wise at her daughter while also remembering her own long-gone days as a singer. The women seem to be caught up in a world all their own, far from reality, but filmmakers Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Muffie Meyer, and Ellen Hovde don’t judge them in any way; they just let them be as the women greet guests and grumble about whatever they can. Selected for the New York and Cannes Film Festivals, GREY GARDENS, which has also been turned into a fiction film and a Broadway musical, will be screened January 19 at the IFC Center at 8:00, with Albert Maysles and Meyer on hand to talk about this unique work.