Grey Gardens
Dir: Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Muffie Meyer
1975
****
Grey Gardens has become quite the infamous documentary and it is both fascinating and appalling. Edith Sr and Edith Jr are about as eccentric as you get but then you wonder if their is more to it than just that, and so the initial reaction to watching it is that they were exploited which is actually quite shocking and also extremely sad. It's true that the couple, aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, were in some respects quite thankful for the attention, once being part of high-society but there is a sense that our grubby little obsession with voyeurism was born here. It's fascinating viewing thought, spellbinding throughout. There is nothing like a bit of rubbernecking along life's highway but then sometimes you're not always glad you looked. Compelling and repelling at the same time, I was captivated but it's an emotional roller-coaster. You could try and look for meaning but there really isn't any, it is titillating viewing, quite low-brow at that and the guiltiest of pleasures, a darker form of Schadenfreude if you will.