Line #28 Film/GreyGardens


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/greygardens_5117.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Staunch Characters.]]
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4	->'''Little Edie:''' Mother, you don't have enough clothes on.
5	->'''Big Edie:''' Well, I'm going to get naked in just a minute, so you better watch out.
6	->'''Little Edie:''' That's what I'm afraid of.
7	->'''Big Edie:''' Yeah, for what, now why? I haven't got any warts on me.
8	->'''Little Edie:''' But the movie, the movie!
9	->'''Big Edie:''' I haven't got any warts on me!
10	->'''Little Edie:''' That isn't the point, mother darling.
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13	Grey Gardens is a 1975 {{Documentary}} focusing on two eccentric East Hampton recluses, near-bedridden [[MyBelovedSmother Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale]] ("Big Edie"), and her daughter [[CloudCuckooLander Edith Bouvier Beale]], (known as "Little Edie") as they live their lives in their decaying mansion. The duo were the respective [[BlueBlood aunt and first cousin of former U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis]], and rubbed elbows with America's elite before their [[RichesToRags fall from grace]], losing their fortune and ending up with [[ImpoverishedPatrician only themselves and the house to hold onto.]] Once a stately society home, Grey Gardens is now crumbling, [[TrashOfTheTitans full of garbage]], deprived of running water and infested with cats, raccoons and countless fleas, having been left totally neglected by the residents for well over 30 years.
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15	Both Big and Little Edie were delighted to be the subject of Albert and David Maysles' film, which is made up of the two telling anecdotes about their unusual lives, performing for the camera, giving their opinions on various topics and going about their daily routines- be it [[ImprovisedClothes putting together an outfit from random bits and pieces found around the house]], or [[CrazyCatLady tipping a bag of stale Wonderbread out on the floor for the raccoons.]] The resulting film is strangely haunting, camp, funny and sad all at once.
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17	Big Edie died in 1977 at the age of 81, four years after the film was shot and the year after ''Grey Gardens'' was released in theatres. Little Edie sold the house in 1979 to ''Washington Post'' editor Ben Bradlee and his wife Sally Quinn, on the condition that it not be torn down. The house was extensively remodeled and still stands today. Little Edie lived in New York City, Florida, and elsewhere before her death in Florida in 2002 at the age of 84.
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19	HBO made a dramatic film about the Beales, also titled ''Grey Gardens'' starring Creator/DrewBarrymore and Creator/JessicaLange. A Broadway musical of the same name produced by East of Doheny also opened in 2006, winning several Tony awards. The documentary was parodied for the first episode of the {{Mockumentary}} GenreAnthology series ''Series/DocumentaryNow''.
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21	----
22	!!''Grey Gardens'' contains examples of:
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24	* AgeInappropriateDress: What, a swimsuit and fishnet tights isn't a respectable outfit for someone pushing 60? How about a strapless top for someone pushing ''80''? Also, neither Edie seems to be interested in wearing a bra.
25	* AllForNothing: Little Edie gave up a career (though perhaps not a lucrative one) to take care of Big Edie, who tells her frankly and unsympathetically that it was completely unnecessary, as she already had a companion (albeit one whom Little Edie disdained).
26	* BigFancyHouse: The titular house, of course. Ironically, even though it had 28 rooms, they spent most of their time in just three of them and left the rest filled with crap.
27	* BlitheSpirit: Little Edie really wants to be this and acts like a free spirit who is there to brighten up her old mother's dull life, but in one memorable OutOfCharacterMoment near the end she becomes somber and confesses that she hates living at Grey Gardens and wishes she could move and live a normal life.
28	* BlueBlood: The Beales come from one of the oldest, wealthiest families in America.
29	* TheCareTaker: Little Edie, who came to look after her mother and the house when nobody else would.
30	* CastingGag: In the documentary, Little Edie said that she would like Ethel Barrymore to play her mother in a film about them (not knowing that Ethel Barrymore had been dead for over ten years). Ethel is the great aunt of Creator/DrewBarrymore, who ended up playing Little Edie herself.
31	* ChristmasCake: The Beales find a photo of Little Edie at 24. Big Edie expresses shock that she looked so young despite being "so old" at the time.
32	* CloudCuckooLander: Both ladies, but Little Edie in particular.
33	* CloudCuckoolandersMinder: Little Edie, despite being a CloudCuckoolander herself.
34	* CoolOldLady: Despite their disgusting living conditions, both women have a lot of interesting stories to tell about their high-society lives and are very engaging. The filmmakers took quite a shine to them as well.
35	* CrazyCatLady:
36	** Could be TropeCodifier. A lot of the fictional cat ladies in various works have been inspired by the Beales. The scene where Big Edie matter-of-factly notes that one of the cats is urinating behind her portrait stands out.
37	** Taken up to eleven in the scene where it is shown they aren't just crazy cat ladies but are crazy ''raccoon'' ladies as well, as they go up to the attic to feed the feral raccoons that live there.
38	* CrazyConsumption: The eating habits of both women are very strange (see DogFoodDiet below) and include eating a whole pint of ice cream with a knife, and having corn right out of the pot while in bed. Big Edie is shown cooking on a hot plate on her bedside table, which has to be a fire hazard.
39	* CreatorCameo: The Maysles brothers appear several times, mainly as reflections in mirrors that happen to be in the shot. The Beales also talk to them and refer to them by name from time to time.
40	* DancingWithMyself: In one scene, Little Edie, who has always loved dancing, shows that she still remembers her choreography as she dances along to an old record, [[PatrioticFervor while waving an American flag no less.]]
41	* DeadpanSnarker: Big Edie.
42	-->'''Little Edie''': You can't have your cake and eat it, too in life.
43	-->'''Big Edie''': Oh, yes, I did. I did, I had my cake, loved it, masticated it, chewed it and had everything I wanted.
44	* {{Determinator}}: Big Edie's wish was to die in Grey Gardens, despite pressure to sell it due to lack of funds. She got her wish a year after the documentary was filmed.
45	* DogFoodDiet: In one scene Little Edie opens up a can of cat food, which the Beales eat spread on crackers.
46	* DuetBonding: After badgering her daughter repeatedly about her allegedly off-key singing, Big Edie does join her in singing in one scene.
47	* TheDutifulDaughter: Little Edie sees herself this way. She did not want to move into Grey Gardens and would rather have married an upper-class husband and lived her own life, but became a spinster because her mother has literally no one else.
48	* FanDisservice: Big Edie, 78 years old, exposing her breasts for the camera when the tank top that she probably should not be wearing slips off. Of course, as the whole film shows, Big Edie is now several decades past giving a crap.
49	* GenkiGirl: Little Edie, who has an astounding amount of vitality for a 57 year old.
50	* HairTodayGoneTomorrow: Little Edie had long blonde hair when she was young but is completely bald in the present due to her Alopecia which started in her twenties.
51	* HandyMan: "The Marble Faun", Jerry Torre, the teenaged handyman who is the only person who regularly visits the Beales. Little Edie thinks that Jerry wants sex with her and also is terrified at the prospect that he might move in and become a companion to Big Edie.[[note]]In reality, he had run from an abusive home and was just trying to hustle work. Jerry saw the Edies more as mother figures than anything else, which they in turn indulged to the extent they could.[[/note]] Torre, who was [[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/03/06/060306ta_talk_green gay]], never did move into the house. He surfaced thirty-odd years later, working as a cab driver in New York City.
52	* ICouldaBeenAContender: Little Edie muses at length about how she could have done so much more with her life: she had a university education, was a talented singer and dancer, came from a high-society family and ought to have married a scion of some old money family like her own. Instead she gave all of it up to live in a dilapidated mansion with her elderly, demanding mother.
53	* ImpoverishedPatrician: The film does not provide a lot of explanation for how the Beales ended up in their condition, other than mentioning that Big Edie's husband had left her. Big Edie received child support but no alimony. Her father then cut her out of his will, except for a $65,000 trust which was out of her control, leaving her only $300 per month.[[note]]$1,777 adjusted for inflation--poverty level anywhere in the country but especially in the New York City metro area[[/note]].
54	* IsntItIronic: Big Edie singing "Tea for Two", with its idyllic portrait of domestic bliss darkly echoing the Beales' current situation.
55	--> ''No friends or relations''
56	--> ''On weekend vacations''
57	* IWasQuiteALooker: Not for nothing did Creator/JessicaLange and Creator/DrewBarrymore play the Beales in the HBO movie, since the old photographs shown throughout the documentary make it clear that they both were lovely in their younger days. Little Edie's society nickname was "Body Beautiful Beale". She did some modeling work as well.
58	** SilverVixen: Little Edie despite her very rough living conditions still looked very good for someone nearly 60 years old at the time, still possessing an impressive dancer's physique.
59	* KindHeartedCatLover: Despite being barely able to care for themselves, the two dote on their many cats in their own way.
60	* LivingEmotionalCrutch: Mother and daughter are this for each other. Despite openly resenting her mother for keeping her in a decrepit house instead of freeing her to have her own life, love, and career, Little Edie admits in the end that she hopes her mother doesn't die, because she'll be lonely.
61	* {{Malaproper}}: Big Edie: "My body is a very precious place. It's concentrated ground."
62	* MayDecemberRomance: Little Edie, at age 52, had a romance interlude with a 32-year-old man who proposed marriage, and she deeply resents that Big Edie allegedly chased him out of the house for such a petty reason as literally not wanting another cook in the kitchen. Big Edie, who believed that the relationship was doomed to fail anyway due to the age gap, eventually pokes holes in this fairy tale, claiming that the lover was more or less long-distance only, and had lost interest in Little Edie after meeting her in person and finding her cold and bitter.
63	* MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold: Both Edies are genuinely nice to everyone they encounter for all that they bicker amongst themselves and isolate themselves from the world.
64	* MyBelovedSmother: Big Edie. Any scenes Little Edie has on her own usually have her mother calling for her in the background.
65	* NeverBareheaded: Little Edie, who, due to her baldness, wears a series of scarves throughout the movie, and a swimming cap when she goes swimming in the ocean.
66	* NoBrows: Little Edie due to her Alopecia Totalis which caused the loss of all the hair on her head, including her eyebrows and eyelashes. She usually draws them on but goes without any in a few scenes too.
67	* NotSoAbandonedBuilding: The house looks so derelict from the outside and is so shabby and overgrown with plants that it would be natural to assume it's abandoned, except for the occasional sighting of Little Edie outside. (Big Edie refused to leave the house as a rule).
68	* OldMaid: Little Edie, who has conflicting feelings about the matter.
69	* ThePigPen:
70	** Big Edie in particular, as she lays on a mattress covered in garbage and filth. Little Edie normally looks tidier and cleaner and keeps her side of their shared bedroom neater.
71	** The filthy, dilapidated Grey Gardens is shown as it looked ''after'' Jackie Onassis paid to have it repaired and cleaned up.
72	* RichesToRags: The Beale women were once very wealthy and affluent society figures who rubbed shoulders with the upper echelons of New York high society. Now they live in squalor and with barely enough money to survive.
73	* RummageSaleReject: Little Edie, who somehow makes it work for her. Her style has inspired collections from Dior, Galliano and many others.
74	* TrashOfTheTitans: Grey Gardens itself. The way it appears in the documentary was after a massive clean up, and it still qualifies!
75	* VicariousGoldDigger: J. V. Bouvier stresses to his grandchildren, Edie, Jackie and Lee, the importance of marrying well and securing their future, which he feels Edie's mother failed to do. The future Jackie Kennedy and Lee Radziwill take his advice to heart, but Edie ends up alone and unwed taking care of her mother after her father abandons them.
76	* VitriolicBestBuds: For all their squabbling, they clearly adore one another.
77	* WomanChild: Little Edie is childlike to the point of some people suspecting arrested development.

Context Film / GreyGardens