A Place Called Home

Grey Gardens

Edith Bouvier Beale and Edith Bouvier Beale, or Edie and “Little Edie…” The eighty year-old mother and her middle-aged daughter, who live together and yet in opposition to each other in their secluded and decaying mansion, are none other than USA’s sensational first-lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s aunt and cousin. When Maysles Brothers visited the mother and daughter at their East Hampton mansion called Grey Gardens, where they lived intimately with their cats and raccoons, the brothers decided to document the eccentric lifestyle of the women. These two extraordinary women, who often end up in quarrels or interrupt each other, prove that a level of insanity is necessary to continue living in a house that is in such physical decline.