Monday, April 20, 2009

GREY GARDENS before and after with slide show + video + footage from the original documentary film

Many of you are watching GREY GARDENS on HBO. I wonder how many of you saw the original documentary film that was made 34 years ago by Albert Maysles and his brother. I found it at my local library years ago and found it very difficult to watch.

Thirty-four years after a documentary film introduced the world to Grey Gardens and its eccentric occupants, a new movie on HBO is again casting light on the legend of this East Hampton property. In 1979, when the last photo was taken, Sally Quinn, the writer and Washington hostess, and her husband Benjamin Bradlee, former editor of The Washington Post, purchased the property, which had fallen into complete disarray, and set out to restore it to its earlier splendor.

View the slide show with 12 photos via The New York Times.

Albert Maysles visited Grey Gardens to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his film several years ago after the house and gardens were restored. This 10-minute film from YouTube shows Maysles' reaction with footage from the original documentary. This will give you a glimpse into the "real Grey Gardens" and the two Edies. Don't say I didn't warn you about how shocking it was while the two eccentrics were in residence.



Thanks for stopping by my blog today for a visit. I hope you found this post to be informative and entertaining. I don't have HBO, do you? Should I get it? Are you enjoying Grey Gardens? Let me know. ♥Rosemary

7 comments:

Sue said...

Oh, I just saw this a month or so ago. It was so disgusting the way they lived. The house is very nice now, isn't it?!
As for HBO, if you enjoy movies, get Netflix. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. They have any movie you would ever want to see. That's where I got Grey Gardens. They have all the classics, foreign, everything.
You should consider it....you pick the movies. HBO shows the same junk over and over.
Best to you
Sue

teaorwine said...

Rosemary... I would recommend Netflix to you as there is more control over what you see and when you view, the price is better and the selection is very broad. I do not have HBO, but have already added this interesting selection to my Netflix queue.

Be well, teaorwine

Millie said...

I actually had to walk away from the original Maysles film, something I can't ever recall having to do before. I love eccentricity, but this was something well beyond that. I'll be ready again one day to revisit the Two Edies, so your post about the restoration of their property is fascinating.
Millie ^_^
PS. MOTH won't even entertain the thought of basic cable - aren't we Neanderthals!

Julia @ Hooked on Houses said...

Very interesting! I spent half the morning searching for photos of what the house looks like now, so I was excited to get a glimpse of it in this video. Thanks so much.

Gal Friday said...

At first, I thought the garden photos at the top were from YOUR garden!! :-)
Well--what a transformation from the run-down hourse and grounds to what it is today. I have never seen the documentary, but am oddly fascinated by things like that, even though it would be horrible to live like that. I think there is always a fascination with eccentrics and how do they get like that.
150.00 a month for ice cream?
( I can add to what some other friends here have said about Netflix--it is well worth it)

Sabina said...

I missed this somehow. It looks amazing!! You know, I have seen so many incredible shows on HBO I just could not get by without it.

royal creme said...

Thank you for this clip, I am very eager to watch the HBO version and also the original. What fascinates me is something that one of the Maysle brothers said in an interview which was that the Beales were not so different from other people. They had indulged something in themselves that many people are afraid to. I'll have to watch the story to understand what that might be, but he seems to want to refrain from judging them too harshly. I'd like to do the same.