At some points as I was knitting and watching I was asking myself why I was spending time viewing it. It is kind of a train wreck relationship viewing, however it is real and not far from today's reality shows. In any event I felt as if I had gone back in time and was sitting with my grandmothers, hearing them bicker and complain, so I couldn't stop watching.
My great grandmother was sickly for the second half of her life and lived as a shut-in. Her loyal family doctor even still did house calls until the year she passed in 1989. My grandmother, who was born a year after Little Edie, was a hoarder and a crazy cat lady too. But, I was the principal person to un-hoard her house in the last few years of her life, and then after (with help from my father and brother). So, watching the film was surreal for me on many levels.
The film is comprised of interviews of these two eccentric recluses who were formerly rich socialites. Little Edie is the cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis. The Beales had been living in squalor typical of what we see on the reality show Hoarders and the Long Island waterview mansion was cleaned up in 1972. I read on the internet that the hoarding story hit the media and was a "national scandal". Filmed in 1975 they were back to living in fairly unsanitary conditions including feeding the raccoons who lived in the attic loaves of Wonder bread and boxes of dry cat food! At one point a cat was pooping behind a painted portrait of Big Edie and Little Edit protested in disgust. Big Edit retorted that at least someone in the house was able to do what they wanted. How could I stop watching that type of thing? I was rivoted!
Little Edie had been living with her mother for about 25 years. Exactly who was taking care of who is a subject of debate if you read about the topic on the internet today. In the movie Little Edie said she was sick of living on Long Island "in the country" and felt trapped, and longed to go back to living in Manhattan. At one point she complains of not doing things and her mother retorts that back then she didn't want to do the things but then only looking back at her life did she change it around to say she wanted to do it but didn't. The revisionist history is another element that drove me nuts about my grandmother.
I especially enjoyed this that Little Edie said at the end. It gives a good sense of the typical stuff that she says in the movie. I had to pause it to jot it down, I couldn't resist.
"So I can see now why girls get married, you know they are forced into it. It's all a question of who you want to stay with. Of course, I'm mad about animals, but cats and raccoons become a little bit boring -- I mean -- for too long a time!
(laughs)
I don't know. I don't know. I'd better check on mother and the cats. She's a lot of fun. I hope she doesn't die. I'd hate to have another winter here though. Oh God, another winter! Very depressing, you know, when winter sets in, because I don't like the country in the winter. Any little rat--any little rat's nest, any little rat hole, any little mouse hole, even on 10th Avenue, I would like better."
The movie Grey Gardens is available to view on Showtime On Demand right now.
Clips of the movie can be viewed on YouTube.
(I have not seen the newer HBO film by the same title.)
Disclosure: I have nothing to disclose about mentioning this film!
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