Maggie Johnson Final - Grey Gardens & Direct Cinema

Maggie Johnson
FILM 201
April 26, 2010
Blurring the Line Between Objectivity and Subjectivity in Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens (1976) is an important documentary because of the startling level of intimacy it achieves with its subjects, Edith Bouvier Beale, “Big Edie”, and her daughter, “Little Edie” Beale. Al and David Maysles chose to film a documentary on the unusual pair of women after Lee Radziwill (sister of Jackie O and cousin of the Beales) contacted them with hopes of developing a cinematic family album. Lee decided not to follow through with the project, but the Maysles became very interested in the Beale women. The documentary peers into the Beale’s disconcerting lifestyle in a decrepit East Hampton home, several years after the home was inspected by local health officials and found to be unfit to live in. Soon after, the Beales’ story became a human interest phenomenon as Jackie O and Lee worked on cleaning and restoring the home (aptly named Grey Gardens) to satisfy community health codes.
The film offers a fascinating, though at times alarming, look at the reclusive lifestyle of high-society’s fallen wealthy. Grey Gardens is part of the direct cinema genre, a category which includes most of the Maysles brothers works. Throughout its peak in the 1950’s and 60’s, the direct cinema community claimed optimal authenticity in its works because of the filmmaker’s ability to function as a “fly on the wall”. The direct cinema movement was motivated by a quest for the “really real”, and it aimed to film things as they actually happened, as authentically and free from manipulation as possible. Winston explains the genre as follows: “It is the experimental method and the place of the camera as scientific instrument that provides the context in which the filmmaker/observer emerges—heavily disguised as a fly on the wall (43).” This explanation of direct cinema reflects its observational emphasis; the filmmaker has no influence on the actions as they unfold, and is therefore able to achieve scientific inscription by simply standing by with a camera. However, the direct cinema movement inevitably faced accusations of subjectivity, as well as ethical concerns around the rights of the observed subjects. Vogels shares a compelling argument from Emile de Antonio against the genre:
There lies behind cinema verite the implication of a truth arrived at by scientific instrument, called the camera, which faithfully records the world. Nothing could be more false. The assumption of objectivity is false. Filmmakers edit what they see, edit as they film what they see, weight people, moments and scenes by giving them different looks and values. As soon as one points a camera, objectivity is romantic hype (144).
Grey Gardens is of particular interest regarding the challenges to this genre. The Maysles frequently violate direct cinema norms of objectivity, but a careful examination of these violations shows that the resulting product is something both subjective and truthful.
Grey Gardens immediately violates direct cinema’s idealized objectivity by including a montage of images from beyond the context of the Grey Gardens setting. Within the first several minutes of the film, Edie expresses a mocking fear that she and her mother will be “raided again by the village of East Hampton” as the camera zooms in on a wall destroyed by raccoons. The scene changes to a montage of beautiful, well-kept East Hampton homes and beaches as Edie remarks that “they can get you in East Hampton for wearing red shoes on a Thursday and all that sort of thing…they can get you for almost anything”. Generally, presenting events out of a clear chronological order conflicts with direct cinema constructs. Running Edie’s commentary along a series of shots taken elsewhere at another time is an obvious violation of direct cinema techniques, and it has a powerful emotional affect. The pristine images of East Hampton in deliberate contrast with Edie’s defensive dialogue serve to express the superficiality and judgment that’s attached to wealthy communities. The Maysles brothers step beyond the realm of fly on the wall observation to include this set of images which tells us right away that the Beales have been ostracized, whether deserving or not, by a harsh community. The Maysles make an evocative emotional claim in this scene by showing the juxtaposition between the Beales and their constraining environment; we feel impending judgment from East Hampton society and begin to develop sympathy for the Beale women. Following this sequence, the Maysles further violate direct cinema conventions by featuring a similar montage. They provide substantial background information on the Beales by showing a sequence of newspaper clippings accompanied by a charming, classical tune. Both establishing background context and including the melody are in violation of the direct cinema ideal. Before we even have a chance to experience the Beales through direct observation, we learn that the Suffolk County Board of Health ordered the women to clean their 28-room “unsafe” and “unsanitary” home, that the Beale women were completely outraged at the “raid”, that Jackie O contributed to the cleaning process, and that the women were eventually approved to remain in the home. This newspaper sequence characterizes the Beales as bizarre, potentially disturbed figures. However, the light, cheerful quality of the music creates nostalgia for the Beales’ imaginable past of elegant dinner parties and other socially elite engagements. As ideas of lost elegance conflict with current filth, the Maysles’ audience grows very interested in the nature and lifestyle of these complicated women. Clearly, these techniques afford the Maysles some degree of emotional suggestiveness with its audience but this does not necessarily mean their authenticity is compromised.
Another significant way in which the Maysles violate direct cinema conventions is by playing a very active role in the scenes they shoot. The brothers are not quiet observers; rather, they become intertwined in the lives of the Beale women and are frequently engaged in the action of the film. For example, the documentary’s first major scene shows the Beales entering the property, announcing themselves as the “gentlemen callers”. This creates a role for the filmmakers that far surpasses a fly on the wall. They compliment Edie’s outfit, and she reciprocates. This exchanges prompts Edie to describe her outfit and justify its status as the “costume for the day”. Evidently, the Maysles do not sit back and film things as they are; they have a direct influence on conversation topic and tone. We hear the brothers as they respond to Edie’s comments, and she continues to engage them in conversation by asking about particular filmmaking choices, and by inquiring where they’d like to film next. Though we do not yet see the Maysles, this scene unfolds as a conversation between Edie, Al, and David. Their voices extend into the shots, and we become very aware of the filmmakers’ active role in this context. Additionally, Al and David become emotionally involved in the filming by attending to Edie’s anxieities. Concerned about the gardener’s perception, Edie questions the Maysles directly about her outfit and they have no choice but to respond supportively and settle her apprehension. The Maysles continue to dictate conversation topic as Edie muses on her ideas of marriage. She casually explains that she doesn’t believe in divorce and rather than abiding by a hands-off, direct cinema guideline, the Maysles take an active role in directing the conversation. They ask if her mother was divorced, and Edie responds with a tangent about her father’s “fake Mexican divorce”. Whether genuinely curious or attempting to manipulate the conversational flow, the Maysles clearly steer much of Grey Gardens’ content. They also appear within numerous other shots throughout the film. Specifically, they reveal themselves in a mirror reflection, appear in shots to help Big Edith up from her chair, and join the women in song. This self-reflexivity suggests their comfort level with their active role in the film and rejection of direct cinema.
In addition to the Maysles choice to include background information and become part of the actions of the film, they further stray from direct cinema constraints by using the camera to make compelling inferences about the Beales’ relationship to their past. Big and Little Edie constantly pore over family photos as the Maysles film, and the brothers create blatant juxtapositions between their past and present. Several times throughout the film, the camera will contrast a long shot of Big Edith in her aged condition with a beautiful portrait from her youth. The first time this occurs, the camera zooms in on Edith’s gorgeous wedding photo and holds the shot for several second before moving directly to a close-up of Edith in the present day. The alarming juxtaposition between Edith’s past and present brings emotional tension to the film that would not exist if the camera passively observed the action. A similar effect is achieved several minutes later when the camera again zooms in on a beautiful portrait of Big Edie as a young woman. The shot remains fixed on the portrait but the audio makes a transition into the next scene as Big Edie comments on living alone for thirty years. This manipulative merging of visuals from one shot and audio from another serves to heighten the contrast between young Edith Beale and elderly Edith Beale. Similarly, the Maysles use other techniques to generate emotional significance beyond what would be seen in uninterrupted, unedited documentary. For example, they capture the trapped nature of Little Edie’s existence in Grey Gardens by creating an eyeline match between her forlorn facial expression and a photo of her own youthful beauty. There’s no way to be sure that Little Edie is actually looking sadly at her portrait, feeling imprisoned and mourning her youth, but the filmic connection drawn certainly implies so. Furthermore, the final scene of Grey Gardens shows Edie dancing freely in the foyer. She is filmed through the rungs of a banister which create the illusion of imprisonment. This is arguably an intentional effect; the brothers could have captured a clearer picture of her from a different angle, but are able to present a more meaningful portrayal of Little Edie by symbolically showing her behind bars.
As Little Edie explains that it can be “very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present”, it is equally difficult to keep the line between objectivity and subjectivity in Grey Gardens. Although the Maysles employ several filmic manipulations, they arguably still succeed in presenting the truth. Al Maysles explains it articulately:
We can see two kinds of truth here. One is the raw material, which is the footage, the kind of truth that you get in literature in the diary form—it’s immediate, no one has tampered with it. Then there’s another kind of truth that comes in extracting and juxtaposing the raw material into a more meaningful and coherent storytelling form, which finally can be said to be more than just raw data (Levin 277).
Despite Grey Gardens’ inability to completely align with direct cinema theory, it presents a complex relationship with sensitivity and respect. The Maysles’ viewers come to know the Beales by the end of the film, and both women were reportedly happy with the final product. Vogels writes that “that the film is designed to be an artistic re-presentation of reality rather than a purely documentary account…these manipulations work to support the film’s thematic concerns and create a heightened dramatic impact” (133). With this description in mind, Grey Gardens is an incredibly honest and affective film. The Maysles’ manipulations may disobey the founding constructs of direct cinema, but they successfully depict the fascinating story of the Beales’ complex dependency and uniqueness.


References
Aufderheide, Patricia. Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction. New York, New
York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2007. Print.
Levin, Roy G. Documentary Explorations. Garden City, New York: Anchor Press, 1971.
Print.
Vogels, Jonathan B. The Direct Cinema of David and Albert Maysles. Carbondale, I llinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005. Print.
Winston, Brian. “The Documentary Film as Scientific Inscription”. Theorizing
Documentary. Ed. Michael Renov. New York, New York: Routledge, 1993. Print.