GREY GARDENS

On Sunday I had the honor of accompanying Jerry, Wayne and Bill up to East Hampton, Long Island. The purpose of this trip was to visit the renovated Grey Garden’s estate now occupied by Frances Hayward.
Being amidst the fertile yet alienating surroundings of East Hampton gave me a better sense of the setting the Beales lived amidst. Most of the town felt like a labyrinth of high hedges, blocking the view to mega estates.
This trip followed Fridays’ midnight premiere of The Beales of East Hampton at the IFC. The Beales of East Hampton is billed as a companion piece to the original film. It contains 1.5 hours of unreleased footage. I find it to be a more human portrait of these two amazing, intelligent, gifted women. While I love the first film, this new release of footage gives the Beales more stage time in which to share their gifts. The newly released footage also provides generous footage of Jerry, his major role in their lives, and Little Edie’s musing on Jerry.
While Criterion will be releasing the new footage as part of a Grey Garden’s special edition, it is totally worth it to see on the big screen. It plays at IFC at midnight for the next couple weekends.
Here is Christine Ebersol performing The Revolutionary Costume .