The Story of Grey Gardens
Every lunch, I always use the opportunity to browse through internet. Today, I landed on Tempo Interaktif website and read reviews from Leila S. Chudori about several movies and TV serials. There’s one title that catch my attention. It called Grey Garden, starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore. From what I read, the characters named Big Edie and Little Edie, is real persons and close relatives of Jackie Kennedy. The story quite interesting and makes me want to know about this eccentric mother and daughter.
Apparently, in 1975 there’s a documentary film about these two Edie called Grey Gardens, made by David and Albert Maysles. It portrayed the life of Big Edie and Little Edie in their big house but full with wild cats, overgrown plants, mold and all dirty things you can found in one house. Everyday, they memorized their past, surrounded by wealth and dreams. How this mother-daughter showed to the outside world their ‘close’ relationship to each other.
After read it, I opened Google and searched more about this story. The results quite impressive. Beside facts about these two women (as usual, I started from Wikipedia here), I also found some fan websites dedicated to Little Edie. I even found online stores which its stuff inspired by Grey Gardens and of course, Little Edie’s style.
The more I explored, I found one article here talked about Little Edie. It’s quite touching how the writer describe her feelings when the first time she met her and she described the life of Little Edie and her mother through interview with the relatives of Little Edie. Somehow, I felt that Little Edie had this Cinderella Syndrome (except that Little Edie came from wealthy family), influenced by her mother, and when it didn’t happen, both Edie refused to accept it and choose to live in the past rather than present. I also felt that Little Edie was under full control by Big Edie, and although she love her mother so much, but in the other hand she scared of her mother’s ambition. But that’s just me.
Now I’m totally curious with this story. Wish I knew this story long time ago, at least I can watch it on HBO (yes, Grey Gardens was produced by HBO). I want to watch both movies, the 1975 documentary and 2009 movie. I can love the story I read, and now I want to see how their life depicted.
