Tribute: Documentary Pioneer Albert Maysles

Posted on March 6, 2015 at 3:05 pm

We mourn the loss of film visionary Albert Maysles, who with his brother David, showed us a new way to see film and a new way to see the world. They were the first Americans to create intimate, unstructured documentary storytelling without experts talking from behind their desks or extended narration. This is “direct cinema,” the distinctly American version of French “cinema verité.” The Maysles brothers were the first to make non-fiction feature films where the drama of human life unfolds as is, without scripts, sets, or narration. In part, this was due to their way of looking at the world, which was open-hearted and non-judgemental. But it was also due to changes in technology since the very earliest days of documentary. In 1960, he said, “With the equipment we have today, which is directly descended from the equipment we made; you could go beyond the illustrated lecture for the first time. These innovations made it possible to get what was happening so clearly and directly that the person viewing the film would feel as though he was actually present at those events. For the first time, it was possible for someone watching a documentary to feel as though he was standing in the shoes of the person he was seeing onscreen.”

Maysles’ subjects had lives that were in some ways ordinary, like those of us in the audience. Salesman was about door-to-door Bible salesmen. He said, “There are daily acts of generosity and kindness and love that should be represented on film.”

But he also made extraordinary films about extraordinary lives. Perhaps his most famous was Grey Gardens, about “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” Beale, relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who continued to live in their crumbling East Hampton mansion with no money and very little contact with the outside world. The movie was later adapted into a hit Broadway musical and a movie with Drew Barrymore.

He filmed Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Otis Redding, and the Mamas and the Papas.

He filmed the Rolling Stones.

He filmed Paul McCartney.

He said,

As a documentarian I happily place my fate and faith in reality. It is my caretaker, the provider of subjects, themes, experiences – all endowed with the power of truth and the romance of discovery. And the closer I adhere to reality the more honest and authentic my tales. After all, the knowledge of the real world is exactly what we need to better understand and therefore possibly to love one another. It’s my way of making the world a better place.

May his memory be a blessing.

Grey Gardens, Act III

Posted on April 18, 2009 at 12:55 pm

What is is about the story of Grey Gardens that has been so enduringly fascinating? They have inspired a documentary film, a Broadway musical, endless articles, even a song by Rufus Wainwright.

Some people think it is because the two women who lived in splendid squalor were the aunt and cousin of one of the world’s most famous and glamorous women, Jacqueline Kennedy. And some think it is because of the schadenfreude effect — seeing two women born to wealth and power fall into helpless poverty. Both are certainly a part of it, but I believe the reason that the story of the two Edith Beales is so enthralling is because of something central to the lives of all of us. It is about family ties that both sustain and constrain. It is about the line between function and dysfunction. It is about devotion. It is about love. It is about control. And it is about the way that the route to madness is much more slippery and treacherous than we would like it to be.

Edith Beale and her daughter “Little Edie” lived in a mansion in East Hampton called Grey Gardens. At one time they were at the heart of high society and Little Edie, a debutante, was known as “Body Beautiful Beale.” Their lives seemed filled with luxury and promise. But by the time a documentary film crew arrived in the early 1970’s the mansion had fallen into filth and disrepair. The two women shared the house with more than fifty cats and other animals. They had almost no electricity or plumbing. The women’s behavior was outlandish, even delusional, but their resilience and ferocious passion for survival were inspiring. They were not just willing to defy convention; they seemed to relish it. The film was a sensation. It led to a Tony-award-winning Broadway musical starring Christine Ebersole. Tonight, the latest version of the story premieres in HBO, starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange.

Here is a clip from the original documentary with Little Edie explaining her “revolutionary” attire, followed by Ebersole in a scene from the musical based on that monologue and a trailer for the HBO movie.

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