Grey Gardens, genre influences, and the American Nightmare

David and Albert Maysles’ documentary film Grey Gardens (1975), a portrait of “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” Beale — a mother and daughter with high-society connections living in a squalid mansion in the Hamptons — is recognized as a crowning achievement of the direct cinema movement. Rather than deal in unmitigated reality, however, the film is in fact heavily reliant on our familiarity…