When does documentary film document reality and when does it create a reality that doesn’t exist?

That question comes to mind when considering “Grey Gardens,” the 1975 film by Albert and David Maysles.

The film seems straightforward enough: the everyday lives of a mother and daughter – Big Edie and Little Edie Bouvier -- who have chosen to live as outsiders in a decaying 28-room mansion in a wealthy Long Island enclave. Two former members of the American elite living among squalor in a matrix of co-dependence and eccentricity.

The Maysles were (David Maysles died in 1987) firm believers that the filmmaker should not in any way intrude upon or effect what they are documenting. This is in contrast to the work of Frederick Wiseman whose work is purposefully not objective.

Robert Coles writes in “Doing Documentary Work”:

“The word documentary [emphasis the author’s] certainly suggests an interest in what is actual, what exists, rather than what one brings personally, if not irrationally, to the table of present-day actuality.”

Here is what Albert Maysles said in an interview:

“… two very good filmmakers in exactly the same place at exactly the same time will come up with a somewhat different film, or a very different film. And that would seem to suggest that there’s no essential truth. But each one of those films can be an essential part of the truth. I don’t think anyone can claim that they’re telling the whole truth. That’s too big a job. What you do put forth in the context that you provide for it can be truthful.”

In this paper I would like to try to apply the standards of the literature of journalism to Grey Gardens by looking at how the authors (the Maysles) used such things as the language of film and structure. I’d also like to look at how elements of such journalistic principles as objectivity, balance and fairness might apply to the film.

A question that came up when discussing this with my group is why the Maysles chose the Bouviers as subjects and, if they profess to not having a point of view when they film, what is the point of making a film in the first place?