That Summer

One would not expect that a documentary about two women living as recluses in a ramshackle estate could spawn both a Broadway musical and an HBO movie, but David and Albert Maysles’s classic Grey Gardens did precisely that. That Summer is a sort-of prequel, filmed three years before the Maysles made their 1975 portrait of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale ("Big Edie") and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale ("Little Edie"), the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy and her youngster sister Lee Radziwill. Radziwill and her friend, photographer Peter Beard, enlisted the brothers as cameramen for a film about her childhood in the Hamptons. Among the locales they visited was Grey Gardens, and while the documentary that Radziwill had in mind never materialized, the Maysles later returned to make their own film about Big and Little Edie. The original 1972 footage of the Beales was long forgotten, but director Göran Olsson has edited it here with recollections by Beard, excerpts from a previous interview with Radziwill, and footage taken at Beard’s Montauk house in 1972 featuring guests including Truman Capote and Andy Warhol. That Summer is mainly focused on Radziwill’s efforts to fix up the house to prevent the Beales from being evicted by local authorities, but there is ample footage of the two Edies talking to Radziwill about the past, bickering with one another, and complaining about their home and lives being invaded. This fascinating complement to Grey Gardens leads up to Big Edie’s rendition of "September Song"—a perfect close to what has become a multi-chapter saga. Recommended. (F. Swietek)