At the time of filming, Edith and Edie Bouvier Beale, relatives of Jaqueline Onassis, lived in an overgrown, run-down 28-room estate, Grey Gardens in East Hampton, Long Island, where for the past twenty years they'd perfected their mother/daughter act-complete with song-and-dance routines. Her head mysteriously wrapped in scarves and towels, Edie's modern dances punctuate her interpretations of her life, which primarily take the form of a litany of complaints against her mom. This routine seems to be old material, lines well rehearsed through repeated use, usually with Mrs. Beale as the foil. They've invented a world with their house as a stage on which life's disappointments and pleasures are recycled into riveting performances. The audience in this case were David and Albert Maysles, noted for such cinema verité works (or non-fiction features as they prefer to call them) as Salesman and Gimme Shelter. -Kathy Geritz