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Big Edie Beale, sitting bare-shouldered on the terrace, puts on her eyeglasses The camera – manned by Albert Maysles – follows Big Edie’s line of sight across a mass of unkempt trees, to a stretch of ocean in the near distance The camera pans back, and finds three ginger cats, half-asleep in the sunlight Big Edie speaks throughout – her voice is captured via tape recorder, manned by Albert’s brother, David Maysles ‘That is a beautiful ocean today What colour would you say that is, sapphire? I’ve never seen anything like that ocean, the 50 years I’ve been here’ Big Edie calls for her daughter, Little Edie, who steps onto the terrace, wearing a black headscarf and swimming suit A conversation develops about a cheque owed to Brooks, the gardener, who has been given the Sisyphean task of trimming the jungle-like grounds It quickly escalates: ‘I suppose I won’t get out of here until she dies or I die’, Little Edie says, ‘I don’t like it I like freedom’ ‘Well’, Big Edie retorts, ‘you can’t have it’   This was Grey Gardens: a derelict mansion in the East Hamptons, lived in by the former socialites ‘Big’ Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, ‘Little’ Edith Bouvier Beale In 1975, the Maysles brothers shot a feature-length documentary about the Beales, also titled Grey Gardens The first time I watched it, I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing: the house’s vine-wrecked facades, the raccoons in the attic, the litter-strewn and cat-filled bedrooms are shocking, their decrepitude only accentuated by the Beales’ apparent indifference towards it Throughout the documentary’s 95 minutes, fierce arguments between mother and daughter bubble, erupt, and recede, seeming to have no lasting impact They perpetually recycle decades of family lore – about failed relationships, missed career opportunities, long-standing grudges – the exact details of which I could only guess at Initially, the Beales’ interminable arguments were suffocating to listen to But on subsequent viewings my ear attuned to their conversational rhythm and to the drawl of their Mid-Atlantic accents, which seesaw