Cinema Dissection: Grey Gardens

Cinema Dissection: Portrait of a Lady on Fire

April 26, 2025

"It's very hard to keep the line between the past and the present." – Big Edie Beale

Grey Gardens is a singular, unforgettable documentary about Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, the eccentric mother-daughter duo who live in squalor in their once-grand mansion in East Hampton. Directed by master documentarians Albert and David Maysles, the film presents an intimate portrait of two women caught in a web of nostalgia, delusion, and personal tragedy.

In this Cinema Dissection, local filmmaker Jeremy Cropf will guide students through the Maysles’ groundbreaking observational style, where the camera acts as a silent observer. Through a careful, scene-by-scene breakdown, we’ll discuss the film’s impact on documentary filmmaking, including its intimate, fly-on-the-wall style, and how the camera functions as both a tool of revelation and complicity. We’ll also examine the Edies' psychological complexity, and the ways in which Grey Gardens raises questions about performance, identity, and the intersection of personal history and public spectacle.

Tickets on sale Wednesday, February 5.

CLASS SPECIFICS
Saturday, April 26, 2025
10:00am–4:00pm PT
SIFF Film Center
$30 Sustainer | $25 Regular | $20 Member

ABOUT CINEMA DISSECTION
Cinema Dissection affords film lovers an exciting opportunity to dig deeper into the films that they love. Inspired by Roger Ebert's annual Cinema Interruptus in Boulder, CO, attendees will participate with a facilitator in a six-hour scene-by-scene, and sometimes shot-by-shot, deconstruction of the featured film. While the facilitator will certainly share their thoughts, anyone in the audience may call out "Stop" and either ask a question of the group or make an observation around a certain shot or moment in the film.

Jeremy Cropf

About the Instructor: Jeremy Cropf

Jeremy Cropf is a filmmaker and television producer, currently working at Cascade Public Media. A six-time regional Emmy®-award winning producer, Jeremy earned a BA in Film and Television production at NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, where he graduated with honors (’11). In 2009 Jeremy studied advanced television production with the BBC Academy in London, attached as an associate producer for the BAFTA-winning BBC Two factual series The Virtual Revolution. He has produced and directed numerous films, documentaries, and commercials.