[In Grey Gardens the Maysles concentrate their attention] on a mother who is, at the very least, eccentric, and a daughter who is, to put it mildly, spaced out, and who have made a modus vivendi out of confusing the past with the present, fantasy with reality, and communication with nonstop bickering. Direct cinema may always be an act of indiscretion; here, I think, it becomes also an act of indiscrimination and indecency. (p. 68)

[What] was the Maysleses' aim in recording the daily life of Edith and Edie, their interior and exterior messiness as it oozes out of and into them, even as day seeps into desolate day? Well, not entirely desolate, because old Edith, though mostly recumbent or semirecumbent, still has a good deal of fun; while middle-aged Edie skitters and fritters away an existence bitterly immured within a meaningless bustle. But, yes, totally disconsolate, when you...