ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how Grey Gardens' particular cinematic camp dialectic unfolds between visual and social conventions and the performances of the film's protagonists. It provides a close reading of several scenes from Grey Gardens paying special attention to three aspects of the movie: the camera's gaze and its associated offerings of identification, the relationship of subjects and objects, especially as far as the filth in the house is concerned, and the specific affects regarding the family's past. Albert and David Maysles were already well-known participants in the American direct cinema movement when they released their documentary Grey Gardens in 1976. Camp must always cling to forms of performativity, and in Grey Gardens that means the whole cinematic apparatus that frames the Beales' behavior. The chapter argues that the material decay and sanitary condition of the house constitute not merely a backdrop to be exploited as narrative contrast to its former glamour.
