It’s been over 40 years since Albert and David Maysles ventured into a dilapidated Long Island manor to film a documentary about Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s younger sister, Lee Radziwill. Discovering two eccentric socialites even more intriguing than Radziwill herself, the filmmakers instead decided to make Grey Gardens, a documentary that turned Edith and Edie Bouvier Beale into cultural (and fashion) icons. Marc Jacobs and John Galliano have paid homage to the mother-daughter duo’s elegant spinster aesthetic. Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange captured their outré energy for an HBO special, as did Fred Armisen and Bill Hader for a hysterical episode of the satirical IFC series Documentary Now. Fans actually remember where they were when that famous mansion finally went up for sale last year.
Turns out, Grey Gardens wasn’t the Wayles’s first introduction to Big and Little Edie. In 1972, artist Peter Beard, in collaboration with Radziwill, hired the filmmakers to work on their own project about Radziwill’s relatives. The footage was believed to have been lost forever, but has been discovered and fully restored as That Summer. The project features commentary from Beard, appearances from cohorts such as Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol, and plenty of never-before-seen footage of the Beales, their headscarves, and their countless cats. Helming That Summer is director Göran Hugo Olsson of found-footage masterpiece The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975. Olsson’s new project has its own strange air of resistance. With their unique sense of humor, exceptional sense of style, and rejection of social norms, Big and Little Edie are beloved for being much more than Halloween moodboards.
“That Summer” opens in theaters May 18.