Grey Gardens, if you must know. And if you don't know, please read up on it or, better yet, watch it. Grey Gardens was the direct cinema documentary classic, released in 1975, that added to the lustrous filmography of the Maysles brothers, David and Albert. After its premiere, Grey Gardens circulated subterraneously in film classes, lived on as a gay cult phenomenon, and finally exploded into visibility as a Broadway musical in 2006, then an HBO movie in 2009.
In 2007, I excitedly attended my first-ever film festival as a director. The Queens International had selected my maiden made-in-film-class music video, "Ma Rainey's Lesbian Licks." A gay man, Roger, with whom I had been in correspondence, offered me the hospitality of his Sunnyside apartment for the four days I planned to be in New York. I took Roger to the film festival, and he, in turn, suggested that we visit his friend Jerry Torre, also gay and also a resident of Sunnyside. "Who's Jerry Torre?" I asked. Roger arched a queenly eyebrow. "He's the Marble Faun in Grey Gardens." I still looked blank, "The handyman," Roger continued. "Little Edie called him the Marble Faun."
It had been years since I'd seen Grey Gardens, and Jerry didn't figure very prominently, so I could be forgiven not being able to instantly place him. Nonetheless, as I was now in "the film world," so to speak, Roger brought me to Jerry's apartment, a ground floor unit festooned with indoor plants and its own beautiful garden, where he lived with his much younger lover, Ted, The relationship was still new, dating from the opening night of the Grey Gardens musical on Broadway to which Jerry had been given two tickets. Ted had been the manager of a Grey Gardens Facebook fan group specializing in The Marble Faun. Though they had only corresponded (Ted was living in Philadelphia), Jerry invited Ted to the opening knowing that it would be a special fanboy treat. Ted came to New York and never left.
Jerry was engaging, full of stories about his iconically gay life -- the club scene in the New York of the 70s; Provincetown and the sometimes paramour of Wayland Flowers; business success, the AIDS inferno, and drug addiction in the 80s; the unexpected resurfacing of Grey Gardens in the 90s. At the end of it all, he asked, "Would you like to meet Albert? He runs a production studio and documentary center in Harlem."
Thus it was, a few days later, I found myself sitting across from Albert Maysles, half of the legendary Maysles brothers. (David had died in 1987.) This octogenarian was wizened, spry, and so zestful that his documentary center was full of young folks working on the small screening room downstairs and their own projects upstairs. Albert and I had a generic, pleasant conversation with no particular agenda until I asked him if he was working on a film at present. "Have you ever heard of the blood libel?” he asked in his gravelly Boston accent. "I'm Jewish," I replied.
That changed the tenor of the conversation. This son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants suddenly took me in as a person of interest. "I want to make a documentary about the blood libel in the United States." "Messina, New York." I returned. Startled, Albert Maysles looked at me even more sharply. Most people, most Jews, don't know about the infamous accusation of blood libel in America, but I had researched antisemitism for my own projects. He was impressed. When I asked him how he proposed to make a documentary in the direct cinema style he had pioneered about an incident that had occurred eighty years ago, he was even more impressed. I had demonstrated my knowledge of film and Jewish history simultaneously.
"It's not history," he replied. "The blood libel is alive and kicking. There's a Syrian-Lebanese mini-series that was broadcast during Ramadan a couple of years ago. In one of the storylines, a rabbi enlists a member of his synagogue to help him kidnap and murder a Christian child, whose blood they drain and use to bake the matzoh served to the congregation on Passover. By focusing on the present-ness of this myth that never seems to go away, I have a justification for going into the past."
In his turn, Albert asked me what film projects I was working on. "I'm in New York not only for the film festival but to research a documentary on gay and lesbian contributions to the Harlem Renaissance." "Wonderful!" Albert enthused. "When you get ready to film, let me know. I could be your cinematographer." Now, it was my turn to be floored. True it would be a local gig, and I suppose he would have accepted one of the lower cameraman rates of $25/hour. But I recognized the professional version of a sweet nothing. Still, it was a grand gesture, and I thanked him profusely.
Albert Maysles died in 2015. He never finished "The Jew on Trial," nor does his name appear as a cinematographer in any of my Queer Harlem Renaissance films. It is a story to dine out on, but I don't often tell it because it requires so much background. These anecdotes are best served in hot, quick strokes, such as "The first film festival I ever screened at went defunct because the founder had been scamming everybody for years, and it finally caught up with her."
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