Time travel through sound

I was not expecting this.

Last night I was watching online a truly fascinating film, "Grey Gardens" by the Maysles brothers. It is the story of two aristocratic ladies, a mother and a daughter, who have fallen into poverty, are living together in the east Hampton in a completely dilapidated old house inhabited by raccoons, and who both are some of the most singularly unique and interesting people you can ever hope to meet.

Did I mention its a documentary? As in, their singular lives will now be known, in amazing intimacy, to anyone who watches it?

Anyway, over the course of it the movie the mother, 78 year-old "Big" Edie, sings a song from her youth, "Tea for Two". Now, I've seen movies that try to convey nostalgia for a previous period - see Woody Allen's "Radio Days". But this one sequence, of her singing in an ineffably beautiful and cheerful voice along a faded record,literally took my breath away. It seems to capture the melancholy of remembrance, and of remembering the "golden" 1920s in particular amongst her class - of modernity co-opted by a culture still sentimental, still attempting to behave with decorum. One particular section, from about 2:15 to 2:28, has an orchestration that evokes a very particular image to me - a sunny day on riverside drive, the skyscrapers of mid-town in the distance, and young, well-off couples in beautiful couture promenading along the woods as delicate, brightly colored automobiles stream by. Watching her sing, I feel like I am seeing a woman from the 1920s (her daughter seems more of a 1940s gal) who is stuck in a mental time bubble, physically aging, and AWARE she is aging, but retaining all the sensibilities and conceits of her youth. To listen to the orchestration alone, follow this link to the trailer.

As a historian I should be disseminating this music, and her actions, for hard, empirical insights into life in the past, the effect of senility on memory, etc. But right now I am content just to bask in this movie and let these two individuals wash over me - and this one sequence seems to affect me in ways that are inadequate to put to pixels. I hope you get something out of it as well, and I encourage you to watch the whole movie.