Founded in 1999, Senses of Cinema is one of the first online film journals of its kind and has set the standard for professional, high quality film-related content on the Internet. I am unique. Polley creates a framework whereby her interviewees, the many people who make up the “we” of her film’s title, are given a good deal of authority–which she in effect abdicates–but, as is clear in her sister’s words cited above, the film reveals a constant process of negotiation and re-negotiation. 24 of 36 people found this review helpful. Polley’s sister, Joanna, like each of the director’s four siblings, will play a vital role providing her thoughts and her memories about the family and their complex relationships, but here near the start of their interview, she questions the very legitimacy of the project and whether their story carries any special weight. And McElwee, referenced above is, in many ways, a perfect contrast to Sarah Polley’s theory and method. “We assume that life produces the autobiography,” de Man writes, “… but can we not suggest, with equal justice that the autobiographical project may itself produce and determine the life?” (5) Writing autobiography, writing a life retrospectively and in the form of a narrative, creates rather than represents that life. The idea here is that Polley simply asks everyone to tell their story, tell it in their own words, tell all of it. She also discovered the restless vitality that made her mother a fuller, larger figure that Sarah could have known. In Time Indefinite (1993), the director points the camera at himself as he sits in an armchair speaking to the camera, diary-style while we also hear his voice over the images, recorded during post-production. First it was a joke: the little ginger headed toddler Sarah hardly resembles her father, Michael; then it was a rumour: Sarah’s oldest brother seems to have overheard a phone conversation where their mother said she didn’t know who the father of the baby was; finally it became a mystery with an answer: Sarah seeks out men her mother might have slept with, and through a DNA test, she discovers that Harry Gulkin, an important Canadian film producer, is her biological father. On the other hand, and on the other end of the continuum of “truth,” there are many instances of re-enactments featuring actor-look-alikes for Polley’s family members that are intentionally made to resemble those “real” home video sequences: they are shot on grainy super 8 film; they lack synchronized sound and, often, adequate lighting; and they have a general look of amateur home movie filming. Fig 1. This short line establishes the push-pull, give-and-take pattern that will continue throughout the film and in many distinct forms. When Michael enters the studio and takes his seat, Sarah explains what they will be doing, drawing his attention to the stack of papers that comprise his text. We remember selectively, just as we perceive selectively. Fig 3. “Who fucking cares about our family? (7). The written memory of childhood is just as much a fiction as the childhood memory re-enacted in film, but the difference is that I can believe it and make it believable in writing because language brings nothing of reality. And, late in the film, Polley reveals her own authorship by including brief sequences of herself watching as these scenes are filmed and speaking to the costumed actors in between takes. Don't ever tell a 75 year old to go quietly into the night. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. Stories We Tell is an inspired, genre-twisting film by Oscar®-nominated director Sarah Polley, and produced by Anita Lee for the NFB. And he would not be wrong. Yeah give me a moment. Apart from Harry’s account, the stories told by the others are dependent upon their memories of Sarah’s telling many years ago when this meeting took place. Now… I guess I better pee first. Others’ versions will be different but equally true, and it is only from the combination of the many versions that some truth can arise. McElwee’s many autobiographical, or autobiographically-inflected documentaries are uniquely grounded in the filmmaker’s sole voice and perspective. She has starred in many feature films, including Exotica (1994), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Guinevere (1999), Go (1999), The Weight of Water (2000), My Lif… Autobiography and documentary filmmaking, however, are most often constructed following a hierarchical notion of authority which positions the writer/director at the top followed by those others she decides to include and privilege based on expertise. Paul de Man’s essay, “Autobiography as De-facement” established the notion that it may not be the life that leads to autobiography, but the reverse. Exposing her role behind the camera, Kirsten Johnson reaches into the vast trove of footage she has shot over decades around the world. While they are all based on stories told by her interviewees, the re-enactments are directed by Polley. We have to go back over perceived and remembered events, in order to figure out what happened, what really happened. Instead we hear the voices of some of the film’s interviewees narrating over the grainy images: Sarah’s brothers and sister, her father Michael, and Harry tell this tale over the scene while Sarah’s own voice is notably silent. Stories We Tell opens with Michael Polley’s voice speaking these words that begin his own written memoir and that he has excerpted from Margaret Atwood’s historical novel, Alias Grace: “When you’re in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all but only a confusion, a dark roaring, a blindness … it’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all, when you’re telling it to yourself or to someone else.” As Michael reads these words, the film’s visual track shows clips from what appear to be many different home video sequences: grainy, soundless clips of people laughing, smoking, and drinking at a restaurant; a mother holding her young child; people gathering in a church; a man and a woman at home. In this inspired, genre-twisting new film, Oscar®-nominated writer/director Sarah Polley discovers that the truth depends on who's telling it. Written by Elizabeth Shaw Sarah Polley. John, Sarah’s oldest brother says that their mother was excited because a pregnancy meant something new, and she was always looking for new. Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, which opens in New York this week, explores the Canadian actor/director’s family history in a style that melds documentary interviews with fictional home movie interludes. Somewhere in my ancestors’ DNA just waiting to be born. Her father even adds that Diane only decided to keep the baby when they were on their way to her appointment for the abortion. She begins each interview by asking her interviewee to simply tell the entire story from beginning to end: Sarah: So Dad can you tell the whole story? The Stories We Tell Character List. This quick line, almost a jokey throwaway, is, in fact, key to Sarah Polley’s conception of autobiography and documentary filmmaking. August 29, 2012 The following is a guest post from filmmaker Sarah Polley about her new film, Stories We Tell. After Michael’s brief narration has ended, the visuals fade out, and the movie’s title appears on a blank screen. He adds that he expressed support for whatever decision she made, but that he silently preferred to keep the baby. Polley’s theory of choral autobiography and documentary filmmaking conceives of authority and expertise differently. Michael: All this?! Inspired, inspiring, tender and touching, ‘Stories We Tell’ is a brilliant documentary portrait of a complicated yet deeply loving family from Oscar®-nominated writer/director Sarah Polley. In effect, it is not a true documentary at all but the very well written and directed retelling of someone else's family story. The ambivalent give-and-take of authority between these two is palpable in this scene and throughout the film. Hers is a radically democratic project, but a project that nonetheless shines a light on her own very personal and very intimate history. I think it takes us into very wooly… You can’t ever touch bottom then. Sarah Polley. While she endeavours to understand who her mother Diane was and finally learn the identity of her biological father, Director Polley also poses a number of questions to viewers surrounding the nature of the truth and the importance of stories in our lives. And the many tellers that Polley calls upon to provide the narration to this visual story of her first meeting with Harry both attest to and allay the problems associated with “elastic” and “selective” memory. Polley is interested instead in the story’s telling and in the ways that truths, people, and selves can be told and represented. Through its intricate structure, Stories We Tell (2012) by Sarah Polley (playing in The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, and eXistenZ) examines the elusive nature of narratives, memories, and truth. What emerges is a visually bold memoir and a revelatory interrogation of the power of the camera. They hit it off and chat for hours about her mother generally and about politics, of which, it turns out they share many positions. Sarah asks Harry what he thinks of her making this documentary where everyone gives his or her perspective, and he responds: “I don’t like it. Sarah Polley investigates the truths and buried secrets of her family of storytellers, and the questions it raises about her life. There is no sound from the “scene” itself. Stories We Tell revolves firstly around Diane Polley, the director’s energetic mother and sometimes stage actress, who died of cancer when Polley was eleven years old. Stories We Tell - Sarah Polley. complies with rule of thirds. We’re off… ‘In the beginning, the end. PG-13. Harry: What?! ", Title: If you are an Australian resident, any donations over $2 are tax deductible. Polley, on the other hand, theorizes her autobiography as voiced by many instead of one, and her own speaking voice withdraws. Polley unravels the paradoxes to reveal the essence of family: always complicated, warmly messy and fiercely loving. Stories We Tell. Telling Stories: Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell (2012) David L. Pike; July 31, 2013 “Part of it is about the right to privacy, and part of it is about telling the story the way she wanted it to be told. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. Sarah and Harry together recreate their first handshake, the first words exchanged, and the crucial moment of realization. From this pattern, Polley’s film seems to forward an argument about autobiography and documentary filmmaking: that these are plural, collaborative genres most effectively and truthfully made through a chorus of many and diverse voices, a “medley” as her other sister, Susy, describes it, each given freedom as well as equal weight. Michael conceives of his single self as a “unique ‘I’ [that] has always existed,” and the memoir that he writes, and of which we hear a good deal, attests to a belief in the power of narrative to capture and represent that self. STARRING. It is revealed by the many stories others tell about and around her, and this, her film suggests, is the closest anyone can come to truth. She imagines he might have met her mother once or twice, and so she requests a meeting at a coffee shop when she happens to be in town for something else. Sarah Polley filming with a Super 8 camera in Stories We Tell. Sarah Polley filming with a Super 8 camera in Stories We Tell Near the beginning of Sarah Polley’s newest film, Stories We Tell (2012), an autobiographical documentary about her family and her life history, Polley asks one of her sisters what she thinks about this very film being made. As each relates their version of the family mythology, present-day recollections shift into nostalgia-tinged glimpses of their mother, who departed too soon, leaving a trail of unanswered questions. The stories also reveal, however, that their differences need not point to untruths in any of these accounts. Lejeune describes film’s “indexicality,” normally a strength, as a problem because he assumes that autobiographical films will rely only on re-enactment rather than on archival footage. So, like many documentarians, Polley indeed includes the voices of “experts,” but, in quite a distinct manner than most, she does not use these testimonies to forward a single, unified narrative or argument about her self, her mother, or her family. View production, box office, & company info. Sarah has no idea that this man could be her father. In fact, her oldest brother, to fill in the details concerning Harry’s thoughts about their biological relationship says this, “He said it’s possible not probable. Diane’s account to each of these people must reflect her distinct relationships with them; she would not be expected to say the same thing to her son, to her husband, to her brother, to her friends, and to her lover. talking head testimonies. These four exchanges also reveal the difficulty of the task she puts before her interviewees. Polley is both filmmaker and detective as she investigates the secrets kept by a family of storytellers. A collection of essays she edited, The Films of Eric Rohmer: French New Wave to Old Master, was published in March 2014 by Palgrave. A documentary of the successful career and assassination of San Francisco's first elected gay city supervisor. A mother would not be likely to tell one of her children that she was anything other than excited about another child, and she would not be likely to tell a close girlfriend, who has perhaps heard of her frustrations running a very busy household of four children that she was anything other than “not elated” to add a fifth to the mix. A documentary on the late Vivian Maier, a nanny whose previously unknown cache of 100,000 photographs earned her a posthumous reputation as one of the most accomplished street photographers. Stories We Tell (2012). A documentary which challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers. Mustang [DVD] by Günes Sensoy DVD £8.41. And what they hear must be coloured by what she believes they will best respond to. I think those were the exact words you said to me on the phone, were they?” Polley herself, off screen, does not reply to her brother’s question. That all became moot when, near the end of the closing film credits, it is revealed that every single member of the family in past and present was portrayed by an actor. Was this review helpful to you? The scene that follows the film’s title screen establishes the situation of her father’s voice-over narration. That’s what it’s about.” Polley does not intervene while her interviewees speak, and it seems clear that she would agree with this last part of Harry’s objection, with his ideas about the function of art as a tool for unearthing truth.
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