Whose story are we telling here anyway?
Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell (2012) is an autobiographical documentary — a “documemoir” to use Kate Waites’s term (2015:543) — that explores Polley’s family history and her personal journey to uncover her identity. Composed as a “chorus of voices” (Anderst 2013), it is a collection of viewpoints that combine, ideally, to create a more complete picture than a traditional memoir might. But are some of the voices Polley presents preferenced over others? Polley’s skill as a director and creator of narrative is well established (she received an Oscar nomination for earlier work) but I want to look more closely at the true narrator of this story through three key moments in the movie. [Contains spoilers!]
Michael’s memoir
“I’m going to do the whole lot? All this?? It’s the whole of the thing that I wrote.” (Polley 2012)
Michael Polley wrote the story of his wife’s life as a personal memoir. His narrative forms the backbone of Polley’s movie, and she returns to Michael’s reading of it throughout. But “Michael, too, is an actor and his narrative is another constructed performance” (Waites 2015:549). By telling Diane’s story in his own voice, both literally and figuratively, Michael retains significant control over her memory.
Comedy
“You just can’t keep the mask of comedy at bay. It watches old Tragedy doing his bit. And as soon as he lets his guard down, old Comedy turns up the corners of his mouth.” (Polley 2012)
Michael narrates predominantly in the third person. He is arguably more afflicted by the twists and turns of events (Dianne’s affairs, her death, and the revelation of Sarah’s paternity) than anyone, but he remains calm, detached… almost flippant. Polley herself acknowledges that “it’s been really important to me to create moments where there’s a breath or moments where there’s a laugh” (quoted in Holmes 2013:36), but for Michael it’s not just a moment. It appears that to him the entire saga is just a really good yarn that he is telling from a safe distance.
Revelation
“Maybe there was another reason. Perhaps, deep inside, I have suffered more of a shock than I would openly admit. […] Something inside has for the rest of my life changed. […] Perhaps this story is a form of denial. […] It has given me a new lease on life.” (Polley 2012)
The pivotal event in Stories We Tell is the revelation of Sarah’s parentage. As Waites observes (2015:546), this is the motivating question of the movie: who is Sarah’s biological father? When Sarah tells Michael about the results of her DNA test, it is surely a poignant moment for them both. But the reenactment of this revelation is underscored with vaudevillian music, and accompanied by an almost slapstick montage of home movies. What are we to make of this? Michael gives us the deadpan comment that “all this stuff we’ve been joking about for years is actually true” (Polley 2012). This life-changing news is received by Michael in such a detached way that we have to wonder if we are seeing an authentic reaction.
In fact, he rapidly moves from pensive reflection to excitement about the possibilities: “This is a great story!” (Polley 2012). Michael says the news has “awoken an obsession to tell the whole story” (Polley 2012). What we are seeing is the story Michael has told, in the way he wants to tell it.
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Harry Gulkin makes the extraordinary claim that the story is “only mine to tell” (Polley 2012). Thankfully Polley rejects this, and has constructed her film to inhabit many voices and perspectives. Stories We Tell is Sarah Polley’s exploration of her mother’s identity and an attempt to discover her own, but it’s also Michael Polley’s story. Michael’s narration provides the structure for the movie and he is the thread weaved through it. It is an assertion of his right to tell the story of Diane’s life, and his place in it.
Works cited
Anderst L (2013) Memory’s Chorus: Stories We Tell and Sarah Polley’s Theory of Autobiography, Senses of Cinema, accessed 22 May 2021.
Holmes K (2013) Interview with Sarah Polley, Interview Magazine, accessed 22 May 2021.
Polley S (director) (2012) Stories We Tell [motion picture], National Film Board of Canada, Toronto.
Waites K J (2015) ‘Sarah Polley’s documemoir Stories We Tell: The refracted subject’, Biography — An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, 38(4):543–555, https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2016.0004
