What is Stories We Tell actually doing? How can we discuss such a deliberately confusing film?
By filming a photograph, by making a documentary about making a documentary, and by having her own father read out passages from his own book, Stories We Tell ultimately adopts a meta textual approach to narrative
- Meta – beyond
- Metatextual – references texts beyond the text
- Mise en abyme – a story within a story (within a story)
We can also argue that this self-depreciating set-up is highly pretentious. It deliberately constructs a sense of complexity for the target audience, when arguably the narrative is rather simple. This deliberately obtuse obstruction of ‘the truth’ is arguably rather postmodern.
Two modes of documentary film - exploring Stories We Tell
Grierson - ‘the creative treatment of actuality, making something ordinary dramatic! Examples from Granton Trawler
- Use of varied shot types
- Many different angles of the ship
- Interesting and at times experimental use of sound
Pennebaker - Direct cinema - a focus on absolute realism and reality. Examples from Don't Look Back
- Use of purely diegetic soun
- Camera situated deep in the action
- Lack of framing, blocking, planning and other cinematographic techniques
Greirsonian and Pennebakian elements in Stories we Tell
Many of the elements that are utilised in Stories We Tell are used in a complicated and sophisticated manner which force the audience to question the nature of reality itself. A perfect example would be Polley’s related utilisation of talking head shots. This well used convention of the documentary allows the director to allow individuals to tell their story with no interference. However talking heads are a hyper-constructed conceit, where camera setups, MES, costume, lighting etc have all been decided by the director. This level of production is celery more Griersonian, as it creatively constructs reality. However, the film frequently uses the language of direct cinema: handheld shots to construct Michael entering the scene and the use of shaky, blurry reenactment footage, that creatively constructs a direct aesthetic. Ultimately the audience questions exactly what they are seeing and a highly confusing mode of address.
Why? Firstly it makes an otherwise boring narrative exciting, or at least creative. But it also questions the notion of narrative itself, and the idea that different stories told by different people can end up being different versions of the truth
Encoding simulacra - intensity of affect and ‘The Fly’ sequence
To understand this next section, check out this post on Jean Baudrillard's notion of simulation and simulacra, get confused, then come back here
Simulacra refers to how reality itself is replaced by representation. When this happens, new and powerful ideological perspectives are constructed. Even by taking a picture of something, according to Baudrillard, a basic level of reality is masked and reconstructed, eliminating the original image. However, in Stories We Tell, Sarah Polley goes beyond merely recording images, and uses a complex selection of narrative and stylistic techniques to reconstruct reality
- The utilisation of music
- The selection of poetic images such as the fly anchors certain ideological
- The use of Super8 footage constructs a wobbly nostalgic mode of address
- Self-reflective 4th wall breaking cinematography