The documentary unit has focused on
- The idea of objective truth, and how truth can never be objective
- Documentary style: micro elements such as shaky-cam, natural/available lighting, reconstructions, archive footage, interviews/talking heads, voiceover/narrator
In many ways, Stories we Tell is a conventional documentary. However, in many other ways, it is completely unconventional, and seeks to do something very different . In short, it breaks rules and conventions!
How does Stories We Tell break conventions and expectations?
- Use of scripted, yet 'personal' speech is completely scripted, which positions the spectator in an emotionally distant mode of address. A binary opposition is therefore formed between emotional relatability and emotional distance, which is highly confusing for the target audience.
- Breaking down of conventional structure of interviewer and interviewee relationship. Rather than simply answering questions, we see Michael reading from a script that he himself wrote!
- A story within a story within a story - mise-en-abyme which is overwhelming complex for the spectator
- However, despite the savage complexity of the film, it ultimately combines an experimental structure with a cathartic and satisfying narrative conclusion
Breaking the fourth wall: when a character looks directly at the screen, they are looking directly at the spectator. This breaks what we can refer to as diegesis, or the world of the narrative. And it is a clear example of breaking a rule
Applying postmodern theoretical perspectives to Stories We Tell
Postmodernism is a wildly undefined and difficult to apply theoretical perspective that refers broadly to a general feeling as opposed to a well-defined theoretical framework.
Postmodernism as a critical perspective can be 'defined' through the following aspects:
- A general sense of malaise, and a distrust in societal norms and values, including the metanarratives of family, religion, and 'culture'
Metanarrative - a way of viewing the world
- Self-reflexivity. 'Stories about stories', and an admission that the text is indeed fictional
- Pastiche: the combination of elements from different eras, times, genres, styles and so on in to one product
- A relativistic attitude towards truth, essentially arguing that truth is not absolute
- And, get this, an argument that objective reality simply doesn't exist. Instead, we fixate not on what is real, but a hyperreal simulacrum
Hyperreal - where the representation of something is 'more real' than the thing being represented
Simulacrum - a representation of something that never existed in the first place
Distrust - the Super-8 footage is staged. There is no attempt made at hiding this, which constructs a highly confusing and even alienating mode of address.
Reflexivity - Michael is being filmed reading from his own book, and essentially reconstructing his own narrative. However, is this an alienating experience, or is it fun and exciting and mysterious for the target audience
Pastiche - Combination of styles and modes. Super 8 footage, the use of montage, talking heads, studio footage, voice recordings,
Relativism - the idea of what is and what is not true is woven in to the very fabric of this film, and ultimately, it could be argued that what is true is simply not important; what actually matters is the notion of family
Hyperreality - Many characters are hyperreal constructs. Sarah herself is a hyperreal construction of the documentary filmmaker, investigating her own families issues with a sense of power and autonomy that belies conventional limitations
The final scenes: 'The Fly Ending' and 'The Jeff Ending'
In a bizarre yet satisfying twist, Stories We Tell essentially features two different, contradictory endings, separated by a full twenty seconds of black screen. These can be referred to as 'The Fly Ending' and 'The Jeff Ending' . These final scenes are a perfect example of how Stories We Tell uses a broadly postmodern framework to engage it's audience, rather than alienate.
In this sense, we can rightly dismiss the effectiveness of considering Stories We Tell as a postmodern product. In fact, many of the techniques it uses have been so integrated in to documentary film making, it is frankly conventional!
'The Fly Ending'
As the film reaches its apparent climax, an overwhelmingly beautiful montage of Super-8 footage of the Polley family as children playing in Michael's house is played over a highly leading and emotional voiceover from Michael himself, as he describes the life of a fly. He explains that flies simply exist to mate and then to die, with nothing in-between. This highly poetic use of symbolism could either be read as the validation of the life of a fly (living a life blissfully ignorant of human emotion and sadness), or a bittersweet consideration of the life of a fly, that will never experience the highs and lows of human existence. This poetic and beautiful notion is anchored with Super-8 footage of a fly crashing against Michael's window. The film 'ends' with a profound sense of longing, love, loss and humanity. Audiences will doubtless take pleasure at how the highly poetic cinematography constructs intense and even spiritual emotions.
'The Jeff Ending'
After a slow fade to black, the screen remains black for a full twenty seconds, apparently communicating to the target audience the conclusion of the narrative. However, the film resumes for a brief coda. Resuming the documentary mode of film making, a mid shot talking head shot of Jeff looking directly at the camera once more plunges the audience back in to the twisting and confusing narrative of the film. Sarah bluntly interrogates Jeff offscreen, who squirms and looks uncomfortable, before he suddenly and unexpectedly announces he once slept with Sarah's mother. The screen cuts to black. This sudden, shocking, 'twist' ending invalidates the beauty and poetry of 'The Fly Ending' and subverts the expectations of the audience. However, it also self-reflexively explores the notion of verisimilitude and the relativistic nature of truth. Does this bombshell invalidate the narrative of the entire film, or does it simply reinforce the idea that documentary truth can never be achieved?
Conclusion
Stories We Tell uses documentary conventions as well as highly reflexive and stylistically incongruous elements to construct a confusing, distancing, yet ultimately beautiful and inviting narrative to it's middle class target audience. While postmodern techniques are often used to create negative explorations of societal malaise, here it constructs only warm and positive feelings, of a complicated life that was well lived.