Stories We Tell: Initial Discussion 2023
Discussion
- An extremely complex narrative with many different perspectives, consistently contradicting other narrative
- Does it lack a point? Does it lack a focus? What is the reason for actually making this film
- While the Polley family are privileged and live an often glamorous lifestyle, the narrative itself is often mundane
- Yet the narrative, and the process of creating this narrative is important and even precious to Sarah
- A passion project that seems to either not cater towards a wide audience, or even cater to any audience
- However, the story is highly relatable, especially to people who may have grown up ignorant of scandals within their own family
- Not every element is as it seems, and frequently the film challenges the very notion of what is true
- Highly subversive of the documentary genre, the film frequently breaks documentary paradigms
- An exploration of marriage, polygamy, falling out of love and intense familial relationships
- An enormous number of diegetic layers, often completely contradictory, creating an extremely complex narrative
- The film interrogates the notion of truth itself, and makes the bold suggestion that 'truth is not real'. Therefore the audience take delight in falling in to the complex narrative, and barely understanding the story that can never be truly understood
Paradigms of the documentary genre
- Breaking the fourth wall, with 'characters' acknowledging they are in a film, often talking directly in to the camera
- Use of talking heads
- 'Real' footage of 'actual' events as it 'happened'
- A narrative based on 'facts' rather than 'fiction'
- A focus on clearly telegraphed opinions
- Narration and/or a narrator
- Dramatization: a dramatic retelling of a real event
