Stories we Tell is such a deliberately awkward and confusing and delightful and experimental and arguably empty experience, that it is difficult to know where to actually begin with it. These notes will help you to formulate an excellent response in the exam, when in actuality, your response may well be 'it doesn't really mean anything, but it's kind of beautiful...'
Starting with the conclusion
- Stories we tell is a film about how reality itself is subjective
- Stories We Tell uses a range of highly atypical filmmaking techniques to construct a highly contradictory and quixotic mode of address.
- In doing so, Sarah Polley situates the spectator in her messy life, and through this intimate mode of address, we are reminded that our own lives do not need to make sense to have meaning and validity.
A deliberately contradictory mode of address - How does Stories We Tell us binary oppositions to deliberately contradict itself and to construct a confusing and contradictory mode of address?
- Real life events are reconstructed through blatantly fake reconstructions, using characteristically blurry super 8 footage
- Some recreation footage is signalled as being reconstructed, but some is explicitly presented as real
- The perspectives of the individual storytellers frequently contradict each other
- There is an opposition between staged studio shots and naturally lit recreation shots, heightening the audience’s confusion
- A significant contradiction is formed between death and life. Dianne, the main character of the film is dead, yet is arduously reconstructed through the testimonies of the storytellers
- There is a binary opposition between Greirsonian and Pennebakian modes of constructing documentaries, with Polley using both and also eschewing
- THE EFFECT OF ALL THESE DIAMETRIC OPPOSITIONS IS TO SITUATE THE SPECTATOR IN A HIGHLY CONFUSING BUT DELIGHTFUL MODE OF ADDRESS
How are contradictions encoded in the final sequence of Stories We Tell?
- A ‘modern event’ (the birth of Michael’s grandchild) is shot with a Super 8 camera, encoding a nostalgic mode of address for an even that has only just happened. Confusingly, the anchorage of Michael's monologue fixates on his own sad life, and the sense of loss and quiet misery forms a binary opposition with the birth of a child
- However, we cut to black. Generic ‘olde time’ early 20th century piano music (Ain't Misbehavin) swell over the black screen. However after several seconds we cut to Jeff in another standard, digitally shot talking head shot. Jeff admits that he once slept with Dianne, perhaps introducing the idea that he could be Sarah’s father. This radically different ending subvert our expectations, and also contradicts the notion of documentaries being an objective account of the truth.
Stories We Tell as poetry
- The motif of the fly crops up explicitly at least twice in the film. Polley chooses to end the film with Michael monologuing about the fly. But why?
- The fly is a representation of loneliness. Michael is fixated on a single insignificant detail that seems to encompass his entire life. The fly is symbolic of disease and annoyance, yet Michael seems to feel an affinity with them, “they are my friends”. Michael fixates on flies fully knowing that this is ridiculous and even pathetic. Perhaps he takes pity on the fly. He extrapolates on the fly’s lifecycle, which is based and even coded around eating, mating and eventually dying. Therefore the fly not poetically represents loneliness, but also the inevitability of death.
- Yet it can also symbolise the beauty in the mundane. While we all have individual problems and struggle, sometimes noticing an inconsequential moment can conversely reinforce the ideological perspective that we are all alive, and we are all sharing this moment
2024 documentary questions
3* To what extent do the genre conventions of documentary films affect how spectators respond to the issues presented in the film? Discuss in relation to examples from the documentary film you have studied. [35]
- Pennebaker and Grierson
- Polley deliberately rejects genre conventions, but instead focuses on a confusing and quixotic mode of address, making substantial use of simulacrum
OR
4* Discuss how the narrative structure of the documentary film you have studied affects how the spectator interprets the reality of the events represented in the film. [35]
- Pennebaker and Grierson
- Sid Fields three act structure
- Todorov and equilibrium
- Polley breaks traditional narrative narrative structures, and instead implements a poetic mode of address that fixates on emotions and feelings