Sarah Polley had a secret. She had kept it for years, at one point calling a Canadian journalist and begging them, through tears, not to run a story about it. But even years later, when she directed a documentary film and conducted dozens of interviews with her family and friends about this very secret… she kept it to herself. As Stories We Tell prepared to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, only handfuls of people knew anything beyond the anodyne description of a documentary described in the festival guide as "a personal essay on the intractable subjects of truth and memory."
Now that the film is fully out there, having traveled the festival circuit for months and now arriving in theaters on a wave of critical acclaim (see theater listings here), Polley is free to talk about its central secret. The actress who doesn't do a lot of interviews, and who freely admits to usually hating them, has found herself as a kind of secret keeper all over again, as journalists and audience members moved by the film tell her their own family secrets-- as she told me when we met at a Manhattan hotel in April, "It turns out that film journalists have the most fucked up families in the world."
There's definitely something about Polley's movies that burrows under the skin, whether it's the restrained and elegant and devastating Away From Her-- her directorial debut, made when she was 28 years old-- or the brash and emotional Take This Waltz, which blew away some of us and infuriated others. The emotions of Stories We Tell aren't quite as intense as those in Take This Waltz, though the stakes are even higher, but preparing to talk to Polley about it requires fine-tuning your emotional antennas a bit, thinking not just about what you want to know from her, but how to speak to someone who is so consistently generous and insightful in the questions she's asked of her characters thus far. When I saw Stories We Tell at Sundance I tweeted "How I wish I could see humans, our foibles and our beauty the way Sarah Polley does."
And then, of course, I sat down with her, a woman not much older than me, who says "I think" often before making a declarative statement, and who still seems amazed that her extraordinary movie has affected anybody at all. It doesn't read like false modesty, though Polley also has a courage of conviction that not many of us do, following through with a wild idea about telling an old family story and making one of the year's best films in the process. It's still best not to know much about the story, or the secret at its center-- suffice it to say that Polley is investigating one of the most frequently re-told stories in her family's history, one that has her at the center and one that has many, many conflicting versions of the truth. If you haven't seen the film yet I'd recommend avoiding this interview, not only because it gets into some reveals that are best hearing yourself, but because it's way more satisfying to hear about the creation of something after you've experienced it on your own first.
When asked recently to list my top 10 directors who had started their careers since 2000, I chose Polley as my #1. As you can imagine, I had a hard time looking through this interview and cutting out many of her responses-- but if you've seen Stories We Tell, I'm betting you're in the same position I was, simply wanting more from the deft, compassionate mind that had created it.
An online review of this suggested you used the word "interrogation" to describe the film because it implies that something is supposed to fall apart. Was that in your mind?
No, I think that actual full line, which I cut half of it, was like I was just joking with my dad and I said, “Dad, this isn’t actually a film. It’s an interrogation. It’s like the Canadian Guantanamo." And we just took out the Guantanamo part because it wasn’t really that funny.” But, I mean, I think it is what it became. I was so desperate to sort of find some kind of truth, to kind of look through all the different lenses I could at this story to find some kind of essence to hang onto or something tangible, and that was such an impossibility. So, I think that in the end, it started to feel like that, like I was interrogating people.
Did you feel bad about that? Interrogation implies kind of negative thing to people that you love.
No, I mean I think I was always full of self-doubt throughout the making of it. I think that it’s a crazy thing to embark on to be asking your family to sort of open up and talk about things that have been buried for so long publicly, so I don’t think I ever was fully comfortable with the project I’d set out to do.
You said it took you five years to make and the you took the break to make Take This Waltz just to get away from it?
It was a very claustrophobic process and there were very few parts of it that I actually enjoyed. I mean, it was really rewarding and a lot that I felt grateful for, but it wasn’t fun, that’s for sure.
There’s clearly an openness in your family, but you’re asking people tough questions that are hard to ask anybody, much less loved ones. Does having directed films give you the skill set you needed to be able to ask those questions of your family?
I think so. I mean, I think that my family is a family that likes talking about the unspoken, likes breaking taboos, that likes pushing the envelope of what’s OK to say and what’s not OK to say and I think all of us are like that to some degree both in our private and our professional lives, so it wasn’t hard to ask them to do this in the same way it might have been with another family, which isn’t to say they didn’t have reservations about it.
You've said that you didn’t do the voice of God narration from your own point of view, because it seemed beside the point. But from the outside, it seems like your point of view is totally central! Why did you think it didn't matter?
I think because the idea of the film is about many different versions and of all of those versions of the same story being treated with respect and without judgement and being given room. If I were to interject my own version voiceover or put out my specific story, in a film I was already making, it would have automatically overridden everybody else’s voice. I think it would have really subtracted from the mess of everybody telling their story to have one clear story that the filmmaker is then telling. I think it would have been disrespectful to all of the other people in the film.
But you also have your dad reading his version and that is kind of the strongest through-line to the whole thing. He has the first word and the last word. Are you kind of privileging his point of view in a way?
I don’t think so, because there are big parts of the story where he isn’t speaking at all. For instance, the part of the story that’s about Harry and his affair with my mom. I mean, that’s almost exclusively told by Harry and that’s his story to tell. But the film did in the end, the through-line we found that worked the best, was this idea of my dad using this as an opportunity to begin writing and to begin telling his story and reexamining his life. So, it made sense to give the film that spine.
With the reenactments, how much of it do you expect us to go along with in thinking that they are real? Do you want everyone to kind of gradually think about it until the reveal happens near the end? Do you want us to buy into them completely?
I didn’t really have an agenda, to be honest. I felt like I wanted people to wonder what was real and what wasn’t at various points. I think I was surprised that some people didn’t know until the end. I wanted there to certainly be a question in people’s minds if what they were seeing was real or fake, but I didn’t have a specific moment that I wanted that to be revealed expect obviously when I show myself behind the scenes.
Why did you want us to wonder what was real and what was fake?
I guess I wanted the audience to have an experience that mirrored my own, when you’re looking into the past and you’re hearing stories and getting new details. It’s very hard to know what to hold onto, especially when some of those details are conflicting. It’s very hard to know what’s imbued with nostalgia and what is really authentic, and I guess I wanted the audience to have those same questions with what they were seeing and to constantly be aware that the film was being constructed and that this isn’t some objective truth. You’re not going to walk out of this film with any answers about what actually happened. It’s simply a collection of versions of the same story.
You talk about your mom’s acting career so much, but the film doesn't talk about your acting career very much at all. When it was just you and your dad, when you were 11, you were acting and you were on television, you had this whole career, but you don’t really talk about how her career reflected yours?
Yeah, I guess I feel like there are so many things in the film that I felt could have been relevant that had to go. I had 200 hours of footage, so there’s actually all kinds of sidebar stories that have a lot of resonance, I think, but if they didn’t feel like they were really integral to the story that was being told, I left them behind. And certainly, my acting career felt like, in a way, who cares? Do you know what I mean? I feel like there is a certain parallel between her and me there, but there are probably lots of others as well that I didn’t include. So, that was something that felt like also put the film in real danger of being really self-indulgent. Know what I mean? Like, “Oh, and also I want to talk about my career and my work.” You know? Like, what kind of jerk makes that movie?
You are clear about a lot of moments of uncertainty throughout the movie, asking yourself “What am I doing? Why am I putting this out there this way?” It doesn’t seem like you ever really did resolve that. I mean, you still don’t know if it’s self-indulgent.
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I think that you’d be a lunatic to not have major questions about why you’re going to make something so personal and put it out there. So, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I fully understand why I did this, except that this part of the process, in terms of actually talking about the film and putting it out there and getting to talk to people about it, it’s like the first time I’ve really enjoyed the process. Because it feels like it’s an extension of the film itself, getting to hear different perspectives and the different questions that arise. It feels like everybody has seen a totally different film and that for me was kind of part of the point of making it.
Well, looking at interviews you did with Take This Waltz, it’s interesting how you rejected people trying to make it autobiographical.
I think that’s what was so frustrating with Take This Waltz. I knew this film was coming out in a few months and I couldn’t say it, because I was keeping the film secret until them. It was kind of like, “Dude, I promise you if I make something autobiographical, it would be so obvious.” It was so frustrating to combat that.
In the film you ask the journalist not to reveal the story personally, because you have really good reasons for your dad, but then right before the film came out, you were keeping the story secret for the sake of the audience, like Hitchcock not wanting to spoil the ending to Psycho. It was a whole different reason for keeping the story secret.
I never thought of it that way but you’re totally right. I think that what happened is I spent five years making this film and it was specifically so that I could have some control over the way the story would be told, not some journalist who had no personal connection to me and then all of a sudden, it was just going to be written about, like what was the point of the five years? Then I became really obsessive about, like no, I want the film to be the way people find out the story.
Do you feel like if you had your druthers, you would have left it like that and not done any interviews.
I think it would have been great. I just don’t think it would have been a fair thing to do and I think it was precious enough to say, “I’m not doing any interviews before the film.” I mean, I think that’s a precious a pretty precious stance.
You’re not Terrence Malick basically.
Exactly and I was pretty lucky people weren’t a lot grumpier about that. I think I was pretty resigned to the fact that I’d be doing interviews and it’s actually kind of been a pleasure. People have really weird stories. It turns out that film journalists have the most fucked up families in the world. Some of the stories are like, holy shit. It makes this story look like the most boring story of all time. I’ve heard stories that give me nightmares at night.
Oh my God. So you’ve been like a therapist.
I know... I definitely feel like, people have gotten a lot off their chest
You said for Take This Waltz, you wanted people to see themselves reflected in it and people totally did, because people went crazy about hating or loving it. Was that a direct goal for you in this as well? It’s such a specific story, but it’s obviously it’s universal if people are telling your their stuff.
The idea was to make not so much a film about myself and my family, as to make a film about why we tell stories and why we need to find the truth in the past and if that’s even possible. l always hoped that would resonate for people in terms of their own lives and their own family stories, but it’s very hard when you look at a film you made that’s so personal to actually have any sense of what other people are going see in it. I watch it and quite honestly I’ll go, “How could this possibly speak to anybody?”
Well, how does that feel compared to your first two movies that are less personal, but it’s the same thing where you’re inside something and you can’t know what people are doing. Is it a similar process of getting outside of it enough to finish the movie?
Yeah, although I feel like with those films I had a better sense of what they were like. Do you know what I mean? With this film it’s very hard to even know what it is when I watch it myself.
What is the feeling when you are standing on set with an actress you have hired to play your own mom?
It makes you feel like you’re having a very expensive nervous breakdown and you’ve involved way too many other people, like other people are being paid to help your nervous breakdown be more elaborate than it should be. It’s totally crazy. It felt like the most self-destructive, crazy nightmarish thing.
Did it ever feel good though, putting yourself in some scenes that you wouldn’t have been in?
Not really. It felt really good when it was over. I have to say it was kind of like the best feeling in the world when it was over, like I’ll never stop feeling free and light as air. That feeling has extended itself for over a year now, just being so happy it’s done.
You said that a critic had told you that your second film was going to be a disappointment, so you could do whatever you wanted. What is that sense of freedom on this, now you’ve made not just your second film, but a third film that’s so personal.
I think in a way I’ve been mining the same territory in those three films and now I’m kind of free to do something totally else. The next film I’m going to make is Alias Grace, based on Margaret Atwood’s book. It’s such a departure and I think that’s sort of where I end up, somewhere totally new and talking about different things and who’s know if I’ll be good at that or not. I have no idea.
It’s very clear that each movie that you do, you pivot to something else to do something different. Take This Waltz and Away from Her are stylistically different even though the themes are the same. It seems like you do seek out a sharp difference from the last thing you did.
I think so. I think it will be many, many years before I’m an experienced enough filmmaker to have a very specific voice that’s recognizable and maybe I’ll never have that. Some of my favorite filmmakers don’t have that all. So, yeah, I would hope that I’m sort of mining different territory now.
Do you feel like avoiding a specific voice keeps you from chasing other peoples' expectations?
Yeah and I also think that at some point you’ll probably get tired of your voice even if it’s a brilliant one. Even if you have a voice that other people don’t tire of, you’ll probably tire of your own, if it’s not evolving and changing.
When people come up to you and say, “Your films are about marriages.” Do you shirk from that?
Not at all because it’s true, and it’s like, I have lots of other ideas, I just don’t go through with them, so there must be something about that subject matter that’s really important to me or unresolved or fascinating and I think there are. I think that’s just true. That’s just fact. That’s what I’ve been interested in more than anything.
Away from Her got this universal wave of praise, because it was your first film. Then Take This Waltz and then this too got very sharper conversations, like everybody talks about it in a very different way. Is that satisfying for you, like do you need to get away from everybody embracing something and fighting a little bit more?
Take This Waltz was a fantastic experience from that point of view, because people really saw such different films in that film.
I’ve gotten in a lot of fights about that movie.
People love it or hate it and I kind of agree with both of them. I mean, I see what’s good about it, but I also see what to hatable about it. I’m actually not sure as an audience member where I would have fallen on that debate if I hadn’t made the film. I mean, I can completely see, the criticisms of that character that drive people crazy, I can’t disagree with. I think what I disagree with in the criticisms is what my intentions were. I didn’t intend for us to like her all of the time and I think that as a female filmmaker people assume that you’re on her side and you’re totally sympathetic. But people create unsympathetic male characters all the time and you don’t think, “Oh, they were trying to get me to love him, but they failed." I do feel like there are issues people have with that film that I don’t disagree with and yeah, I could think of defenses for them, for sure, but I don’t feel that passionate about needing to.
