But it is. The story of her mother's affair and her biological father Harry Gulkin, producer of the film Lies My Father Told Me (1975), was chronicled in Polley's film Stories We Tell (2012). I have never actively promoted any corporate brand, and cannot do so now. Polley, who became a mother herself during the making of this familial drama, found herself needing breaks during the long process, at one point leaving Stories We Tell for seven months to write and direct Take This Waltz, a narrative feature starring Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen released in the U.S. last year. "I remember we talked about how you didn't look like Dad," a sister says. Her son Mark Polley is also an actor.[2]. Diane is a socialite, who feels hemmed in by her introverted husband. It was so strange, to have to completely reimagine where you biologically come from.. In 2005, she starred in The Secret Life of Words, opposite Tim Robbins and Julie Christie. In 2003 she got married, to David Wharnsby, a film editor. When I saw Away From Her, I thought, Well, this isnt a surprise that someone whos such a great actor would be able to create such amazing performances and have such a rapport with her cast, Egoyan said, referring to Polleys directorial debut, which centered on the deterioration of a couple in the face of Alzheimers and landed actress Julie Christie an Oscar nomination for lead actress. At the 2008 Genies, she was also awarded the Claude Jutra Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement by a first-time feature film director.[29]. When actress turned writer/director/producer Sarah Polley learned at the age of 28 that her father Michael Polley was not her biologicalfather and that she was, instead, the product of an illicit love affair by her late mother Diane Polley, her world turned upside down. He taught himself to cook "amazingly". Rated PG-13 for thematic elements involving sexuality, brief strong language and smoking. When Diane died, on 10 January, 1990, Sarah and Michael were left to their own devices. "And the ones that don't think they do have not scratched the surface hard enough yet.". A decade later, hours before she was to introduce a Montreal screening of Away From Her her first film as a director and one that would land her an Oscar nomination a secret that had been buried all of her 28 years suddenly burst into the open: Michael Polley was not her biological father. 19 April 2015. Diane Polley was a Canadian actor and casting director. I dont think the self-doubt ever went away until the film was out in the world and people didnt laugh at it and make fun of me. No wonder Sarah feels her family's narrative has the stuff of drama. Both dads vie for custody of the story. She had five kids, commuted to work and yet she slept so little. The thing that will get you better is moving towards the things youre avoiding, she said. The following year, she starred as part of the ensemble cast in the film Go. Another friend, Mort Ransen, speaks of her fear of cancer and likens her to a trembling bird. You can help us out by revising, improving and updating this section. For years, he was an author in search of a subject. [49] That only gets enhanced when her brothers and sisters drop one story on Sarah they might not tell someone else. [10] For the next five years, Polley dived deep into her family history, weaving footage from home Super 8 movies and old photographs with confessional interviews from brothers John Buchan and Mark Polley, sisters Susy Buchan and Joanna Polley, plus Michael Polley and her biological father, among others. She sat in a brightly lit room, undaunted by the prospect of staring into a computer monitor for an hour or so and putting herself under a microscope. Polley takes a similar route in her documentary film journey. We break the ice not that there is much to break with talk of Toronto. Diane Polley was born on 31 August 1936 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. But at a certain point, a certain amount of money has been spent and you cant go back anymore., VIDEO: Upcoming summer films ENVELOPE: The latest awards buzz PHOTOS: Greatest box office flops. Polley wrote and directed her second feature, Take This Waltz starring Michelle Williams, Luke Kirby, Seth Rogen, and Sarah Silverman, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011. There is just this messiness to the human experience thats extraordinarily inconvenient if youre trying to tell one story about it, she said. She died on 10 January 1990 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I realized Ive gone to all this trouble and people are going to read the story before they see the film anyway. As I get older, Im realizing its OK for stories to be messy or go down circuitous paths that dont lead anywhere., She added, We create these clean narratives to make sense of our basically bewildering lives. [13] By the age of 15 she was living on her own and credits the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty for housing her and developing her work with activism.[19]. Copyright 2023 Elsevier Inc. except certain content provided by third parties. Youre not just borrowing from yourself youre putting yourself on the line.. And Stories We Tell, five years in the making, is no exception. Now, as she waits for a wider world to discover the sides of herself she reveals in Run Towards the Danger, Polley said that her sharing these stories doesnt necessarily mean she is done with them or that they are done with her, either. This soured her relationship with Disney, but she continued on Road to Avonlea until 1994. [7] Polley first wrote to Atwood asking to adapt the novel when she was 17. Despite the fact that the family had watched Diane battle the cancer that eventually killed her, when she died everyone was shocked. She emerges as a woman who had the gallantry to treat life like a party even when it did not return the compliment. A tiny figure, with a tentative tread, appears on the pavement opposite. Diane Polley was a Canadian actor and casting director. I was hiring her as an actress. Michael Polley, her British-born father an actor who worked for an insurance company at one dramatic point says he will not try to "guess" what Sarah's thoughts are. Roadside Attractions To be reintroduced to her world with such detail and such a brilliant sense of self-observation, so many years later, was really shocking.. The directors next film, which shes writing while her seven-month-old daughter naps, is an adaptation of Margaret Atwoods Booker Prize-winning novel Alias Grace. You can also watch it from that date on guardian.co.uk/film, for 9.99. It was "easy" to interview her family, she says, because, "There are no taboos at our dinner table. Polley was in the midst of another film project, an adaptation of Miriam Toewss novel Women Talking that she wrote and directed, when the pandemic forced its temporary suspension. Sarah grew up with Michael Polley in Toronto and after a while her memories of her mother became vague and misty. Gulkin says he was utterly besotted, and after she gave birth to Sarah, at 42, we remained in love for a very long time.. The death came as a shock, even though her father and older siblings had watched Diane Polley battle the disease for months. In a new, extremely intimate documentary five years in the making, Polley searches for her own answers while posing universal and sometimes uncomfortable questions about betrayal, identity and the definition of family. She "reads" the text of her mother's life through the eyes and memories of others so that she may read and construct the text of her own life. What was really going on?. He received it all with so much equanimity it was unreal, says Polley, 33. And why is memory a teasing resource? At 18 Sarah followed her mothers footsteps into the acting profession and caught a break when audiences responded to her performance in The Sweet Hereafter. even paint the same portrait of Diane Polley. A DNA test confirmed her suspicions that the man she had called dad all her life, Toronto actor Michael Polley, was not her biological father. He treated kids as equals for better or for worse. It was heartbreaking.. Sarah was "staggered" to find an article that coldly spelt out that, for Diane, this was "the cost of adultery". Polley is hardly a novice when it comes to untangling knotty personal narratives in front of an audience. [12] During her childhood, Polley's siblings teased her because she bore no physical resemblance to Michael. That experience gravely affected her children and serves as something of an explanation as to why she did not leave Michael for Sarahs father. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(13)70470-4, We use cookies to help provide and enhance our service and tailor content and ads. "Some people say I am but I'm more restrained." And now, on an overcast, humid morning, I am hurrying to meet her in downtown Toronto, through streets that seem a cross between Dalston and Cape Cod. I think its a lot to absorb and kinda difficult.. A Refuge from Cancer Patient: Diane K. Age: 54 Diagnosis: February 16, 2011 Types: Invasive Lobular Carcinoma and Invasive Ductal Carcinoma It's a hot March, Saturday afternoon and patrons begin pouring into the cozy confines of Refuge Brewery. 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. It was at this time that she famously got "roughed up" by riot police protesting at a conservative government cutting welfare benefits and lost two back teeth. "I think marriage is crazy and optimistic and that is what is great about it. The lady is not a tramp the tramp is a lady. [45] Shirley Li of The Atlantic called it "vibrant cinema," while Anna Bogutskaya of Time Out (magazine) said that it "imagines female emancipation as an honest, raging, caring experience. "The result here is a more intricate self-portrait, since Diane's affairwhich Polley's search unearths and But I made the film to have agency in how the story was going to be told. Documentaries dont usually require spoiler alerts. All of which makes the stories Sarah Polley tells in Stories We Tell an enormously intriguing lot. Here, she trips up your expectations right through the final fade. Polley in the present day, with her Super-8 camera. Despite Polleys comfort in front of the camera, turning her lens inward was no easy feat. What got me interested was my fathers unusual and unexpected response to the news and my biological father was also writing about it. Her newfound perspective arises from her work with a doctor who instructed her not to retreat from the activities that triggered her symptoms but to seek them out and embrace the discomfort they caused. Another action sequence sent her to the hospital when a detonation startled a horse, causing it to thrust an explosive device in Polleys direction. And my biological father was also writing about it. On a Saturday morning this past January, Polley was speaking in a video interview from her home in Toronto. [23] Polley ended her run early claiming complications from scoliosis. Her first appearance on screen was at the age of four,[20] as Molly in the film One Magic Christmas. Her film may be her story but she gets others to tell it. [8][9], Polley's son John Buchan is also a casting director. Diane Polley died on January 10, 1990, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada of cancer. But storyteller Sarah decided to face her family issues through a new documentary entitled Stories We Tell. [68] Polley was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada on December 30, 2013.[69]. 34 year old Sarah tells of how the news started many family conversations at the dinner table and she noted how everyones story was different with each family member highlighting a different aspect of the tale. "I felt closer to you than I ever felt about the other children," he tells her, explaining that he'd always shared her siblings' attention with their mom. The disease was already at stage IV, the most advanced, and had spread to his lymph. [28] Later that year, she also appeared in a cameo role in Bruce MacDonald's film Trigger. One section of the film recounts how Diane left her first husband for Michael and in the process lost custody of John and Susy; she made headlines as the first Canadian woman to be denied custody because of her adulterous affair. Diane MacMillan Polley, a Canadian actress and casting director, died of cancer in 1990, when her youngest daughter, Sarah, was 11. [9][49] She was subsequently involved with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. In the film, Polley breaks up her father's narration with interviews conducted with other members of her family. At 15, she moved in with a boyfriend and, at 16, she was living on her own with "lots of rotting potatoes under the sink and a lack of life skills". It was subsequently announced that June that, due to scheduling conflicts, Polley would no longer be directing Looking for Alaska.[38][39]. Please enter a term before submitting your search. Most people who lose a parent dont get that opportunity that was an amazing experience to get to know her better.. I knew better not to do it and yet I kept doing it. In 2022 she released her first book of essays, the autobiographical, Run Towards the Danger which detailed her experiences in film, TV and on stage. Get our L.A. Western Law welcomes new faculty. In the film, that is what Sarahdoes. The long slog gave Polley the chance to fill in many blanks about her mysterious matriarch. The biological one, Harry Gulkinthe producer of the Oscar-nominated Lies My Father Told Me (1975)met Diane when she was in Montreal starring in a play called Oh Toronto. Everything about her, including her handshake, has a lightness of touch like her work. She thinks it too easy to "blame the person with whom we are sharing our life". All families, she suggests, do. In another chapter, The Woman Who Stayed Silent, Polley revisits what she used to call a funny party story about my worst date ever with Jian Ghomeshi, the musician and former CBC radio host who in 2016 was acquitted of five charges related to sexual assault. There is a memorable line from Take This Waltz that goes: "Life has a gap in it, it just does." To update your cookie settings, please visit the, Academic & Personal: 24 hour online access, Corporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online access, https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(13)70470-4, The Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia, The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific, Statement on offensive historical content, For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal', For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'. But, she explains: "Being a parent was not how Michael would describe himself. Harry Gulkin Harry Gulkin is a Montreal producer, who had an affair with Sarah's mother, Diane. When I said I was getting married for a second time, the interrogation lasted many months. She previously directed the 2012 documentary Stories We Tell, which used interviews with her family members and re-enactments to reveal that her own birth had been the result of her mothers affair with a man who was not the father who raised her. Critics have responded to Stories We Tell as a significant step in Polleys evolution as a filmmaker. There were other things she did not share with her siblings either. "I oscillate between being watchful and out of control." While working as a casting director Polley helped discover the comedy group The kids in the hall, and later guest starred on their show. But its kind of exhilarating, realizing that whatever story youve been telling about yourself and everyone tells those stories isnt you. By Dave Itzkoff. In the same year, she starred in a lead role in the remake of Dawn of the Dead, which was a departure from her other indie roles. I wanted people to have the same question in their minds. But Ill always wonder if its just too little too late. Polley cornered each of her four siblings for multiple daylong interviews, asking each to recount the story of their mothers life. Stories We Tell, written and directed by Sarah Polley, is a film of the life and subsequent loss of her mother, the Canadian actress and casting director Diane Polley. But Michael Polley is the one who has to absorb the shock, and as he plunges into memoir-writingwhich Sarah has him record as voiceoverhe emerges as the more sympathetic of the two. The acclaimed Canadian film-maker talks about the often painful burden of exploring the lives of loved ones and why she thinks marriage is a 'crazy and optimistic' institution, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Sarah Polley: 'Stories are our way of coping, of creating shape out of mess', Sarah Polley: Stories We Tell Photograph: Roadside Attractions/Rex Features, Stories We Tell review Sarah Polleys complex love letter to her parents, Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell: watch the acclaimed documentary here, Sarah Polley: 'We're all kind of ugly in our relationships', Show us your favourite photo of your parents, Stories We Tell: watch the trailer for Sarah Polley's new film - video, Readers' favourite photos of their parents. And during the ceremony, when the congregation was asked whether anyone objected, five hands went up. The film is a loving but complicated homage. She was previously married to Michael Polley and George Deans-Buchan. But let's start from the film's beginning. To this day, Polley told me her emotions surrounding Baron Munchausen are not easily categorized. Was it worth my feeling like my life was at risk and people didnt care enough about it? she said. As generous as shes been, Im also part of that weird conspiracy against her ability to grow up normally., (Polley responded in an email, I had transformative, beautiful experiences working on Atoms films.
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