Forms Of Interaction In Michael Polley's Stories We Tell

In Stories We Tell, the ways in which the narrative’s subjects interact with the mode of construction (i.e. the crew, Polley as a director, equipment, and so on) are diverse, and scholarship on the film has already noted this. Anderst, for example, points out two primary mediums of interaction, one being narration, such as in the case of Michael Polley’s voice over at the beginning of the film, and the other being interviews, conducted with Polley’s siblings, Michael, her biological father Harry Gulkin and so on. Waites, meanwhile, discusses these forms of interaction as “fictional devices,” or tools of storytelling, and includes in this category the “faux home video footage” interspersed throughout the movie, as well as the appearance of Polley herself (544).

The first, as established already, is interviews, which are found throughout the film. The second form is narration, which ranges from Michael’s early voice over to Sarah’s reading of her emails to Harry. The third form is reenactment, in which a subject reenacts a scenario described in the film, an example of which would be the “faux home video footage” placed throughout the film. Finally, the fourth form of interaction is the broadening of subject, in which the mode of construction becomes a subject itself, such as when Polley, as the director, is shown giving instructions. I will use these four mediums of interaction as categories of analysis by applying deconstructive narratology to specific scenes that correspond to