12 - Portraits of The Self

Portraits of The Self

By: Dieustella, Jasmine and Skylar

Introduction

Every family has their own story. These stories make up how we became, how we were brought to life. These stories are the story of our lives. Losing her mother Dianne at a young age, Sarah Polley wanted to discover her mother through the people who have known her. Through her quest for the “truth” about who her mother was, Sarah finds out about her mother’s personality, marriages, the people she fell in love with, her life, her death, and in between those anecdotes she finds out that her father Michael Polley is not her biological father.  Sarah Polley interviews her father Michael, her brothers and sisters, Dianne’s friends and coworkers.  Sarah uses techniques to make us feel like we were there with them, to make us feel like we are part of the story, part of the family. Self portrait documentary like this one or Silverlake Life are very personal stories to which anyone could relate to. They show you what has happened to them and make us understand that this could be our story. However, to bring such a story to life you need tools and techniques to trick your way to the truth.

Stories We Tell

This week we watched the 109 minute documentary, Stories We Tell, which was made in Canada in 2012. The documentary was about the director, Sarah Polley trying to piece together her mother’s life story. The movie was constructed from stories of family members, friends, co-workers and lovers of Sarah’s mother Dianne, which gave everyone a chance to tell their side of the story and help Sarah learn the many truths about her mother. Telling the truth is the biggest issue in this documentary. In everyone’s eyes, Dianne was very joyful, outgoing and loved to party, but some people thought she was hiding something behind her smile. We find out that Dianne was hiding the truth about Sarah’s real father from her husband Michael. Sarah only discovers her biological father, Harry in the process of creating this documentary. When Sarah made this documentary, how does she know that everyone interviewed was telling the truth? For all we know they could have altered their stories to not make Dianne look bad. Sarah ended the film with Geoff mentioning “but I did sleep with your mother once”, but throughout his interview, he did not recall much about Dianne, so is he telling all of the truth?  Another issue raised by this film is Authorship. Who deserves to tell the story of Dianne? In Harry’s eyes, he thought he did, but Sarah got over fifty people to tell the story of her mother. This is why the film is called Stories We Tell, because it involved nearly everyone Dianne knew.

Director's Creativity

Sarah Polley herself made this film really special. In the video below she describes how hard it was to make this film and that she had to step away from it because it became too overwhelming.  Michael tells her that she is “a vicious director” because she is deceiving the viewer with her directorial tricks and is relentless with her questions during her interviews. We are oblivious to the fact that she made up half of the footage with actors. We were able to picture what her mother was like through these made up scenes, but in reality they are fake. She also mentions in the video below that the movie is a cacophony of images. Michael’s narration of the film makes it a story by helping us piece together all of the images thrown at us.

Our weekly topic was portraits of the self, where we discussed how it is important to have witnesses to life, how there are obstacles in receiving the truth and how imagination shapes reality. To reconstruct Dianne’s story, Sarah had to rely heavily on everyone who was a witness to her mother’s life. It took Sarah five years to create this documentary because she had to gather and interview all the witnesses to achieve the truth about her mother. There are three obstacles in receiving the truth of Dianne’s story. The first obstacle is faultiness of memory. Some people just so happen to forget things, especially if it's going back a long time ago. The second obstacle is reluctance to tell the truth. We are not sure if anything is being hidden to protect Dianne’s image. Geoff is an example of this because he is very quiet throughout the interview and it seems like he is hiding the truth. The third obstacle  is difference in perspectives.  Everyone has a different relationship with Dianne and it makes everyone’s individual story different. Harry and Michael are two examples of difference in perspectives. Since Dianne had a very different relationships with both of these men, they both had different views of her. Michael knew Dianne as his wife and mother of his children and he remembers the struggles they went through in their relationship. Harry on the other hand was her secret boyfriend in Montreal and was not much more than that. He feels like he knows Dianne, but in reality he doesn't actually know everything about  her life. Once all these obstacles are faced, it is up to Sarah construct the story from her view. When we talk about using imagination to shape reality, Sarah uses her imagination to create past memories with actors to recreate a realistic image. This helps the viewer visualize the story along with the help  interviews and narration.

Another look at Self-Portrait: Silverlake Life

The 99 minute documentary, Silverlake Life: The View From Here, directed by Peter Friedman and released in 1993 in the US, is the story of longtime partners Tom Joslin and Mark Massi living each day as if it were their last one. The film is a personal diary of the couple’s simultaneous downward spiral of dealing with the AIDS epidemic. The couple lives in Silverlake, California, and the second part of the film’s title “The View From Here”, refers to the point of view. The film began as a personal diary for Tom in which he filmed mostly his partner, Mark and described their day to day life. The film was a distraction for Tom while at the same time forced him as well as Mark to confront the issue of death directly. The film was originally Tom’s project. He had created a movie many years back when he was growing up and dealing with his sexuality. Tom’s first film was about his life growing up being gay, how he hid it from everyone he knew for a long time. The film was in Tom’s point of view. Silverlake Life was a sort of second act to his first film. Tom wanted to capture the effects of AIDS on everyday life and his and Mark’s personal journey of coping with their illness. About halfway through the film, Tom’s health suddenly plummets and the focus turns to Tom. Suddenly Mark is responsible for filming and taking care of Tom. The film is the journey towards Tom’s heartbreaking but expected death. The film is very personal, and almost feels as if the audience is watching old home videos. We experience everything with Mark and Tom from daily doctor’s appointments to death.

The film is different from other documentaries and is unique in its own way. The first reason that this film is special is because most of the filming was done by Tom. When Tom suddenly got worse, Mark had to take over the filming because he promised Tom that he would finish the film for him if Tom didn’t live to finish it. When Tom dies, Mark is left with the unbearable task of trying to finish Tom’s film, though he is in no place to even begin. Mark’s condition is worsening and he is mentally and physically exhausted. Peter Friedman, the “director” of the film appears in it when he is interviewing the couple. Because Mark could not bear to finish the film, it being too emotional for him, Peter, a close friend and former student of Tom’s, finished the film, as he says in an autobiography that he did not complete the film as a personal tribute to Tom. Friedman finished the film to show the fatality of AIDS and the depth of a gay relationship. The film is very informal. Shown as a personal diary, most of the footage is from Tom’s point of view from a small camera. The film also interviews Tom’s family and friends, though it is mostly captured footage of Tom and Mark’s life. The film is very intimate at many moments, such as visits to the doctor’s office, or Tom’s death, where we see Mark filming minutes after Tom has passed, and is behind the camera, intensely crying, while we see Tom zipped up into a body bag and taken away. The intensity of the film is built up but is also expected by the audience.

  http://www.newvideo.com/filmmakers/peter-friedman-biography/

Although this film seems like a documentary about the effects of AIDS on homosexual couples, it is far more than that. Beneath the surface, Silverlake Life is a love story about commitment and how far love can keep us together. The film also deals with the issue of homosexuals being dissociated and invisible to society. Society fails to recognize the love that exists between gay partners. In another interview, Peter Friedman says

"Sundance was great, but I found it strange that the description of the film in the festival catalogue didn't mention the fact that Tom and Mark were lovers for over 20 years. They were just described as being 'two men.' That misses the whole point of the film really, because 'Silverlake Life' is a love story.”

The film Silverlake Life is a self-portrait filmed from Tom and Mark’s point of view. But who’s story is it really? In class this week we studied Stories We Tell, a documentary where the story is reconstructed from the memories of tens of people. The issue of who the story “belonged” to was an issue in that film. In this film we can ask the same. Is it Mark’s story of dealing with Tom’s death? Is it Tom’s story of his final days? Or is it larger than this; how our society deals with homosexual relationships and AIDS.

Our society shuns anything that we don’t want to see. Death and illness are already on that list, but homosexuality is making it’s way there as well. We shut out anything that is different, or not in the norm. At one part in the film Mark is swimming in a public pool, and the owner, politely asks him to cover up his body to not “scare off the other swimmers” due to his large quantity of dark lesions on his skin. This offends Mark and he says that he doesn't want to cover up his body because it’s “ugly” for others. He is proud that he is still alive from AIDS. We would rather cover up what is different or disturbing than confront our fears. Homosexuals are isolated from society and are given minimal attention. Tom says at one point that he feels isolated and separated from the rest of society. AIDS forces the couple to see how deep their love is for each other and how committed they are to their relationship. 

Personal Reflection

Both movies, to bring their stories across, have used techniques such as getting to know the person who passed away through archival footages and by interviewing people who have known the deceased. For instance, Sarah interviews her family, people who have knew her mother, in order to fulfill her quest to know about her mother. To trick her way into making us understand the story, or sympathize with it, she has setup actors to act certain events of the past.  Similarly, Tom Josling, interviewed people who knew him such has his family members, and friends who knew him well. He setup is movie into ‘video diaries’ of him life before he dies and in order for us to know him better he has provided archival footages of him younger. His movie could be also seen as a memoir, just like Sarah Polley’s movie that plays with different genres.

Silverlake Life unlike Stories We Tell does not have any problem with authorship. Tom Josling is a producer who has willingly decided to make the story of his life before the AIDS disease takes him away. It’s the story of his struggle. In contrast, Sarah Polley makes up the story of her “Mum” through the stories of people involves, witnesses, and hearsay. Dianne, alias Mum, is the only one who could have retold her story. It is the movie of recollection; recollection of Tom Josling’s video diaries and interviews and a recollection of people’s memory of Dianne Polley.

 They have also made this movie in such a way that we experience life with them, as if we were there with them in their kitchen, in their hospital rooms, as if we were them. They, Sarah Polley and Tom Josling and Peter Friedman, producers of Stories We Tell and Silverlake Life, have communicated their ideas about life through films of themselves, of people around them, of people they have lived with and love. It is a very personal movie, a self portrait.

They made a film of people’s feelings and emotions and what makes us human. Both Stories We Tell and Silverlake Life: The view from here, teaches us about life, the people in it and about ourselves. Like Tom Josling said in the movie before he died that strike me and taught me a lesson we should all consider was that life was “shorter than we thought it’d be but then again that’s life.” Their story could have easily been yours or mine. Last year one of my family members was forced to go to the hospital often and I really understand the frustration and the powerlessness of Tom and Mark in Silverlake Life. You can’t do anything but be there and sometimes being there, only, makes you feel like it is not enough. There are a lot of people dying in the world and it is a public issue. Science is still trying to find a cure to this disease but the dying rate of AIDS or cancer is high. We should learn to enjoy life because it is too short. Diseases do not choice people according to their social class, race, ethnicity, or gender it affects everyone, anyone. We should learn to appreciate life the best we can and not take our health for granted.

Conclusion

In conclusion, through those two documentary films, we are face to two different views of self portrait. One film talks about life and the other about death. In the movie screened in class Dianne dies of cancer while the hero of Silverlake Life dies of aids. In Stories We Tell we don’t ponder about Dianne’s death but about her life and the people who have been impacted by her. In contrast Silverlake Life is all about how the disease killed the life out of Tom. Both screening have used similar techniques to tell us their stories. In both movies we are face to question our own self on who we are? Who are the people who have impacted our lives? Who or what has made our lives worth living for? Both screening have evoked the question of truth and the value of life.