Sarah sees her as "exposed" here and elsewhere. Critical response has praised the film's artistry and Polley's acting. Disney executives asked her to remove it, and she refused. And it includes a stunning secret (it would spoil the film's delicate detective work to spill it). After her first marriage failed, she was the first woman in Canada to lose custody of her children, permitted to see John and Susy only once a month. She jammed cotton balls into her ears to drown out the noise. It is permeable, unreliable and personal. 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. And then Sarah tells me at my prompting about her last memory of her mother: "A few days before she died and just before she went into a coma, I remember Dad dancing with her to Blue Spanish Eyes one of her favourite songs. But being candid doesnt mean that you always know what the truth is. Copyright 2023 Elsevier Inc. except certain content provided by third parties. But I can do nothing else. [7] In 2022 she wrote and directed the film Women Talking earning her second Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nomination. 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". (Polley said that she is still editing Women Talking and that she completed its production last summer without a single headache: If I could get through that with three small children, I think its a pretty hopeful prognosis.). [28] Later that year, she also appeared in a cameo role in Bruce MacDonald's film Trigger. It was so strange, to have to completely reimagine where you biologically come from.. Stories We Tell is an intimate documentary that took five years to make. wsl dns not working; where are lexivon tools made; what type of cancer did diane polley die from. [3] She first garnered attention as a child actress for her role as Ramona Quimby in the television series Ramona, based on Beverly Cleary's books. Besides, what gives the film its distinction are the questions it raises that reach beyond plot: do we own our own stories or do they own us? Yet a few pages later, Polley finds herself regretting that she absolved Gilliam too easily, having bought into the archetype of the out-of-control white male genius: Its so pervasive, this idea that genius cant come without trouble, that it has paved the way for countless abuses, she writes. My dad is very open about this in the film. [13], On September 10, 2003, Polley married Canadian film editor David Wharnsby, her boyfriend of seven years. The film mixes Super 8 home-movie footage and convincing reconstructions also shot in Super 8 Diane is played by Rebecca Jenkins (who knew her in life). Dainty as a dancer, she is wearing a blue denim jacket, a scarlet shirt and sneakers to match. Feb. 17, 2022. This is a fantastic moment in the film (no reconstruction involved). Polley is thirty-four, born in Toronto in 1979, the child of Michael and Diane Polley, both of whom had careers as actors. In 2005, she starred in The Secret Life of Words, opposite Tim Robbins and Julie Christie. Sarah Polley says the affair was confirmed by a journalist who confronted her over keeping it a secret. "I'm interested in the way we tell stories about our lives," she says in the film, "about the fact that the truth about the past is often ephemeral and difficult to pin down.". She used existing footage from home Super 8 movies and old photographs with confessional interviews from her brothers and sisters. I knew better not to do it and yet I kept doing it. Diane Polley was born on 31 August 1936 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was really interesting to have a big drama in your own life, and have this need to make it into narrative.. Harry Gulkin Harry Gulkin is a Montreal producer, who had an affair with Sarah's mother, Diane. She has a transparent complexion and guileless smile. Another action sequence sent her to the hospital when a detonation startled a horse, causing it to thrust an explosive device in Polleys direction. Diane sings a spoof of Ain't Misbehavin' called I'm Misbehaving. But Polleys choice to share herself in Run Towards the Danger did not make him anxious in the same way, and he praised her for taking the risk and acknowledging her own vulnerability. Diane is a socialite, who feels hemmed in by her introverted husband. Both dads vie for custody of the story. She had five kids, commuted to work and yet she slept so little. 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. Polley's subsequent role as Nicole Burnell in the 1997 film The Sweet Hereafter brought her considerable attention in the United States; she was a favourite at the Sundance Film Festival. There was an intense claustrophobia involved, and I often felt like, OK, Ive processed this stuff personally, so what the hell am I doing continuing to make this film about this topic and having to go into it every day?. My body went into shock and sickness, and every time Ive gone to Montreal since then, I get really sick, she said. What was really going on?. . In the film, Polley breaks up her father's narration with interviews conducted with other members of her family. But after years of reconsideration, Polley said during our interview, I felt a deep, ethical obligation, especially to the women who came forward in that case, to tell that story, and a deep haunting that I wasnt able to tell it sooner. (Ghomeshi didnt respond to requests for comment sent to Roqe Media, where he hosts a podcast and serves as chief executive. There are stops and starts in the voice-over because Dad isn't just a character in this story, you see; he's the narrator, too, which gives the film a very intimate feel. What binds the "children" is their mother, Diane Polley an actress and casting director who died when Sarah was 11. But she wants to impress on me that she still regards her story as ordinary, whatever others may say. [35] In March 2015, Polley was hired to write the script for a new adaptation of Little Women, as well as potentially direct;[36] however, Polley's involvement in the project never went beyond initial discussions, despite reports. In 1998, Polley appeared in the critically acclaimed film Last Night. Sarah grew up with Michael Polley in Toronto and after a while her memories of her mother became vague and misty. This entry, titled Alice, Collapsing, is one that Polley said shed made multiple attempts at completing since she was 19. Roadside Attractions [8][9], Polley's son John Buchan is also a casting director. Type; Trigger: 2010: Hillary . You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. [61][63], In 2022, Polley said that she had been sexually assaulted by then Moxy Frvous singer Jian Ghomeshi while on a date when she was 16 and he was 28. Where did the reddish hair come from? Polley burst into the public eye in 1990 as Sara Stanley on the popular CBC television series Road to Avonlea. [13] Gulkin's paternity was later confirmed by a DNA test. ", Making the film has changed the way Sarah sees her mother. [68] Polley was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada on December 30, 2013.[69]. 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. 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. The death came as a shock, even though her father and older . [10] Her documentary film Stories We Tell premiered at the 69th Venice International Film Festival in competition in the Venice Days category, and its North American premiere followed at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. Probably not. But when she contemplates Gilliam, it doesnt help me particularly to think of him as a villain. (A press representative for Gilliam said he was unavailable for comment.). Sarah was "staggered" to find an article that coldly spelt out that, for Diane, this was "the cost of adultery". She was competent and beautiful [unusual to dovetail these adjectives]. Geoff Bowes, a fellow actor, remembers the infectious gaiety of acting with her in Montreal. It was subsequently announced that June that, due to scheduling conflicts, Polley would no longer be directing Looking for Alaska.[38][39]. Sarah has related how the discovery of her biological father made her physically ill. She was bedridden for two week and had a fever. It was really interesting to have a big drama in your own life, and have this need to make it into narrative.. I decide it cannot be Sarah. I dont have this need for secrecy around almost every part of my life.. He tried hard and, to some extent, rallied. Being candid can also mean, Ive got no idea. When I said I was getting married for a second time, the interrogation lasted many months. Its been more than six years since Sarah Polley was struck on the head by a fire extinguisher, one that was unwisely hung over a lost-and-found box at her local community center, leaving her with a debilitating concussion. What they have in common, she said, is that they chronicle events from the past that have been fundamentally changed by my relationship to them in the present., They were things I didnt talk about, because I didnt know what the stories even were, Polley, 43, added. Michael quotes Pablo Neruda: "Love is so short, forgetting so long." It felt like the house was coming apart at the seams the disarray of loss." As I fly to Canada to meet Sarah Polley, I think about the glimpses of her in Stories We Tell her first full-length documentary feature, which bowled over critics at Sundance and the Venice film festival and has won Canada's Film of the Year award. This page was last modified on 12 February 2016, at 17:27. Diane Polley - News - IMDb During her recovery, Polley gave up her screenwriting duties on a film version of Louisa May Alcotts Little Women, which instead was written and directed by Greta Gerwig. The only thing that somewhat assuaged that anxiety was the support of the National Film Board of Canada, which financed the $1.7-million film. 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. "I remember we talked about how you didn't look like Dad," a sister says. It took Polley almost a year before she could bring herself to tell the man who raised her that she doesnt share his genes. In 2011, her second film, Take This Waltz a love story starring Michelle Williams split opinion (I loved it; Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian could barely contain his contempt). hide caption. [23] Polley ended her run early claiming complications from scoliosis. All of which makes the stories Sarah Polley tells in Stories We Tell an enormously intriguing lot. Toronto, Toronto Division, Ontario, Canada (cancer) Place of Burial: Toronto, Toronto Division, ON, Canada: Immediate Family: . Diane K. - Breastlink ", Whatever the friendly difference of opinion about wedlock, the remarkable thing is that when pressed about her family's reaction to Stories We Tell, Sarah reveals that everyone is happy with the film and has been "supportive". Mini Bio (1) Diane Polley was born on August 31, 1936 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. [14][15][16] When Polley turned 18, she decided to follow up on suggestions from her mother's friends that her biological father might be Geoff Bowesone of three castmates from her mother's play in Montreal. Nevertheless, she followed her mothers footsteps into acting, taking to the Canadian stage as a child and at 18 catching the attention of U.S. audiences after her role in The Sweet Hereafter.. [12] During her childhood, Polley's siblings teased her because she bore no physical resemblance to Michael. One shop promises to waylay passers by and teach them how to knit. I think actors are trained to go to the emotion in them that is most suitable for their character at that moment, Atwood said. I got really, really ill. . "Some people say I am but I'm more restrained." Sarah is surprised but not displeased the faux footage has fooled audiences: "I had been wondering, in my own life, what was real and what wasn't. Privacy PolicyTerms and ConditionsAccessibility, To read this article in full you will need to make a payment. Describing the episode now without euphemism, Polley says that when she was 16 and Ghomeshi was 28, she left his apartment after he became violent during a sexual encounter in which he ignored her pleas to stop hurting her. 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 over a period of nearly four years, she recuperated, emerging with restored focus and with an upgraded philosophical outlook that has infused nearly every aspect of her life. You will then receive an email that contains a secure link for resetting your password, If the address matches a valid account an email will be sent to __email__ with instructions for resetting your password. She suffered headaches and nausea, brought on by everyday levels of light and sound. "And Dad joked about it.". Im indiscreet about myself sometimes. You cant be an artist unless you put yourself into it. In 2022 she revealed she had in fact been suffering from intense stage fright, something that continued to plague her into adulthood. I realized Ive gone to all this trouble and people are going to read the story before they see the film anyway. [17][18], Polley attended Subway Academy II, then Earl Haig Secondary School, but dropped out at age 15. In the film, that is what Sarahdoes. Stories We Tell | SBIFF Send us photos of your parents or the people you think of as parents and see what's been sent in so far at GuardianWitness, When Sarah Polley decided to make a documentary about the mother she lost as a girl of 11, she had no idea of the extraordinary family secret she would unearth. 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. What is different is that she is hospitably voluble. That got exploded for me as this prison I was living in.. She fills me in on an "epic disaster of the mayor who has been accused of smoking crack" (he denies it) but otherwise describes the city as "diverse, tolerant, multicultural". Her subsequent interactions with Ghomeshi friendly radio interviews and playful emails in the years that followed could be used to undermine her credibility and attack her character. Stories We Tell is a love-letter to her mother and father: the film's stars are retired British actor Michael Polley and the once-famous Canadian performer and TV personality Diane Polley, who . She also made a second short film that year, Don't Think Twice. That was such a relief, said Polley, whose next project is adapting Margaret Atwoods Alias Grace. This was something that compelled me. A young Sarah Polley and her actor father, Michael Polley, on a long-ago day; the photo is one of many family memories that surface in Stories We Tell, a superb meditation on dramatizing memory from the director of Away from Her. Polley was nominated for the Oscar for her screenplay and the star of the film, Julie Christie, was nominated for Best Actress. Polley had five children, several of whom followed their parents into theatre, including her youngest, actor and director Sarah Polley.. She was previously married to Michael Polley and George Deans-Buchan. [17] In 2017, Polley executive produced the film A Better Man (2017),[31], In late 2012, Polley announced that she would be adapting Margaret Atwood's novel Alias Grace. But storyteller Sarah decided to face her family issues through a new documentary entitled Stories We Tell. The results knocked me on my ass, says Polley, sipping cider in a caf around the corner from her Toronto home. Stories We Tell opened in US theatres on 10 May 2013 and is rated PG13. This is the endlessly complicated subject of Sarah Polley's dazzling, multi-leveled documentary, an inquiry into her late mother, Diane, that widens in scope until director and audience stand at . Polley credits the organization with pushing her to persevere when she was ready to abandon the project. [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. "Diane Polley, 54 was actress, talent agent", http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/thestar/access/471412111.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Jan+11%2C+1990&author=Sid+Adilman+Toronto+Star&pub=Toronto+Star&desc=Diane+Polley%2C+54+was+actress%2C+talent+agent&pqatl=google, "Sarah Polley recalls her own sorrow with new role in `My LIfe'", http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/bostonherald/access/421326461.html?dids=421326461:421326461&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Oct+09%2C+2003&author=Stephen+Schaefer&pub=Boston+Herald&desc=MOVIES%3B+Sarah+Polley+recalls+her+own+sorrow+with+new+role+in+%60My+LIfe%27&pqatl=google, "Sarah Polley popolnoma zaljubljena v igro [Sarah Polley completely in love with the game]", http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.siol.net%2Ftv%2Fzanimivosti%2F2011%2F04%2Fsarah_polley.aspx&date=2012-10-12, "Loretta says it's genetics that make her look younger", http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/thestar/access/470726331.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Jul+17%2C+1989&author=Rita+Zekas+Toronto+Star&pub=Toronto+Star&desc=Loretta+says+it%27s+genetics+that+make+her+look+younger&pqatl=google, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0689568/filmotype, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=15IuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UqEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2842,1622127&dq=diane-polley&hl=en, "'Anne of Green Gables' star Jonathan Crombie dies at age 48", http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/anne-of-green-gables-star-jonathan-crombie-dies-at-age-48-1.2333898, "'Anne of Green Gables' Star Jonathan Crombie dies at 48", http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jonathan-crombie-dead-anne-green-789940, "Sarah Polleys new film reveals her secret parentage", http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/sarah-polleys-new-film-reveals-her-secret-parentage/article4508957/, http://en.wikialpha.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Diane_Polley&oldid=160918. Sarah said, My body went into shock and sickness, and every time Ive gone to Montreal since then, I get really sick, she said. I am compulsively early I get to airports three hours early." "As a middle-class woman with a career, it is unimaginable to think of a woman having her children taken away because her 'desire for a career overtook her domestic duties'." I thrive on too-intimate conversations with people, she said. But Sarah Polley, a professional performer from childhood, blossomed into a fine young actress: in Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter , David Cronenberg's eX istenZ , Kathryn Bigelow's The Weight of Water . In 1996, she gave a nomination speech for Kormos at the ONDP leadership convention which she later referred to as the "proudest moment in [her] life".[48]. It's been more than six years since Sarah Polley was struck on the head by a fire extinguisher, one that was unwisely hung . She was in the pilot episode for Friday the 13th The Series, as well as appearing in a small role in William Fruet's sci-fi horror film Blue Monkey, both in 1987.
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