In one of the opening scenes of Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell Polley asks the interviewees (who are all, as the audience later finds out, members of Sarah’s family or connected to her mother in some way) to tell “the whole story in your own words“.

This idea of “in your own words” encapsulates some of the main concepts around the texts studied in this auto/biography course. In particular, the idea of capital “T” truth is interrogated in Stories We Tell, as well as the texts studied ENGL 474F: Auto/biography as social action. The idea of an authoritative truth is explored extensively in Stories We Tell. One of the ways that this demonstrated is through Polley’s editing decisions. In one interview clip, Harry Gulkin reflects on his relationship with Diane and claims that the affair wasn’t a secret and that “there were witnesses”. This scene is juxtaposed with Diane’s friend who remembers it differently, saying that the affair was very discreet.

Interestingly, Gulkin is also the person who is the most adamant about the idea of ownership of Diane’s story and capital “T”ruth. Gulkin asserts in the documentary, “the crucial function of art is to tell the truth”. In Polley’s editing choices, she interrogates this idea by demonstrating that every person who tells a version of the story may remember the details differently. Even if their truths are not 100% accurate, the truths are still valid and true for them.

Many of the texts that were studied in this class address this idea of truth in some way. The discrepancies in the versions of Diane Polley’s story reminded me of a part in Art Spiegelman’s Maus. In that scene, Art asks Vladek about the music that played while prisoners marched in Auschwitz. Vladek has no recollection of this, despite it being well documented.

These examples emphasize the existence of the multiplicity of truths. There is not a single truth, but countless versions of it, and all of these versions are stories in someone’s own words.