Original subtitles

"When you're in the middle of a story,

"it isn't a story at all,

"but only a confusion,

"a dark roaring,

"a blindness,

"a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood,

"like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat

"crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids,

"and all aboard are powerless to stop it.

"It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all.

"When you're telling it to yourself or to someone else."

How far am I gonna go up?

- Uh, three flights. - Just keep going.

Take a break when you need to.

Jolly good.

Here we are, then. Hi.

Hey.

All right, you two.

So this is where you're sitting.

Oh, right. It's here.

- Right, then. - Okay.

Oh, let's have a look and see.

Oh, my God.

So this is the first half.

This is what, love? The first half of what we're recording.

Are we gonna do the whole lot?

Yeah, there's another...

All this? Yeah.

It's the whole of the thing that I wrote,

it's a severe punishment, that.

Whose tea is that?

Okay, so, and oh...

I just think that I might be sweating through my shirt.

Yeah, I'm ready. Okay.

I don't like this.

Are you nervous? A little.

Yeah, it'll get worse.

I hope that you'll explain to me some time

what all this is that you're trying to do. - Huh?

The two cameras and me recording it visually and...

I mean, it's not the normal way of doing it, is it?

I don't know. Hmm.

We've told you it's a documentary,

but it's actually... It's an interrogation process.

What?

It's an interrogation process that we've set up.

Okay.

I honestly need pills.

Do you really? Are you really? I'm so nervous.

Are my teeth okay?

I feel like I'm sweating.

And how far down... What's my frame?

Okay.

How are my breasts?

Okay, show time.

Me? Do you want me? Oh, I'm sorry.

Okay, Dad, so, um...

We can start anytime. Are you rolling? Yeah.

Okay.

We're off.

"In the beginning... The end.

"I am unique.

"From that precise moment when I was dragged

"out of my mother's womb into this cold world,

"I was complete.

"An amalgam of the DNA passed on to me by my mother and father.

"And they, too, had been born finished products

"with their DNA handed down by their respective parents

"and so back ad infinitum.

"It is clear to me that I was always there,

"somewhere in my ancestor's DNA, just waiting to just be born.

"So this unique I has always existed,

"even in the mystery of nothingness.

"So where to start?"

So, Dad, can you tell the whole story?

The marriage to Mum and everything that happened since.

Good God.

Yup.

The entire story?

I'm gonna ask you now to tell the whole story

as though I don't know the story

from the very beginning to the very end.

Shit. Um...

from beginning to end in your own words,

like, as though you're telling a story to someone?

Like a medley.

A medley. Yeah, okay.

Can you describe the whole story

from the beginning until now in your own words?

What?

Wow.

I guess I better pee first.

Wow. Yeah, give me a moment. - Yeah, go pee now.

What do you think of this documentary being made?

Um...

You can be totally candid. Can I?

A lot of you have been, so...

You know, I guess I have this sort of instinctive reaction of,

like, "Who fucking cares about our family, right?" Can I swear?

Like, who cares about

our stupid family and...

Like, I'm sort of embarrassed.

'Cause I think, "It's our family and every family has a story and..."

But I do think it's really interesting to look at

this one thing that happened

and how it's refracted in so many different ways

and there's so many different angles.

By describing Mum in as much detail as possible.

Oh... Well, Mum...

Mom, I will refer her to as Mom, not Diane.

She was... She was the most fun I could think of as a child.

She was infectious, enthusiastic and excited

about everything.

My memory of Mom is,

uh, of someone who was very loud.

She walked very heavily

and made the record skip, actually.

And my impression is she was a fun person at parties,

that she was a fun person to have in an audience

'cause she laughed loud.

You can't...

You can't talk about Diane, I don't think, without talking about her laugh.

It infused every situation that she was in.

What attracted people to her was a sense of joy.

She had a contagious personality, I thought,

and when I was really young I used to, um,

watch I Love Lucy and I actually thought that was her

because she was sort of fun and goofy and...

She was very warm, she was, you know, full of life

and loved to dance and loved to party and laughing a lot

and she loved to sing and she was the worst singer,

I mean, there's a big tent within which you can enjoy life with her.

There are people who just light up the life for those people around her.

And people gravitate to them

like a moth to the flame, you know? And that was her.

And she also was very productive.

Got a lot of things done, she was a very busy person

and managed to juggle lots of different things.

I remember her being on the phone a lot, for example,

and I remember the hand saying,

"Hold on. Shh! Shh! Hold on."

Whenever I would meet Diane,

I always found that she was in trouble.

Something she'd done. She'd left something in a cab,

or she'd arrive saying, "Oh, you have to come with me. I have to go there

And as we were walking, you know, she'd be ahead of me

trying to tell me why everything was in disarray.

Whenever I would see her it seemed as though...

Oh, something was going wrong,

um, it was her fault

and she was trying to sort it out and correct it.

As I understand it, um,

Mum was doing plays

and she met Michael in one of those plays

and she instantly, sort of, fell in love with him.

"In 1965, Michael played Mick

"in The Caretaker's North American premiere.

"He recalled an audience member

"coming around to the dressing rooms later

"to congratulate the lead actor

"and that he was introduced to her.

"Her name was Diane.

"And she loved the show so much

"that she came back twice more during the run."

I think Diane

fell in love with... Not with me,

but with the character I was playing on stage.

The character is something that is so different from me,

it's such an exciting and dominating character.

You can't take your eyes off that character.

That's absolutely nothing like me at all,

but you can see why I would want to play it.

That Diane turns up to watch a performance by an actor

and as she watches that performance,

she sees that person

is exactly what I'd been looking for all my life,

somebody exciting, somebody full of intrigue.

That's what I'd been looking for all my life.

"She was an actress herself

"and few months later they'd play together in The Condemned of Altona.

"And that changed their lives irrevocably."

Diane was playing the part of the actress

and me as the German officer.

Once again, this is a fascinating character.

So, even in that play, we were playing two roles

rather than Michael and Diane.

And they talked at a party afterwards

and they got into some weird discussion

where Dad offered her a drive home

and Mum said okay.

Yes, I did offer to drive her home.

I said, "I got a Mercedes-Benz sports car sitting outside

"if you want a ride home."

Dad admitted that he didn't have a car there.

In fact, he didn't even drive.

And Mum was the one that had a car there.

So somehow, in the story, they're both lying to go home with each other.

"And then they made love, Mick and Diane."

"Now, let me continue by telling you another from Michael's artistic pursuits.

"At about the time of his marriage to Diane,

"Michael decided to purchase a movie camera

"and to record their belated honeymoon in England.

"Watching it, several features of his work become apparent."

Every time you see a group of people in my Super 8 movies,

every time you see a few people, you get interested,

the camera goes away and looks at the roof of a house or something

or disappears in the distance, so...

This is my way of filming, was not to include people too much.

"I gather that Diane did once say that on that trip

"he spent more time gripping at the camera than he did holding her."

I had a feeling they were incredibly different people.

It was sort of amazing that they were together in some ways,

'cause they were so, so different.

I mean, as excitable that she was most of the time,

he was calm or seemed to be.

He was centered and inside himself.

And she was so far outside of herself

that sometimes there was nothing inside.

Michael was a private person

and Diane was not a private person.

She really lacked guile.

She did not have two faces for the world.

I don't know if she showed different faces to different people,

but I did sense that she was a woman of secrets.

But they were artfully hidden.

I mean, they were subtly hidden.

And because she had a larger-than-life personality,

you didn't look for the subtleties,

because there was the razzle dazzle in front you.

One of her great strengths,

I think, was her vitality,

her constant determination to live life to its fullest.

I don't have anything like that in my character whatsoever.

I love to play it as an act,

but I can't live it as a human being.

The idea of me jumping out of bed in the mornings,

running around and doing things like Diane used to do...

Diane would be doing 10 things at the same time,

I'd be doing half of one thing, you know?

Diane was so attracted to his mind,

but she yearned for more demonstrative affection from him.

Dad says that Mum wanted to have sex a lot more than he did.

When I ask him specific questions, like, about oral sex,

Dad tells me that that is something that

was thought of as something they did in France.

I sure have never thought of my dad as a prude.

He will talk about anything and he is not shocked by anything,

but it's kind of amazing to think of, that,

you know, oral sex was something that...

Maybe it was, I don't know, but...

But it's amazing to think that,

uh, you know that that was something that was so

off the radar for him.

So, I used to think... I used to think

a night with a dead wombat

might turn out to be more exciting

than a night with me after you've been with me for 12 years.

So, who knows?

I mean, I was a good husband, I think, in a providing way,

in terms of my contribution to the household running.

Could you give me a list of the duties of the average husband

so I could do a check-off?

She did all the cooking, all the cleaning, all the taking care of the kids.

He didn't take any responsibility for us,

he didn't make decisions about us, you know?

And he thought that he had to be responsible.

So he gave up acting

and started working at Manufacturers Life Insurance Company.

Mum was frustrated by Michael.

She saw Michael as an extremely talented man,

a talented writer, a very talented actor, singer.

I think in my mind it was, "Look at how hard I have worked

"with very little God-given talent.

"And look at this man, who is so talented in so many ways,

"and he's throwing it away."

He was a good writer, but he didn't pursue it.

And we all encouraged him.

He just didn't.

She got frustrated with him because she felt that he was enormously talented

and was too willing to just do things

for the small audience of he and Diane and the family.

And while she knew him so well,

she just so enjoyed his company.

And I think as women we do that right,

is that we choose the person we're in love with,

or sometimes it chooses us.

And then there's the rest of the life.

In 1978,

she came to me one day and she said,

"I've been offered a part

"in a play called, oh, Toronto which is going to take place in Montreal."

"Would you mind if I went off to Montreal for a couple of months?

"Could you look after the kids while I'm gone?"

"In truth, he was more than agreeable.

"He was delighted.

"Like many marriages, perhaps most,

"this one had grown stale.

"The passion of early year or two had long died.

"Their lifestyles were totally different.

"Diane loved parties, Michael, solitude.

"Michael loved being alone and listening to music,

"Diane danced to it.

"She'd often complained of his coldness towards her

"and not just in the marriage bed, but in all their time together.

"He knew he disappointed her,

"that he had never lived up to her earlier vision of Mick and Franz

"and he knew he never could."

Dad, can you just take that line back?

Yeah.

God, you pick up all these little mistakes, don't you, now?

"That he had never lived up to her earlier visions of Mick and Franz

"and he knew he never could.

"So when Diane mentioned the possibility of acting

"for six or seven weeks in Montreal,

"Michael was quietly ecstatic

"and openly enthusiastic."

Part of going to Montreal and doing the play

was trying to sort of get out of her life.

She wanted to live in Montreal or somewhere else.

She always thought Toronto was such a reserved city

and everybody was so,

you know, work ethic,

people lived to work instead of work to live,

which has always been more the Montreal kind of thing.

So it was like a way of her getting away from that

and doing what she really wanted to do, which was stage.

Can you talk about the play

that you were in together in Montreal?

Can you describe what it was about?

It was a play called Toronto

and it was about a bunch of people auditioning...

I can't remember the...

I can't remember what she did

in this play.

It was about as unmemorable as they get.

The guy had written a lot of great plays

and I guess he needed some money.

He was writing about his experiences in the theater world.

I played the director of his new play

and Wayne Robson and Geoffrey Bowes

played actors who came in to audition

and Diane played a reviewer.

I said, "Diane, you're like a kid

"running at the door for recess going,

"'Yay!'"

I guess it was her first time on the road on her own for a long time.

In the dressing room, on the stage and then going out afterwards.

She said, "Come down and have a visit

"and come and see the play."

During the time that I was there, what was interesting,

I remember her talking about Michael a lot,

because Michael was writing her passionate letters

and, being Diane, she read some of it to me

and I'm going, "But, Diane, this is private."

But the thing about Diane is that

what was happening in her life at the moment

was what she talked about.

As she talked, it felt like this was everything,

that it was totally confessional

and that you were hearing the full story of her life,

but I've realized now it must have been a part.

So what I'm saying is that she had secrets.

"Michael visited her after the second rehearsal week

"and found her more alive and happy

"than she had been for many years.

"He stayed with her two nights

"and they made love again with all the passion that separation often brings.

"Life was beginning again.

"Oh, you know all about it and you know it's a delusion.

"'It's all done with mirrors, mate, ' they used to tell me.

"Yes, the mirrors.

"The mirrors in which you can see yourself clearly.

"The mirrors through which you can see what you really look like."

"Diane came back to her Toronto and Michael,

"and went full-time into her casting business

"with Johnny as her assistant.

"Her relationship, on a sexual level at least, with Michael

"was really blooming again,

"and after the long separation,

"they were almost like newlyweds.

"A few weeks later, she saw her doctor

"who confirmed her pregnancy.

"When she came home to tell Michael, she was clearly upset.

"I have talked to the doctor and the doctor says it's a bit dangerous

"because of my age." I said, "Oh."

"So what are you gonna do?" And she said, "I think, I...

"Should seriously consider having an abortion."

I said, "Well, if that's the way you feel about it...

"That's okay with me, this is your decision.

"It's your body not mine."

"Diane said that

"she felt she should have the baby aborted

"as they could scarcely afford another.

"He was disappointed, because he did love children, his in particular,

"but he went along with the abortion idea.

"Diane's brother, Bob was a doctor."

I do recall,

being at the office, actually, um,

when I got a call from her.

She was quite desperate because she was about 42

and said that she was pregnant, that it wasn't planned,

that she was desperately worried about Down syndrome.

And at the time I was, I think, a bit more

pro-life than pro-choice.

So when your mother called,

I believe that I steered her towards

Diane did arrange to go to the hospital for an abortion.

And we were actually on the way down when she changed her mind.

She suddenly said, "I can't go ahead with this."

That is amazing, isn't it?

I mean, how close

we were to you never existing.

Yeah.

It's almost enough to make you anti-abortionist, isn't it?

She seemed sort of excited,

because it was something new.

She just loved new, you know?

New is what she was all about.

I mean, if there's such a thing as, like,

in that spiritual sense,

old souls and young souls,

she was a really young soul I would say.

I don't think your mother was

elated that she was pregnant.

I do not think so. No, I do not think so.

I do not.

I do not.

"Diane and Michael did not act together again until the play Filumena

"by Eduardo de Filippo.

"Diane was to play the title role

"Someone had seen them together in The Condemned of Altona

"and had decided it would be nice

"to see them together on stage once more.

"It was a fine gesture

"and they were delighted to do the piece."

Filumena was the play

that became the movie, Marriage Italian Style,

with Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren.

It's a fascinating story

because they've lived together and she wants him to marry her.

She, the Sophia Loren part, has been a prostitute,

and somehow, over that period of time,

she has had three sons.

He doesn't even know she has three sons.

And she says to him, "I need to get you to legitimize my children.

"Will you marry me?" And he says, "Why would I marry you?"

And she says...

"Domenico tries to find out which of the lads is his,

"but he totally fails,

"since each is like him in some ways,

"and completely different in others.

"In desperation, Domenico marries Filumena

"so that his true son can have the family he needs

"and the future that one of his blood deserves.

"Filumena's final words are,

"'Children are children,

"'and they are all equal.'

"And so Diane and Michael played out their final act together,

"though not knowing that it was just that."

Did anyone know she was going to die?

What? Yeah, we all knew.

Did anyone know she was gonna die? Well...

When she had cancer? Mmm-hmm.

Yeah? Did you know?

No, you didn't know. - No.

She was just a mess.

She was very, very, very frightened.

With so much energy,

all of her energy was going into her

uncertainty and her fear and unhappiness.

And when I hugged her, it was like holding a...

I don't know if you've ever held a bird in your hand.

You know, it was terrified and you'd just feel its heartbeat.

Do you know what I mean? - Mmm.

She was just shaking.

Did you get the sense that she knew she was dying?

Yeah. Yeah.

She knew.

I don't think Diane ever fully realized.

We never talked about any of the things

I mean, when she came out of that last operation,

I came home one day and she was out in the driveway,

scraping down a table so that she could repaint it for the house, you know?

Um... So I think,

she didn't have any real sense.

I said to her,

"What on earth are you doing out here doing the table?"

And she said, "Oh, well...

"We got to get all these tables done, then we can have 'em all

"varnished the same color and everything."

I mean, that's not a person who's...

As it was, turned out, sort of four or five weeks away from death.

That's a person who's still planning her...

How the house is gonna look. You know?

As it progressed, she was more and more tired

and the treatments were harder and harder on her.

It was, uh...

Man, she fought like crazy, you know?

What was it... Like, can you describe her memorial service at all?

It just seemed like a really big memorial service

and I just remember, like, a lot of the people that spoke

were, sort of, Canadian celebrity people,

not necessarily the people that were closest to Mom in her life,

but I remember thinking as I was watching it,

"Gee, it's a good memorial service,"

and I think it's kind of nice to be in show business when you die

because the people that speak are, like, good at speaking.

She was very, very popular so,

as you can imagine, there were many, many people there,

but, to me, it was some kind of production.

I felt like I was at a big play or something.

I think in retrospect, after Mum died,

Dad was depressed.

You know, he seemed very rational about it as he always does,

but the whole thing about him playing solitaire all the time

and being even more isolated than usual,

all suggest that he'd just sort of shut down.

I mean, going to visit him when he would be playing solitaire

and wouldn't stop playing.

As he just wanted to shut the world off.

It was very strange.

It was sort of like walking into a home of utter neglect,

and almost disuse.

And I remember Dad, um...

Just smoking all day.

And I remember him being very angry and upset about,

"You're not taking care of the dog,"

which was a little bit weird, 'cause you sort of seemed

like a little kid that nobody was taking care of.

It really, really knocked me out.

And the other children had gone away.

Suddenly there was just you and I left.

Luckily, I had you there to look after as well as to look after me, you know?

You were... What, were you 11 then?

The next few years our relationship, I think, was a very, very...

A great period from my life.

It certainly was an unusual relationship, too,

in the sense, it's not very often

that a father and a daughter are so close,

because of circumstances.

And so in a way, I felt closer to you

than I'd ever felt about the other children,

because there'd always been Diane there as well.

Suddenly, there was myself and this little girl.

Four or five very close years we had together then.

"Mike remembers a time or two after Diane had died

"when the children would come up for a Sunday dinner

"to join Sarah and him.

"And he remembers how, one day, someone said that Sarah

"did not look at all like her father.

"It's time to go back many years once more.

"Johnny was working in the living room on a list for a casting call

"and his mother was alone in the den.

"Then he thought he heard something that sounded like distress,

"and found himself being unable to resist moving a little closer.

"He stopped.

"And there was no doubt that she was crying."

What I overheard was Mom saying that she was pregnant

and that she was considering an abortion.

And that she wasn't sure who the father was.

But I remember Mom, whoever she was talking to on the phone,

talking about this big weekend that she and Michael had had

and how it reinvigorated the relationship

and he started to write her all these love letters

after the weekend that they had in Montreal.

It was clear that you had been conceived while Mom was in Montreal.

"He listened for a while longer

"then hurried guiltily back to his work in the living room.

"He said nothing.

"And so the event passed

"and John kept it all to himself,

"while an entire generation went to their graves."

I guess I kind of stopped thinking about it because,

The family was big enough mess already.

Anyways, years later, when I was in my 20s,

you know, long after Mom had died,

Anne Tate mentioned something about somebody in Montreal

when Mum was in Montreal for that period of time.

Johnny once led me

into talking about that,

because I think I was quite tight-lipped about it.

I thought that this actor in the play might have been the father.

Your father, let's say it.

It makes it sound as if she was terribly promiscuous,

which, in fact, I don't think she was.

But I think she did consider

that it was possible that it could be this other guy.

Because we used to often have dinner together on weekends,

probably Johnny started by saying,

"You don't look much like your father."

I think it was Johnny.

I want to say it was Johnny.

And, actually now, in retrospect that I know

that Johnny was the first of us who knew, it must have been Johnny.

I stupidly mentioned it to Mark, I thought.

Um...

Uh, my lawyer has said I don't have to talk to you and so...

I'm not gonna say anything more.

I remember Johnny saying

that someone thought that your father might be

someone that Mom had acted with in a play.

And I told him not to say anything to anyone,

but then they turned into a joke.

And I did not participate in the joke, did I?

I don't think I ever did. - I don't know.

I remember we talked about how you didn't look like Dad

and Dad joked about it.

I always thought,

"She does look like me, she's got that little straight nose.

"Yeah, definitely, this is all nonsense, but it's fun.

"Who do you think your father is this week, Sarah?"

The joke got bigger and bigger

because we'd each compare you with one of these three actors.

"They all knew of the three actors in question,

"and had much fun with the characteristics

"that they had in common with Sarah.

"Sarah laughed.

"They all laughed and the comparisons became a recurring source of amusement.

"Was it Tom or Wayne or Geoff?"

Could you just take back that one line? - Yeah.

"Was it Tom or Wayne or Geoff?"

Do you remember the name of the actor in the play

who she thought might be my father?

Yes, of course I remember his name!

Do you want me to talk about that?

If... If you're comfortable.

Well, it depends on whether he's comfortable, I would think.

I mean, it was Geoff Bowes.

The thinking was that it was Geoff Bowes.

There was, I guess, an actor named Geoff Bowes.

Geoff Bowes.

That's what the film is gonna be like.

Geoff Bowes! Geoff Bowes!

Johnny pretended, that she'd mentioned

Geoff Bowes and an affair with him and so I said,

"Oh, well, okay. I'll tell you. Yes, she did tell me."

What do you remember me saying?

Uh... I trust you more than I trust myself right now!

At that point I opened Face to Face with Talent

and looked at Geoff Bowes' picture,

and thought, "Oh, yeah, for sure. Look how much he looks like him.

"And he's short and he has red hair."

And you were born with bright red hair.

I instantly flashed back to Mom

making a huge deal about you having red hair.

It's like, you know when you're lying about something, you overplay it?

She had gone on and on about, "How weird it is that Sarah has red hair!

"It's so odd. Well, I guess my cousin Margaret Anne has red hair."

And that struck me and then I saw him with the red hair

and I really did think... Yeah, I really thought it was true.

So at some point, I think I did start to believe it was true.

And thought someone should say something to you.

I feel like we all had a discussion about it at some point,

we all being everyone but you.

And I think Johnny said I had a big mouth

and that I was probably gonna tell you or something.

And I was saying, "I think we should tell her."

"Now, I think we should leap forward to a point several years

"after Diane's death,

"when the jokes with her family around the dinner table

"were not so funny.

"And since it went further

"and named the member of the cast of Toronto,

"who was her possible parent,

"she decided, it was time to take the plunge.

"She phoned Geoff and asked if they could meet."

You called,

and we arranged to meet,

and you wanted to know about that time in Montreal.

"Oh, boy. I hope that isn't too forward or something."

And I remember recounting some of the same tales.

I hadn't really thought about Diane for a long time,

so I recall being pretty sad.

So, since I was 18,

there was this rumor that you were my biological father.

It's like, how that rumor began, where did it come from?

And I just wanted to ask you about that.

Was there ever anything romantic in your relationship with Mom

or was it always just friendship?

Uh, it was friendship. Hmm.

Um, yeah. I remember you saying...

Being surprised at you saying,

"It's common knowledge in my family that...

"That my mum was in love with you."

And I was taken aback at that.

Uh... I was touched.

But, uh, yeah... Um...

"Everything Geoff said suggested that he was certain

"that Diane had stayed faithful to Michael,

"but that seed of doubt had grown even larger in her mind.

"She thought he was a lovely, open and generous person,

"and yet she felt he was hiding something.

"But, once again, she let the story lie.

"And so the conundrum remained just that.

"One day she chanced to meet a Montreal producer in Toronto,

"and mentions that she is going to Montreal in couple of days,

"and the producer says,

"'While you're there, you might want to meet up with Harry Gulkin.

"'He's an important film producer

"'that your mother worked with as a casting director,

"'and can probably tell you more about your mother in those days.'

"And Sarah is very pleased. She always likes to hear about her mother's life

"before Sarah's birth.

"And she also realized that this Harry

"may be able to shed more light on the possibility of her mother

"having had an affair with a member of the cast.

"And so, she phones Harry and asks

"if she could get together with him for a chat."

"Hi, Sarah, and a warm welcome.

"Arnie Gelbart told me you would like to see me.

"That's good, because I would love to see you.

"I can be reached in my office this afternoon or email me here during the day."

"I always remember my mum talking about you with such affection.

"Would you be free at 3:45 to meet at Excentris for a coffee?"

"He agrees,

"and a couple of days later they meet in a restaurant.

"What happens next is what I can remember of Sarah's relating the event."

I made my way to the Melies Cafe and there you were.

Sat down and began to chat and you said that

you had wanted to meet me because your mother had talked about me a lot.

I remember we talked about a million things.

You told me how you had quit school at 15,

and that one of the dominating reasons was

your politics at the time,

and your desire to join the class struggle.

That struck me as very interesting

because I had done exactly the same thing.

As we became very close during that conversation,

we found a whole number of things in common,

in terms of feelings, reactions, response.

And I remember you saying as soon as you met him,

you felt at ease with him in a certain way.

And because you felt so at ease with him, you had decided to ask him

if he knew anything about this rumor about

Geoff Bowes being your dad.

You asked him the question, "Have you ever heard anything about my mum

"having had an affair while she was in Montreal?"

You sort of looked up and you said, "Do you think it was Geoff Bowes?"

I said, "No."

She said, "Do you know who it was?"

I said, "Yes."

"No, I know that Geoff Bowes isn't your dad."

And you said, "How do you know that?"

And he said, "'Cause I'm your dad."

He said it's possible, not probable.

I think those were the exact words you said to me on the phone, were they?

"I thought that's why you wanted to speak to me,

"because your mom and I had an affair."

"In fact, she had an affair with me."

And I said, "Me."

So you stopped for a moment.

Then you said, "Do you still think so?"

And I said, "After talking to you,

"and looking at you for close to three hours, yes."

I said, "What do you think?"

And you said, "Yeah, I think so, too."

"Sarah is speechless.

"She's come all this way to find out about Geoff,

"and now she's sitting with her mother's lover."

It was late February,

of 1978.

I was sort of mildly depressed.

Mid-winter, nothing to do, living alone.

And I decided to go to the Centaur Theatre

to see the latest production of David Fennario.

So I went down there, and after a minute, as the cast came on stage,

I was transfixed by this glorious lady who was on stage, you know?

Really just bowled over.

When the play was over,

I still had certain reserves of shyness,

which still remains, so I didn't go backstage or anything.

And I decided to have a nightcap at what I considered then

my geriatric bar, the Troika.

I ordered a drink and they had a sort of schmaltzy Russian trio,

and after about five minutes, who walks in

but this lady who'd been on stage with some other cast members.

So, I figured, "Oh, my God."

And I sort of sidled into the middle of the group,

and, you know, I was able to inveigle myself

into the conversation to some degree.

And I did try to separate Diane from the group.

But after about an hour, it really was hopeless.

It wasn't gonna happen.

It wasn't gonna happen.

When Diane left the Troika, I walked with them and with her

and I was trying again to kind of separate Diane.

And she said, "No." She says, "But we can meet tomorrow night."

We met every night after that

for the remainder of the run,

and there was a very strong mutual attraction.

Very, very powerful thing.

Harry would be down at the bottom of the stairs.

We were in the upstairs theater and our dressing room was up there.

And it made me think of stage-door Johnny's

from those old Broadway movies, right?

And I remember once he asked, "Is Diane there?

"Could you go and tell her that I'm here?"

You know, bound back upstairs, say, "Harry's here."

"Okay." And then run back down the stairs.

Harry developed this great, grand passion for her

and I think of Harry turning to me and saying,

"Isn't she wonderful? Isn't she amazing?"

And I just found this highly amusing

because I understood that he was a super smart,

sophisticated man with all kind of connections to the film business

but his main topic of conversation with me

was the wonderfulness of Diane, which was...

I agreed with him, but it becomes thin

in terms of conversation material, after a while.

When you're in love like that, you become utterly selfish.

Hmm.

You know, like, nothing that's happening to anyone else matters at all,

or is a matter of any consideration. You just

end up, sort of...

Focused, intense,

and just wanting to consume

the object of your love, and nothing else

exists.

I visited once during the rehearsal period,

and then I think I went up for the opening night.

I guess Harry would have been there.

But he wasn't sleeping with her that night, because I was.

It's funny isn't it? I'm at that party,

a couple of women came up to me

and started hectoring me about how badly I treated Diane.

"You really put her down an awful lot, you know."

I was quite stunned.

Nobody before had ever

come right out and said that.

I think certainly I began to think through this conversation.

"Yeah, they're probably right.

"I am an awful person for putting her down and if she lacks confidence,

"it may well be because of some things that I have said in the past."

And suddenly I thought, "Oh.

"I wonder if they knew about it."

Well, Diane had probably talked to them about it.

That she was thinking of leaving me

'cause I was not much good for her confidence.

And maybe they were sort of half-warning me of what was going on.

Before she went back to Toronto,

uh, I asked her to move to Montreal and to bring her kids here.

It was complex and difficult.

She had this passionate attachment to her kids and to her husband

and she also had this attachment to me.

And I had an attachment which was completely crazy.

I was besotted, just utterly besotted.

And she was so full of life, you know?

And you just wanted to be there.

You just wanted to be there, I mean it was... It was wild.

How it would have been had we been living together?

Well, I really have no idea, - Hmm.

You don't know, like, what kind of clashes can develop,

although I suspect that it would have been okay.

I know it would have been okay.

Um...

Uh, both of us,

both Harry and I met a person who was, uh,

bored with her life as it currently was

and wanted something more exciting. Um...

Did she talk at all about her first marriage?

Except that it was very acrimonious and exceedingly difficult.

And her great distress

over losing the kids.

Can you tell the story of Mum's relationship with your dad?

Uh, well, they were married,

and I don't know how deep her feelings were for him,

but his feelings were deep.

And it's awful to be in a relationship

where one person loves the other

much more than the other person loves them

I think one person loves the other person more,

but hopefully it's close

and hopefully it goes up and down a little bit, you know?

But it seems to me you never can both equally

love each other the same amount.

It's unfortunate, but it's just sort of a fact of life.

George was the kind of guy that,

that Mum's parents would have been very happy with.

He had money and he had a good job,

so my sense has always been that she married him early

and she married him because he was the kind of person she was supposed to marry.

You know, and I think my dad was really controlling

and my mum wanted to sort of get out from underneath that.

She was always trying to get out from under anything

that she felt controlled her or made her feel like her life was very regulated.

I mean, we all feel that way.

Like, I feel that way every garbage day,

like, every time I have to take out the garbage, it's like, "Oh, my God."

It just makes you realize you're just marking time

and it's just one of those things that, um...

In fact, I make my boyfriend take the garbage out now.

Then I don't have to think about it.

The trigger, the thing that compelled her to leave then and there

was that I think she really fell in love

and maybe realized, for the first time in her life, what her life could be.

I think she saved herself.

I think she grabbed on to a lifebuoy.

I think she made a choice to live.

I really, really do and, um...

That was with Michael.

She left my dad in the middle of a fight,

threw her wedding ring in the snow, walked out

and then came back the next day to get us

and my dad had changed all the locks.

Ultimately, George got custody of the kids

and that was unheard of in the '60s

And it was, apparently, the first time in Canada

that a woman had ever lost custody of the kids

and it was because she left for another man

and she wasn't "lady-like."

I missed that line.

I remember all of a sudden my mum not being around

and I could remember adults crying

and I couldn't believe adults would be crying.

Seeing my mum with her knees pulled up to her chest

just rocking back and forth.

I knew as a child, the worst thing has happened,

I'm not sure what it is, but the worst thing is happening.

And I knew that there were other people

who were gonna decide what happened to me

and what happened to my mum.

It... I had no control.

'Cause had we been asked we would have said we want to live with our mum.

For sure, both of us would've. At that age

who, you know... That's what you want.

We'd have visitation with my mum once a month,

but we lived with my dad

and there were couple of caregivers.

One of them was an older woman

who was physically abusive.

A successive stepmother who abused us,

you can keep this in. I don't care.

I remember when Mum used to drive us home,

when she'd say goodbye to us, all the time, she would cry and cry

and I remember years later reminiscing back on that,

how she would cry and cry and we'd be crying,

then we'd have to say goodbye and go into the house

and it was like we didn't want to leave

'cause we wanted to be with her.

Hmm.

But I would think that would just eat away at you

every day of your life, right? That you missed

so many moments with your kids.

And, you know, so that's the happy stuff, right?

You'd miss the happy stuff,

but into that, that you'd miss...

Uh, that she would have found out, ultimately,

that she not only missed that, but she wasn't there to...

Um, she wasn't there to protect them.

Um...

It's really bad being a parent, stupid,

'cause you're... I mean, really, you know...

You really, uh,

thought of your kid getting hurt

and you not being there to protect them.

You know that's gonna happen,

but, um, Mum must have thought,

like, "What did I do wrong that led to this?" That...

So I think being back must have been terrible

and must have made her sad all the time, right?

And, you know, maybe that's also what I, sort of, pieced together and try...

Making this assumption, that she was just keeping busy to forget the pain.

Did you get a sense that she felt guilty about the loss of her kids?

Yes. Oh, yes.

I think that it lodged a certain level of insecurity into her,

which I think had some bearing

on her decision not to

come live with me.

I can't imagine that she didn't struggle with it,

but there was the fact that there was a house and a bunch of kids living in it,

that would have kept her and I guess she would have felt that

that was the right choice for her children,

and maybe for her, too. Maybe she still hoped that

her and Dad would fall in love again or something.

A few months after we had first made contact in Montreal,

she phoned me and she told me that she was pregnant.

And she said that she thought that I was the father.

What she communicated to me, what I got from her was almost a thrill.

So in terms of the relationship with Michael and the house,

In terms of the relationship with me, she was thrilled.

I thought that would help me in my cause, in my pursuit.

I mean, quite apart from the anticipation of a child,

I felt, well, this is a quiver in my bow, you know?

I mean, we have sort of more than an affair to deal with,

we have a child.

She sent me that picture holding you as a tiny infant.

And then she sent me a picture by yourself when you were one year old.

Subsequently, business brought me to Toronto quite frequently,

so I was there quite often and I would see Diane.

She would come to Montreal reasonably often.

Diane would introduce me to all her friends,

so our affair was a pretty open thing,

because you need that, too, and somehow you want that

in terms of a love affair, you need witnesses.

You need witnesses which, sort of, confirm you.

I think it was... It was very discreet.

I don't think it was really common knowledge.

I think there were a number of people who knew,

but nobody ever talked about it.

I told her I would never discuss it with anyone and I never did.

I promised, and she was my buddy,

and there was no way on God's earth I was gonna talk about it.

I couldn't do that to her.

So there was this strange situation

of an openness of an ongoing affair

which went on for, I believe, a couple of years

in Montreal and in Toronto,

and yet no possibility of it ever developing into anything more.

What became clear at a certain point,

was that you were gonna grow up

and there was not only no point, that it would be absolutely a mistake

to cast a shadow on that.

She operated on all these levels.

She was loyal on all these levels.

I think that she had the strength and the ability

to keep all her loyalties going,

I mean, the distance didn't help.

I mean, that, uh...

But on the other hand, to some degree, intensified it

because, you know, there's the longing that was involved

and I think that we remained in love for a very long time.

I remember at Diane's funeral,

they said, "You know, anybody can speak,

And I said, "That, I thought, would be very stupid.

"In what capacity I should speak?" So I didn't.

When it was over, I went to say my farewells and goodbyes to the family,

and I went to put my arms around Michael,

and I felt that he froze in my arms,

that he was uncomfortable with that.

That's what made me think that

perhaps Michael really knew, perhaps she told him.

What?

Do you remember meeting Harry there?

I don't think he was there, was he? SARAH: Think so, yeah.

Was he there? - Yeah.

Oh, no, I... I didn't meet him there.

Oh.

I remember Anne Tait, who was the Master of Ceremonies.

She was speaking of Diane and then she said,

"And you know, sometimes Diane was a flirt,

"but her heart belonged to Michael."

On the way out after the ceremony,

your aunt, Anne, Michael's sister, she said to me,

"You see, Harry? Her heart really belonged to Michael."

So that sort of put paid to my sense of any further contact

with the Polley family, if I ever had had any sense that I should.

I figured I really better back right off, which I did,

I found her dying upsetting, then I found my inability, in those circumstances,

to do a proper farewell and to be part of it,

something that I felt bad about and regretted.

Mmm.

Whenever Harry spoke of Diane,

from the beginning, he mentioned that she had had a daughter

as a result of their affair,

but all those years that he never saw you, it was never discussed.

Whenever I'd see articles about you or anything,

I'd say, "Harry, did you see the article?"

Just so that he'd be aware of what was happening.

But the day when he went down to meet you and came home,

it was like the world changed.

He was so happy

he could have a relationship with you.

So his whole world changed after that cafe meeting with you.

Through all the years that that never happened,

he never complained, he never said, "I wish."

I don't even think he said it to himself.

You know, he'd just, "If it's not gonna happen,

"if I can't do anything about it,

"I don't see it, it does not exist." That's the way he lives.

We began what was almost a frantic series of email exchanges

about continuing the encounter.

There was an intensity,

just really an incredible intensity

of affection, of love, I mean, it was...

Well, having gotten to know you,

much of that has dissipated, you know, it's gone away, but...

"Hi, Harry, it was great to meet you.

"A complete pleasure and quite an occasion.

"I had no idea it would be so eventful.

"It was really just an afterthought to ask you about my mother's personal life.

"It just came out of feeling very comfortable with you and thinking,

"'Why not ask him what he knows?'

"And then, well, what a delight to get so much information.

"I hope we can stay in touch.

"It was so great to spend some time.

"Now I'll watch the documentary about you.

"What a handy tool in a situation like this,

"to have an educational DVD on your previously unknown biological father."

Making his way from communism to commerce to culture,

Harry's many lives sometimes feel

like the cross-work patches of a harlequin costume.

When I first met Harry, he was a film producer

and Lies My Father Told Me had won Hollywood's Golden Globe

for Best Foreign Film.

The script by Ted Allan was nominated for an Oscar.

Lies My Father Told Me gave the fledgling Canadian film industry

artistic and professional credentials.

"Hello, again, Sarah.

"I confess our encounter has stayed up

"for most of my consciousness, too.

"The emotions are conflicting.

"Joy of discovery, sweet memory obscured by sadness,

"and some concern as to how this reasonable, but unproven, assumption

"might affect you, as well as your family.

"We really need to take some time out to discuss this.

"Meanwhile, I suspect it would be prudent

"not to broadcast this putative discovery.

"In that respect, you would not be following in Diane's footsteps.

"She was apparently very pleased with the idea

"and didn't hesitate to share it with some others.

"What is beyond dispute,

"is that we have become close and loving friends."

"Hi, there. I would love to discuss this some more.

"It's been interesting talking to my brother, Johnny, about it.

"We're both tremendously afraid of my dad finding out.

"It would destroy him, I think.

"So I'm quite resolved to not let him know about our conversation.

"However, I have been thinking that I'd really love to know for myself.

"I'm not sure why, but it feels like an odd question

"to not have answered once it's been raised."

"Now was the moment when Sarah had suggested

"that a DNA test would settle the matter once and for all.

"Harry resisted and said he'd like to think it over.

"He was worried what effect it would have on Michael and his family

"if it turned out that Harry was the father.

"And he wasn't too sure how he would feel

"if Michael turned out to be the sperm donor.

"To save all hurts, why not leave things as they are?"

Dad, can you take that line back again? - Yeah.

"To save all hurts,

"why not leave things as they are?"

The weekend you came to do the DNA test,

you walked in the door and it was kind of like,

"Well, let's put the spit on the stick first and get it over with."

I think it was one of the first things we did.

You came in, you sat down, get out the stick, you both spit.

You put 'em in and so we got that out of the way with lots of laughter.

And then, I think you were staying in our office,

and Cathy had given Harry a picture of herself with a big smile

and I had put it on his desk

and you look at the picture and you said,

"Oh, my God, we've got the same mouth!"

So I ran in and I looked at the picture

and I looked at your smile and I looked at Cathy's and I thought,

"You know, this is gonna work. This is the same family."

"On Monday, January the 22nd, 2007,

"Sarah's life changed forever.

"She opened the registered letter and read the results.

"It recorded that Harry Gulkin

"was Sarah Polley's biological father

"and that the test results were 99 % certain."

99.97 %.

Sure, that was the level of probability.

"I won't even try to guess what her thoughts were,

"as she digested that stunning discovery."

Twenty-eight years of sitting on something like that

And having the ability to know it indeed is true

was just sheer delight, exuberance.

"It's 99.9997 sure,

"I'm her father, yay!"

I use the expression "the honeymoon period."

Nothing but, "Isn't life wonderful?"

"Hi, Sarah. I want to get up to Toronto as soon as feasible

"during one of the next few weekends

"so that I can introduce Cathy to her kid sister,

"It is understood that all of this will be done with the understanding

"that the news is not for general consumption.

"As for me, my heart is dancing.

"Sarah, for me, you're the bearer and the incarnation of pure joy.

"Love, Harry... Daddy."

I opened the door, you were at the door.

And you were wearing the identical sweatshirt I was wearing.

I have yet to see anyone else wear that sweatshirt.

And then, of course, you smiled and I saw the identical gummy grin

that I have, that I haven't seen on very many people, either.

And I went, "Yeah, yeah, we share DNA, that's for sure."

We express ourselves, I think, in a really similar way, you know?

We wave our arms around, we giggle a lot.

And then we realize that we could talk our heads off

for hours and hours and hours and hours and never run out of things to say.

"Hi, Harry. Still thinking about the weekend.

"It was so great to meet Cathy and spend some time with you.

"I think our Passover plans are all in order.

"First time I've ever written that.

"I'm having a strange onslaught of guilt about my dad in all this.

"Sorting it through, but it's not at all easy or uncomplicated,

"as you warned.

"I'm sure time will make things clearer and easier.

"Looking forward to seeing you again soon."

"Nothing could change about her love for Michael

"or for those who had suddenly become

"half-sisters and half-brothers.

"But now she had an entirely new half-family to get to know.

"Soon after reading that registered letter,

"Sarah tells the news to her brothers and sisters

"and the question of whether I should be told is now raised.

"Seems that only Mark felt I could handle it,

"but the consensus was that there really was no need to risk upsetting me

"and life could continue smoothly with me in ignorance."

Can you talk about the impact that this news had on our family?

I don't get the sense that much changed in our family.

Um... Oh, except that we all got divorced.

Forgot about that. Whoops. Um...

Except all three daughters got divorced.

Yeah, good point.

Good point.

Yeah, God, I guess we all...

We all had interesting reactions to it.

I feel like Mark worked the other way.

He worked to solidify the family he had.

And we three daughters hightailed it.

So other than that, nothing.

It does sort of make you alter the way that you look at your relationship.

A truth like that that opens up

kind of begets other truths.

And when you discover truths like that,

how you think about truths within that are concealed...

when you hear about someone doing that and breaking the rules,

it breaks a kind of taboo and it makes you think,

"We're all struggling with the same kinds of problems

"and look at the mess she got into

"trying to look like everything was okay."

It seemed to me like it was difficult for Mark, I think.

The biggest thing with him, I got, was that he was disappointed in Mum.

Did you get that? - Mmm-hmm.

I think that was it.

He was disappointed and sort of surprised

and, um, I guess, I wasn't.

I think the main thing that I felt after hearing the news about Harry,

was my feeling critical of Mum

she was reckless, presumably in terms of birth control,

and ends up having a baby.

To think how crazy it was of her to be that out of control.

It's a pretty scary scenario,

the idea of having a kid that belongs to someone else, biologically,

and you have to try to carry on your life hiding that fact

from the people you are closest to.

The complexity of lying about it

and the stress that that would put on your life is a bit terrifying.

You know, it's a real lesson about birth control when you're having affairs,

if nothing else.

Thanks a lot.

And then we'd all be better off.

It's like this is It's a Wonderful Life.

Oh, no, it was the reverse.

"And Sarah went to Montreal for the shoot of Mr. Nobody.

"Little time in all that to consider

"whether she should tell me of the DNA test.

"shooting a scene as a young Neanderthal woman."

I often have this dream,

some prehistoric time.

I can hear you screaming...

I chased the bear.

And you're not afraid anymore.

"Sarah is sitting around in her makeup

"and prosthetic Neanderthal forehead,

"when she gets a phone call from a reporter in Toronto.

"He tells her that he's just heard the story of her

"discovering her lost biological father

"and would like to run it in his Toronto newspaper,

"with her reaction to this amazing discovery.

"Sarah is appalled.

"She has not told me

"and, at this juncture, is not sure that she ever will.

"She begins to cry and begs the reporter not to run the story,

"because she's not yet told her father.

"The reporter points out this is a very happy story

"and there's no reason to cry about it.

"But Sarah cries even harder.

"She runs out into the street with her cellphone

"so that no one on the set would see her,

"and she crosses to a park and seeks refuge on a bench.

"There she begs the man not to go ahead,

"at least until she's contacted her father.

"Sarah continued her cry for some minutes after the call,

"and then she noticed a considerable number of people

"were looking at her and she recalls thinking

"how different Montrealers were from their Toronto counterparts,

"who, observing a young girl in tears,

"would have pretended it never happened.

"She went back into the studio to wash her tearstained face,

"and there was this Neanderthal woman

"staring at her in the mirror.

"You see, you just can't keep

"the mask of comedy at bay.

"It watches old tragedy doing its bit,

"and the moment he lets his guard down,

"our comedy turns up the corners of his mouth.

"But it was an alarming and unforeseen turn of events

"and Sarah now knew that she would have to tell me everything.

"Sarah was last able to email me

"that she was leaving Montreal on Thursday the 24th,

"and that she would like to come around to my place for tea.

"Thursday came, and I cleaned off a table,

"and made a bit of an effort to clean up my living space a little.

"I even swatted my fly,

"Flies are frequently my companions in this loft.

"They invariably arrive only one at a time

"and I do my best to make them feel comfortable.

"I told you already that I'm not particularly sociable person.

"There's no doubt that I'm more at ease with flies,

"at least solitary ones.

"I must confess that I talk to them,

"and I'm not at all discomforted by their failure to reply.

"And they're alone, like me.

"Sorry about this digression but I hope it will give you some idea

"of the sacrifice I made with my swatter

"before Sarah's arrival.

"And once she got here, I made her sit down at the table

"and went right into my main entertainment to the meal,

"which was the story of Anna Christie

"and which led to my demonstration of

"the acting of drunkenness throughout the 20th century.

"The night before I'd seen Garbo in her first talkie along with Marie Dressier,

"and I found her acting fascinating.

"You know, I can go on about these

"thespian matters for some hours.

"So, the tea and the rice pudding

"were already on the table in front of Sarah

"before she got a chance to speak."

And you were sitting on the opposite side of the table from me,

but I didn't think you had anything important to say.

So, when I finally got to the end of my story you said something like,

"The reason I wanted to come and see you is that

"I have something kind of important to tell you."

Then you started into the story,

and it took you quite a while to get to the moment of truth,

if we can use that expression.

That great moment of truth.

When I suddenly realized,

"My God, what she's saying is,

"that I'm not actually her biological father."

"I sat there in abject silence,

"as Sarah must have done when she found that Harry was her father.

"Thoughts ran in and out of my mind.

"'That's impossible.'

"'It couldn't be.'

"'I'm dreaming.'"

I was quite stunned.

My God, all this stuff we've been

joking about for years,

is actually true.

It took me a while to recover and...

And then I remember saying...

"Harry? Harry Gulkin?"

And then you said something like,

"But it doesn't make any difference, does it?"

"No, it doesn't make any difference at all. Not to you and I,

"in terms of our relationship.

"I mean, it's still exactly the same as it was before, but..."

Um...

And then I remember you came around the table

and put your arm around my shoulder and said,

"No, I'm so glad. It doesn't make any difference, does it?"

And I was, uh...

I thought it was funny. You know, that's the closest we've been

in quite a few years.

To put your arm around me and say,

"Oh, Dad, it doesn't make any difference."

And I suppose I asked you

a few more questions, then, about it, because

it was a tremendous story you were telling me

and so many little coincidences

and strange things had happened.

And suddenly I began to realize,

"My God, this is a great story.

"This is a great, great story."

I mean, I enjoy writing

but I can't get started 'cause I never have any ideas

about what I want to write about.

And since this came up,

it started me off,

realizing how many fascinating stories there are to be told

in one's own life, without... I meant to try to look for

what's an interesting story outside.

"I began to realize

"what a remarkable story she'd thrown into my lap.

"Gradually, I began to build up a picture of the whole thing.

"And so much of Diane's past and of my own actions

"appeared in a different light.

"The revelations had awoken an obsession in me

"to tell the whole story to anyone who would listen.

"My growing enthusiasm for the narrative itself,

"as well as the constant reevaluation of my own past,

"drove me around my room for two days.

"And then, on Saturday, I was finally able to send an email to Sarah

"with this summary of my thoughts.

"My dear, Sarah,

"my mind has been racing over the past 24 hours.

"Getting as many of my thoughts down on paper will,

"I hope, stop that feverish mental pursuit

"and put it all into what is my perspective.

"Whatever we do,

"we must not put any blame on Diane

"for those events that took place in 1978.

"We had been married, then, for over 10 years,

"and our union was not a perfect one.

"She had already experienced one major disaster in her life,

"with the breakdown of her first marriage,

"and the subsequent loss of the two children that she loved so much.

"And now, here she was, stuck with a husband

"who was useless at making her feel wanted,

"and so, when she went to Montreal to do Toronto,

"it's scarcely surprising that when love was expressed,

"and then offered to her, she took it.

"I'd always told her she should take a lover

"anytime she felt me inadequate,

"just as long as she did not think of leaving Mark and Jo, or me.

"Of course, she would never have left another two children,

"and I would never have disputed her claim for custody.

"So, it was clearly my own future that I was worried about.

"And so, we arrive at the affair with Harry,

"and, not unexpectedly, it took place at the same time as

"I made one or two visits to see her in Montreal.

"During those visits, I made love to her,

"and there was something of a renewal of the passion we felt

"when we first lived together.

"Diane must have been taken aback, I would guess.

"Harry must have proposed that they live together at some point,

"and she must have been torn between us,

"since I suddenly seem to be the old Michael

"that she once loved so much.

"Love is so short,

"forgetting, so long,

"Neruda wrote.

"Harry must have been very disappointed

"when she returned to Toronto.

"And I'm sorry for that.

"But return to Toronto she did,

"and the three of us

"were happy to have her with us again.

"And then came the discovery that she was pregnant.

"For me, it was joyful.

"For her, it must have been agonizing.

"Look, the terrible thing about all the mental anguish she underwent

"was that she never understood

"what my reaction would have been,

"if she'd told me the whole story.

"I do believe I would have told her not to worry,

"and that I was quite ready to accept

"the ambiguity of the parentage.

"But here, again, I had failed.

"Why is it that we talk and talk,

"or, at least, I certainly do,

"without somehow conveying what we're really like?"

So, what compelled you, initially, to want to write

your version of the story?

Well, I was contemplating, I had been contemplating for some time,

writing a memoir.

I became persuaded that this was a strong story

which could be told in many different ways,

but which had a very, very strong structure

because it skipped a 30-year period and skipped a generation.

That it had a particular strength and a sense of continuity

with respect to memory of moving forward

from one situation to another.

That it was a story with great sadness and great joy.

And you suggested at one point when we met in Toronto

that we each write our version of it.

And then we would show it to each other at the end, and...

Might do something with it, but, like, it was sort of left pretty open-ended.

So, then, I subsequently did write

the six-page summary of the background

with Diane and us meeting.

Harry had written a piece about his relationship with you and Diane,

and the discovery that you are father and daughter.

And someone suggested that he publish it.

You reacted very, very strongly. Very, very strongly to it.

You were enraged, and you were very upset.

"Hi, there, Harry.

"I suppose I'm confused as to why it's such a pressing issue for you

"that this story be public

"when it is already known by everyone we love

"and everyone who loves us.

"As I said, while my dad has had some time to deal with the news,

"he's not yet had to tell his friends or answer any questions

"from anyone outside of his immediate family.

"This space and privacy has been important for him,

"and I believe strongly in protecting that for as long as possible."

In my case, it goes back to

during my relationship with Diane, which was open to her friends,

but, in fact, was utterly constrained

by the reality of her marital situation.

And I found that, at the time, oppressive.

I guess I have felt in this, sort of a bit of a...

An echo.

I felt constrained,

inhibited, and sort of pinched

in my relationship to you

because of the private way in which we were dealing with it.

The atmosphere got a little heavy there.

We were sort of building misunderstanding on top of misunderstanding,

and we both proved to be very, very capable in that respect.

I was upset that this thing had gotten up between us.

My taste or desire to do it at that point,

really, was no longer there. I mean...

This is not fun anymore. It's just creating problems.

So, eventually, I dropped it and I backed off.

And what was it about having it published that attracted you?

Well, I think...

I think anyone who writes anything,

I mean, anyone who does anything, wants to bring it out to a public.

I mean, if there's a story to be told,

and if the story has some validity and some resonance,

then you don't keep it to yourself.

There was the honeymoon period.

There was the difficult period,

when I would hear the tones of voices on the exchanges,

that there was tension.

So, this is in this perfect relationship,

the perfect papa, the perfect daughter.

Everything's perfect, then it's no longer perfect.

"Hi, there, Harry.

"I'm just extremely uncomfortable at being involved

"in the telling of this story,

"unless it includes the whole picture.

"Which is to say, my experience of it, your experience of it,

"as well as my family's.

"I've been thinking a lot about your desire to tell this story,

"and my own desire to document this experience through film.

"As I begin this process,

"I don't know what from my project will take.

"I don't know if it's a personal record for myself

"or something to be made into a piece for others to see at some point.

"I don't know how long it would take

"or if it would ever get finished.

"beyond beginning to explore it through interviews with everyone involved,

"so that everyone's point of view,

"no matter how contradictory, is included.

"One day, it may turn into a documentary for others to consume.

"I'm really not sure when or if I'd want that to happen.

"But whatever it ended up being,

"it would feel very odd not to have you be a part of this."

When he considers this documentary,

being Harry, being a producer,

I'm sure there's a little bit of trepidation about this film,

because he doesn't have control of everything.

He understand that. He doesn't like it.

It's been very clear to him that this story will be told from

the point of view of everyone who is alive who can talk about it.

And, you know, my dad would really like it

just to be about his story of meeting Diane and being with her,

and having you, and meeting you again.

But he's gone along with it. He's trying to be a good sport.

So, what do you think of the concept of me making this documentary

where we're sort of giving equal weight to everyone's version of the story?

I don't like it.

I think that

takes us into a...

Into a very wooly...

Like, you see, you can't ever touch bottom with anything, then.

We're all over the place.

I think they can all be heard.

It's giving them equal weight, which I find...

Particularly those who are non-players.

First of all, there are the parties to an incident.

Those who were there and who were directly affected by it.

Then, there is a circle around that,

of people who are affected tangentially

because of their relationship to the principal parties.

And then, there's another concentric circle, further out there,

which, basically, has heard or been told

by one of the principal players about it.

All of these may have different narratives

and these narratives

are shaped in part by their relationship

to the person who told it to them, and by the events.

One does not get the truth

simply by hearing what their reactions are.

People tend to declare themselves

in terms of what they saw, in terms of what they felt.

In terms of what they remembered,

and in terms of their loyalties.

The same set of circumstances

will affect different people in different ways.

Not that there are different truths,

there are different reactions to particular events.

The crucial function of art is to tell the truth.

To find the truth in a situation. That's what it's about.

You realize, when you've finished all this...

You realize, when you've finished all this,

you've got about six hours of stuff.

And you'll decide what you want out of it.

It'll be exactly like the story.

Each one of us will pick out...

If any one of us were trying to edit it

and decide what we wanted to keep,

it would be the same farcical kind of theatrical exercise that we're all involved in.

"Oh, I want to keep that."

"Oh, no, that's rubbish, there."

That's an enormously different thing

from simply doing an interview straight

and never doing any editing of it whatsoever,

but letting it run as it is.

That would have been at least as close to truth as you can get,

whereas your editing of this

will turn this into something completely different.

What would you say, this documentary is really about?

Um...

Am I breaking the fourth wall here?

Turn the camera around.

Um...

What is it about?

I feel like it's about a lot of things. I think, um...

Memory, you said. Memory, and the way

we tell the stories of our lives.

I think, in many ways, it's like,

you know, trying to bring someone to life

through people's stories of them.

It's also... Is this a good angle for me?

Sorry. Go on.

Telling people what?

Asshole.

"Hi, Harry.

"One of the main focuses in the documentary are

"the discrepancies in the stories.

"All of us. You, me, my dad,

"my siblings, my mother's friends, etcetera,

"have similar stories with large and small details that vary.

"I'm interested in the way we tell stories about our lives.

"About the fact that the truth about the past

"is often ephemeral and difficult to pin down.

"when we don't take proper time to do research about our pasts,

"which is almost always the case,

"end up with shifts and fictions in them, mostly unintended."

In relation to Mum,

I think, when we talk about it as a family,

there seems to be this, you know, this kind of...

A lot of questions about who was she.

You know, a lot of disagreement about

And there was this misconception that she was something,

and I guess that to me is another misconception,

that there is a state of affairs

or things that actually happened,

and we have to kind of reconstruct exactly what happened in the past.

And I don't think there ever was a "what actually happened."

I think there were lots of perspectives from the very beginning.

You don't ever get to an answer.

You don't ever get to, "Okay, now we've figured it out.

"We know exactly what happened.

"We know exactly what kind of person she was."

I think those things are just illusory.

Again, in terms of the basic question,

"Can one get at the truth?"

I guess we're getting very close to it.

But you have to limit it to those who are involved in the events,

And the direct witnesses to the events are only two,

and one is not around.

I mean, Diane's not here to talk to, you know?

That's really the only person who could provide,

I mean, the essence, the essentials, of what took place.

So, we've been through all that debate,

and then we started here, yesterday.

I somehow feel that we've cleared up some of the smoke.

Maybe not all, but some of the smoke has been cleared away.

But the reality is, essentially,

that the story with Diane, I regret to say,

is only mine to tell.

And I think that's a fact.

Uh...

Now, my recollections may be faulty at times, but I'm not going to lie.

The love that I shared with Diane, 30 years ago,

was so intense and so lasting,

it all came back to me and got wrapped up with my affection for you.

So, you know, I became crazy about you in the same way.

When I heard the full details of the affair

between Mum and Harry, I was really happy

because I've always felt

like she spent her whole life looking for love,

and I certainly felt that, in the last years of her life,

and for a long time, ever since I was a child,

she really hadn't gotten from Dad what she needed.

And when I heard the story of Harry,

I remember feeling...

Feeling really happy that she had found love.

And that she'd been loved that much.

But, you know, I kind of think Dad was the one she really was in love with.

And he just wasn't an option.

So, I'm really glad that she was loved.

I'm not sure she was loved by the person

she really wanted to be loved by, but...

Yeah.

"When you make a documentary about your own discovery of a new father,

"are you doing so to avoid your own deeper concerns of its real impact on you?

"Is that why you describe it as,

"'A search for the vagaries of truth

"'and the unreliability of memory'

"rather than, 'A search for a father'?"

"Hey, Dad.

"I've been thinking a lot about your last email.

"Maybe you're right.

"Maybe there is something underneath my need to make this film

"that I've been denying.

"Every time I feel I have my footing, I lose it.

"I can't figure out why I'm exposing us all in this way.

"It's really embarrassing, to be honest.

"Have I totally lost my mind trying to reconstruct the past

"from other people's words,

"trying to form her?

"Is this the tsunami she unleashed when she went?

"And all of us, still flailing in her wake,

"trying to put her together in the wreckage,

"and her, slipping away from us,

"over and over again,

"just as we begin to see her face?"

What do you remember of the day Mom died?

Ah...

That was a terrible day, wasn't it?

I don't know. I guess...

I guess, her brother had said to us,

"Well, it's almost the end now.

"I think each one of you should go..."

I mean, she was unconscious.

"...and say whatever...

"Whatever final words you have to say to her, uh, before she goes.

"Because it's very close to the end."

Um...

That was a bad day.

- What did you say to her? - What?

With that time that we each had alone with her,

what did you say to her?

I don't know.

Probably that I'd missed her.

That I would miss her.

That I loved her, and I...

Would never forget her.

That's about all.

You know, somebody you've known for 25 years

and spent much of your life with for 25 years

and has given your life much of its meaning for 25 years...

Awful hard to lose them.

It's, uh...

It's a dire line of questioning, just try to...

We must find a way of making it more funny.

What are you, some kind of sadistic interviewer?

You told me I had to break you down more.

Yeah. Well, you've done it, haven't you?

There was no acting in any of that.

No acting at all.

You see what a vicious director you are?

Now you understand, don't you?

I remember that...

Remember that day when you directed me

in a ridiculous montage piece

that you were doing when you were at the film center,

and you made me walk down into a pool

of freezing cold water wearing full clothes?

"Keep going further down, Dad!"

I said, "I can't go any further down! My clothes are holding me up."

"Just keep going down!

"God, you are so annoying.

"It's a very little thing to ask of you.

"All I want you to do is go a foot under the water.

"Here I am, trying to do a montage,

"and my father is causing trouble."

A brutal piece of directing.

Why?

And in some ways, that's... You know, that's why this

whole question of, uh,

"Oh, was I your father or wasn't I?"

It's, uh...

Becomes very, sort of

an unimportant part of the past, for me, anyway, you know?

I mean, I think it's much more important for you.

That happens along with life.

"So, don't feel sorry for me.

"If you have pity, it should be for Harry, who loved and lost Diane,

"and then missed out on the childhood of that Sarah he'd produced.

"Had that been my lot, I would have been mortified

"when I read that DNA result.

"I've been a very lucky man, and of course,

"for one of my luckiest moments,

"I have to thank Harry Gulkin

"for loving Diane.

"Sarah is only what she is

"because of that night of love between Diane and Harry.

"Had I been her biological father,

"she would have been entirely different.

"She might have been better or worse,

"but she would definitely not have been the Sarah she is today.

"And that's the one I love.

"Of the other possible outcome, there is nothing.

"You may decide you want to keep this letter to yourself

"or to share it.

"It's yours, and yours the choice.

"You know... Look...'"

Dad, can you just go back over that one line?

I was being so real.

I completely convinced myself.

"You may decide, you want to keep this

"letter to yourself or to share it.

"It's yours, and yours the choice.

"You know... Look...

"While telling me your news on Thursday, you twice hugged me

"as hard as you ever did in your childhood.

"That alone

"made your revelation worth a thousand words.

"So, there you have it.

"All I know of what happened

"or what has been reported to me has been told.

"I think I wrote this story

"because it really says so many interesting things

"about the human condition.

"But maybe there was another reason.

"Perhaps, deep inside, I have suffered more of a shock

"than I would openly admit.

"I sometimes stop and realize

"that something inside has, for the rest of my life, changed.

"A certain cord that runs between Sarah and me

"has been severed,

"and I'm powerless to join it together.

"It's not a real thing.

"It only exists because we have developed this facet called imagination

"and that is all too real and tangible. It gives pain.

"It's brief, and soon I am back again at the keyboard,

"reliving the past 40 years,

"but I suppose it will always be lurking to catch me unawares.

"So, perhaps this story is a form of denial.

"How ironic it is

"that the final revelation of this aftermath

"have brought Sarah and I closer together

"and resulted in me writing volumes,

"as Diane always wanted me to.

"It has given me a new lease on life.

"At 5:26 this morning, a little girl was born

"to Jennifer, my son's wife.

"It's almost three quarters of a century

"since I was pulled out into the air of Ilford,

"and now this small girl is starting to learn about life in Toronto.

"One thing is certain,

"her life will be radically different from mine.

"So different that we might as well be

"born on planets light-years apart.

"I think she'll be interested to read of her grandfather's life,

"set down in way that

"makes it very unlike the stuff of history books.

"And now, there's a fly buzzing around me as I write.

"It'll buzz around for a short time looking for food,

"and, once sustained, may seek a mate.

"It will never know why.

"It has simply been sentenced

"to follow the demands of millions of ancestors.

"For that fly, the word 'why' does not exist.

"Yes, that's it, Michael.

"Just accept the sentence.

"I will go on.

"I will go on."

I'm just so curious about, like,

all the versions of this story

that have been in existence since I was, like, 13,

and my sister first told me as a joke,

you know, "Your dad's probably not your real dad."

And then, when I was 18, like, hearing your name all the time,

and then finding Harry,

and then, you know, it being proved by a DNA test.

Yeah. So, it's just weird that now when I interview people,

like, a couple of her close friends

were shocked that Harry was my dad,

because they always thought you were my dad.

Um...

Well, okay then, I'll... I'll have to, uh...

I'll have to tell you that we did sleep together once.