"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?
- Three flights.
- Just keep going.
Take a break when you need to.
Jolly good.
Here we are, then. Hi.
All right.
So this is where you're sitting.
- Right.
- Put this here.
Right, then.
Let's have a look and see... Oh.
So this is the first half.
This is what, love?
The first half
of what we're recording.
I'm going to do the whole lot?
Yeah, there's another...
- All this?
- Yeah.
It's the whole
of the thing that I wrote.
It's a thing of punishment.
Whose tea is that?
I know.
I just think that I might be
sweating through my shirt.
Yeah. I'm ready.
Keep it handy.
I don't like this.
- Are you nervous?
- A little.
It'll get worse.
I hope you'll
explain to me sometime
what all this is
that you're trying to do.
With two cameras
and me recording it visually.
What about it?
It's not the normal way
of doing it, is it?
I don't know.
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.
I honestly need pills.
Do you really?
- I'm so nervous.
- Are you really?
Are my teeth okay?
I feel like I'm sweating.
What's my frame?
Okay. How are my breasts?
Okay. Showtime.
Me? Do you want me?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Okay, Dad,
so we can start any time.
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 ancestors' DNA,
just waiting to be born.
So this unique guy
has always existed,
even in the mystery
of nothingness.
So where to start?
Dad, can you tell the whole story?
The marriage to Mom
and everything
that happened since?
Good God.
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.
Can you tell this whole story
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.
- Give me a moment.
- Take a pee.
What do you think
of this documentary being made?
You can be totally candid.
Can I?
A lot of people have been.
I guess I have
this instinctive reaction of
who fucking cares
about our family?
Can I swear?
Who cares
about our stupid family?
I'm sort of embarrassed,
'cause I think it's our family,
and every family has a story.
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.
I guess if you could start
by describing Mom
in as much detail as possible.
Oh. Well, Mom, Mom.
I will refer her
to as "Mom," not Diane.
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
of someone who was very loud.
She walked very heavily
and made the records skip.
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 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 watch I Love Lucy,
and I actually thought
that was her,
because she was fun and goofy.
She was very warm.
She was 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,
but she didn't mind.
She was sort
of a good-time Charlie.
There's a big tent within which you
can enjoy life with her.
And there are people
who just light up the life
for those people around her,
and people gravitate
to them like a moth to flame.
And that was her.
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! 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
because I've done this,
"and it's so stupid,"
and as we were walking,
she'd be ahead of me
trying to tell me
why everything was in disarray.
Whenever I would see her,
it seemed as though...
something was going wrong.
It was her fault,
and she was trying
to sort it out and correct it.
As I understand it,
Mom was doing plays,
and she met Michael
in one of those plays,
and she instantly
fell in love with him.
In 1965, Michael played Mick
in The Caretaker's
North American premiere.
He recalled an audience member
coming round
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
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.
So isn't it ironic
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've been looking for all my life.
"Somebody exciting,
somebody full of intrigue.
"That"s what I've been
looking for all my life. "
She was an actress herself,
and a 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 Mom said okay.
Yes, I did offer to drive her home.
I said, "I've 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 Mom 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.
Let me continue by telling you
another of 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.
This was my way of filming,
not to include people too much.
I gather that Diane
did once say that on that trip,
he spent more time
gripping 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 different.
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.
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 of 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 was usually doing
ten things at the same time.
I'd be doing half of one thing.
Diane was so attracted
to his mind,
but she yearned for more
demonstrative affection from him.
Dad says that Mom
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 that
oral sex was something that...
maybe it was, I don't know...
but it's amazing to think that...
that that was something
that was so
off the radar for him.
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 twelve years.
So... who knows?
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.
It was always,
"Ask your mother. "
Next thing he knew,
he had kids,
and he thought
that he had to be responsible.
So he gave up acting
and started working
at Manufacturers Life
Insurance Company.
Mom was frustrated by Michael.
She saw Michael
as an extremely talented man,
a talented writer,
a very talented actor, singer...
he was all those things.
I think in her 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?
It's that we choose the person
we are in love with,
or sometimes it chooses us,
and then there's the rest of life.
In 1978, she came to me
one day and she said,
"I've been offered a part
in a play called Toronto,
"which is going
to take place in Montreal. "
And she said to me,
"What do you think?
"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 the 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.
You guys pick up
all these little mistakes, don't you?
He knew he'd disappointed her,
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 get out of her life.
She hated living in Toronto.
She wanted to live
in Montreal or somewhere else.
She always thought Toronto
was such a reserved city,
and everybody was so work ethic.
People lived to work,
instead of worked to live,
which has always been
more of the Montreal kind of thing,
so it was 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 out the door for recess,
"going, "Yay!"
And that's what she was like.
It was her first time on the road
on her own for a long time,
and she just savored all of it...
in the dressing room,
on 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,
"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 realize 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.
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 back 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've talked to the doctor,
"and the doctor says it's a bit dangerous
because of my age. "
I said,
"So what are you going to do?"
And she said, "I think I should
seriously consider having an abortion. "
I said, "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
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 proceeding
with the pregnancy.
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. "
Amazing, isn't it?
I mean, how close we were
to you never existing.
It's almost enough to make you
a anti-abortionist, isn't it?
She seemed excited,
"cause it was something new.
She just loved new, you know?
New was
what she was all about.
If there's such a thing as,
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.
After Sarah's birth,
Diane and Michael
did not act together again
until the play Filumena
by Eduardo de Filippo.
Diane was to play the title role
with Michael as the husband.
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.
Tell me.
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...
"Oh. "
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 a 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?
Yeah, we all knew.
Did anyone know
she was gonna die?
- When she had cancer?
- Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Did you know?
No, you didn't know.
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 ever have
held a bird in your hand,
the way it's terrified
and you just feel its heartbeat.
Do you know what I mean?
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,
because we didn't think
it was gonna happen.
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.
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, "We got to get
all these tables done.
"Then we can have them
all varnished
"the same color and everything. "
That's not a person
who's, as it was, turned out,
four or five weeks away from death.
That's a person who's still planning
how the house is gonna look.
As it progressed,
she was more and more tired,
and the treatments were
harder and harder on her.
Man, she fought like crazy,
you know.
What was it...
Can you describe
her memorial service at all?
It just seemed
like a really big memorial service,
and I just remember
a lot of the people that spoke
were Canadian
sort of 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 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 Mom died,
Dad was depressed.
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 suggests
that he just sort of shut down.
I mean, going to visit him
when he would be playing solitaire
and wouldn't stop playing,
as if 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
just smoking all day.
And I remember him being
very angry and upset
about you not taking care of the dog,
which was a little bit weird,
"cause you seemed like a little kid
that nobody was taking care of.
It 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.
What were you, 11 then?
The next few years,
our relationship 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.
So in a way, I felt closer to you
than I'd ever felt
about the other children,
because there had always been
Diane there as well.
Suddenly, there was myself
and this little girl.
There were four or five very close years
we had together.
Michael 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 he listened,
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 on the phone,
talking about this big weekend
that she and Michael had had
and how it had 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
and 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'd kind of blocked it.
I guess
I'd stopped thinking about it,
because what good is it
going to do?
The family was
a big enough mess already.
Years later,
when I was in my 20s,
long after Mom had died,
Anne Tait mentioned something
about somebody in Montreal
when Mom 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.
And so at some point...
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 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.
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.
I told him
not to say anything to anyone,
but then they turned it into a joke.
And I did not participate
in the joke, did I?
I don't think I ever did.
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.
"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?"
And 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?
If you could 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
that you thought
might be my father?
Yes. Of course,
I remember his name.
Do you want me
to talk about that?
If you're comfortable.
Well, it depends on whether
he's comfortable, I would think.
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's gonna be like.
"Geoff Bowes. "
"Geoff Bowes. "
Johnny pretended that
she'd mentioned Geoff Bowes
and an affair with him,
and so I said,
"Well, okay, I'll tell you.
"Yes, she did tell me. "
What do you remember me saying?
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 she 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 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!
"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...
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
round 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.
I remember putting my arm around you,
and I thought,
"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 been this bizarre thing.
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.
I remember you saying...
being surprised at you saying,
"It's common knowledge
in my family that, uh, my...
"that my mom was
in love with you. "
And I was taken aback at that.
I was touched.
Everything Geoff said
suggested 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's going
to Montreal in a 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.
Hi, Harry.
Great to hear from you.
I always remember my mom talking
about you with such affection.
It'd be great to finally meet you.
Would you be free at 3:.45
to meet at Ex-Centris 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 Mlis Caf,
and there you were.
Sat down, and we began to chat,
and you said that
you had wanted to meet me
because your mother
had talked about me a lot.
And then 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.
And 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 mom having had an affair
while she was in Montreal?"
You looked up and you said,
"Do you think
it was Geoff Bowes?"
So I said, "No. "
She said,
"Do you know who it was?"
And 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?
He said, "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...
midwinter, 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.
Really just bowled over.
When the play was over,
I still had certain reserves of shyness,
which still remain,
so I didn't go backstage,
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 schmaltzy Russian trio,
and after about five minutes,
who walks in but this lady
who had been on stage
with some other cast members,
so I figure, "Oh, my God,"
and I sort of sidled
into the middle of the group,
and 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.
When Diane left the Troika,
I walked with them and with her,
and I was trying again
to separate Diane,
and she said, "No,
"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 Johnnies
from those old Broadway movies.
I remember once he asked,
"Is Diane there?
"Could you go and tell her
that I'm here?"
And, you know, bound back upstairs,
say, "Harry's here. "
"Okay," and then run
back down the stairs.
"She's coming. "
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 kinds 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.
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, "cause I was.
It's funny, isn't it, though?
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,
"I wonder if they knew about it. "
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
what was going on.
Before she went
back to Toronto,
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,
and you
just wanted to be there.
You just wanted to be there.
I mean, it was wild.
How it would had been
had we been living together,
I really have no idea.
You don't know what kind
of clashes can...
can develop,
although I suspect
that it would have been okay.
I know it would have been okay.
Both of us, both Harry and I,
met a person who was
bored with her life
as it currently was
and wanted something
more exciting.
Did she talk at all
about her first marriage?
I don't remember any of the detail,
except that it was very acrimonious
and exceedingly difficult,
and her great distress
over losing the kids.
Can you tell the story
of Mom's relationship
with your dad?
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,
and in every relationship,
I think one person loves
the other person more,
but, hopefully, it's close,
and, hopefully, it goes
up and down a little bit,
but it seems to me
you never can both equally love
each other the same amount.
It's unfortunate,
but it's just a fact of life.
George was the kind of guy
that Mom'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.
I think
my dad was really controlling,
and Mom wanted
to 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.
We all feel that way.
I feel that way
every garbage day.
Every time I have
to take out the garbage,
it's just like, "Oh, my God. "
It makes you realize
you're just marking time,
and it's just one
of those things that...
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 life buoy.
I think she made a choice to live.
I really, really do.
And 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.
From misbehavin",
I'm in the red
Hardly surprising,
I'll never be wed
Instead I'm misbehavin',
saving my revenue
Ultimately, George
got custody of the kids,
and that was unheard of
in the '60s,
and it was front-page news.
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 "ladylike. "
# Ramifications for massive nations
# Involve taxation
and then frustration
# What is an honest girl to do?
# I'm in a stew
# I walk the streets
to balance the sheets
# My books are neat
and on the beat again
# I'm misbehavin'
to pay my IOUs
I missed that line.
I remember all of a sudden
my mom not being around,
and I can remember
adults crying,
and I couldn't believe
adults would be crying.
Seeing my mom 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 mom.
I had no control.
We were never asked,
"cause had we been asked,
we would have said,
"We want to live with our mom. "
For sure, both of us would have.
At that age,
that's what you want.
We'd have visitation
with my mom once a month,
but we lived with my dad,
and there were
a couple of caregivers.
One of them was an older woman
who was physically abusive.
A successive step-mother
who abused us.
You can keep this in, too.
I don't care.
I remember when Mom
used to drive us home,
when she'd say good-bye
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,
and we'd have to say good-bye
and go into the house,
and it was like,
we didn't want to leave,
"cause we wanted to be with her.
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 that's the happy stuff, right?
You missed the happy stuff, but...
into that that you'd miss...
that she would
have found out ultimately
that she not only missed that,
but she wasn't there to pr...
She wasn't there
to protect them.
It's really bad being a parent.
Stupid.
'Cause you're really, you know...
You really, uh...
The thought
of your kid getting hurt
and you not being there
to protect them...
you know that's gonna happen,
but Mom must have thought,
"What did I do wrong
that led to this?"
So I think the impact
must have been terrible
and must have made her
sad all the time, right?
And maybe that's also what
I sort of pieced together in...
in 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, she was upset.
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.
I mean, we have
more than an affair to deal with.
We have a child.
And when you were born,
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
with Michael Polley and Diane,
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.
All of them.
The distance didn't help.
But on the other hand,
to some degree, it intensified it,
because 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,
"Anybody can speak,
"so if you want to speak,
you can speak. "
"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 good-byes 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?
- Think so, yeah.
- Was he there?
Yeah.
No, I didn't meet him there.
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, said to me,
"You see, Harry?
Her heart really belonged to Michael. "
So that sort of put pay 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,
but I found that very upsetting.
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.
Whenever Harry spoke of Diane,
from the beginning, he mentioned
that she had had a daughter
as a result of their affair,
so it was always in the background,
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.
He 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.
And then you went
back to Toronto,
and we began 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...
Having gotten to know you,
much of that has dissipated.
It's gone away, but...
But it just was really...
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 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.
Hilarious.
Making his way from communism
to commerce to culture,
Harry's many lives
sometimes feel
like the crossword 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 uppermost
in my consciousness, too.
The emotions are conflicting:
joy at 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
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 hurt,
why not leave things as they are?
Dad, can you take
that line back again?
Yeah.
To save all hurt,
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.
28 years of sitting on something
like that is a long time,
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?"
A long time coming.
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,
that is, if you're up for it.
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.
I went, "Yeah, we share DNA,
that's for sure. "
We express ourselves, I think,
in a really similar way.
We wave our arms around,
we giggle a lot,
and then we realized
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 entire 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 whether
I should be told is now raised.
It 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.
Oh, except that we all got divorced.
Forgot about that.
Whoops.
Except all three daughters
got divorced.
Yep. 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.
I suppose,
as much as anything,
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 Mom.
Did you get that?
I think that was it.
He was disappointed
and sort of surprised,
and I guess I wasn't.
I think the main thing that I felt
after hearing
the news about Harry
was my feeling critical of Mom
and thinking
how she didn't just have an affair.
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're closest to.
The complexity of lying about it,
and the stress that that would put
on your life is a bit terrifying.
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 a Wonderful Life.
Oh, no, it was the reverse,
wasn't it?
It's the middle of September,
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.
Sarah is on set shooting a scene
as a young Neanderthal woman.
I often have this dream.
Some prehistoric time.
I can hear you screaming.
I chase 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
that it's 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 cell phone
so that no one
on the set will 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 that
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 tear-stained 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 his bit,
and the moment he lets
his guard down,
old 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 at last able
to email me
that she was leaving Montreal
on Thursday the 24th,
and that she would like to come
round to my place for tea.
Thursday came,
and I cleaned off the table
and made a bit of an effort
to clean up my living space a little.
I even swatted my fly,
which is rare.
Flies are frequently
my companions in this loft.
They invariable arrive
only one at a time,
and I do my best to make
them feel comfortable.
I told you already that
I'm not a particularly sociable person.
There's not doubt
that I'm more at ease with flies,
or 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'll give you some idea
of the sacrifice I'd 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,
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 Dressler,
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,
obviously waiting for me to finish,
but I didn't think you had
anything important to say.
I thought we were
just gonna chat,
and 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,
"Oh, 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'd been joking about for years,
it's 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?"
And I said, "No, it doesn't make
any difference at all,
"not to you and I,
"in terms of our relationship.
"It's still exactly the same
as it was before. "
And then I remember
you came round the table
and put your arm
round 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.
That's the closest we've been
in quite a few years,
to put your arm
round me and say,
"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,
because 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 having to try to look
for what's
an interesting story outside.
I began to realize
what a remarkable story
she had 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
re-evaluation 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 ten 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
any time she felt me inadequate,
just so 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 seemed 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
and 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 that was
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 has 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 a somewhat parallel situation
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.
It got heavy because
we were sort of building
misunderstanding
on top of misunderstanding,
and we both proved to be
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.
"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...
Anyone who does anything
wants to bring it out to the public.
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,
and 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 form
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,
and I wouldn't even pretend at this point
to know how to tell it,
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 understands that.
He doesn't like it.
It's been made clear to him
that this story will be told
from the points of view of everyone
who is alive
who can talk about it,
and 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 going 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 giving equal weight
to everyone's version of the story?
I don't like it.
I think that takes us into...
into very woolly...
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 were
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,
and 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, that's rubbish. "
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?
Am I breaking the fourth wall here?
Turn the camera around.
What is it about?
I feel like
it's about a lot of things.
Memory, you said.
Memory and the way
we tell the stories of our lives.
I think in many ways it's like
trying to bring someone to life
through people's stories of them.
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, et cetera...
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,
and many of our stories,
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 Mom,
I think when we talk
about it as a family,
there seems to be this...
this kind of...
a lot of questions
about who was she.
You know, a lot of disagreement
about what kind
of a person she was,
and there's this misconception
that she was some thing,
and I guess that to me
is another misconception...
that there is a state of affairs
or a thing
that actually happened,
and we have to 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?"
You can certainly get
very close to it,
but you have to limit it to those
who are involved in the events...
directly involved and affected...
and the direct witnesses
to the events are only two,
and one is not around.
Diane's not here to talk to.
That's really the only person
who could provide
the essence, the essentials
of what took place.
So we went through
all of 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.
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.
Now, my recollections
may be faulty at times,
but I'm not gonna 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 I became crazy
about you in the same way.
When I heard the full details
of the affair
between Mom 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 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...
My dear Sarah,
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?
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, and... "
"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 before she goes...
"because it's very close
to the end. "
So 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?
Don't know.
Probably that I'd missed her...
that I would miss her,
that I loved her, and that...
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.
That's a dire line of questioning.
I tell you, 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, it's 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...
"Was I your father? Wasn't I?"
It becomes sort of
an unimportant part of the past,
for me, anyway.
I think it's much
more important for you.
For me,
it's just one of those things
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 had 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's 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 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's 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 am 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
and its 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 llford,
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 a way that makes it
very unlike
the stuff of history books.
Ah, 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
at 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,
hearing your name all the time,
and then finding Harry,
and then 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 have to, uh...
I'll have to tell you that
we did sleep together once.