2020. 3. 16. 14:22ㆍ카테고리 없음
Stevie Fielding in Steve James’ “Stevie.”© 2003 Lions GateShortly after director Steve James finished the award-winning basketball documentary “Hoop Dreams” in 1995, he renewed contact with Stephen Dale Fielding. The filmmaker had once been Stevie’s Big Brother, and he was curious how the shy, awkward youth had fared in life. The answer was a troubling one, sending James on a documentary endeavor that lasted more than four years. The result is “Stevie,” a powerful portrait of a troubled soul who winds up facing child molestation charges. Winner of the cinematography award at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, the feature-length film opens theatrically in New York and Los Angeles today and will be released nationwide through April and May by Lions Gate Films. In this interview, the director talked about the evolution of “Stevie,” his own role as a character in the film, and the challenges of having a personal relationship with his subject.indieWIRE: The final form of “Stevie” is quite different from your original idea. Can you describe that initial concept for the film?
- Stevie Documentary Update
- Steve James Documentary Stevie Update Adobe Flash
- Steve James Documentary Stevie Update Adobe Pro
Stevie Documentary Update
Steve James: When I set out, I imagined a fairly modest portrait study. I’d been looking back through some old journals and saw I’d written quite extensively about the experience of being a Big Brother. In the wake of “Hoop Dreams,” I headed down to southern Illinois for various functions and renewed contact with Stevie. In the course of talking to him on the phone, I thought it would be interesting to do a film about what happened to him in the intervening years.
Steve James Documentary Stevie Update Adobe Flash
When I went down there for the initial shooting, it was with this notion that it would be a portrait study of him using my journal entries to sketch in his past and the experience of being a Big Brother. I’d be asking, “Where is he now and what’s become of him?” And that was it! Believe it or not, I thought it would be a half-hour film.That’s how “Hoop Dreams” started, too — as a half-hour documentary on sidewalk basketball. I’m little guilty of underestimating things laughs. That’s one of the reasons we shot “Stevie” on super 16mm. Given its modesty and given the beauty of the area, I though it would be fun to shoot on film, since I’d studied film in college and had always wanted to shoot a documentary on film.But I wasn’t so sure after the initial shoot what kind of film I’d end up making. I naively thought that maybe Stevie would have gotten his life together, but I realized on that first trip he definitely did not.iW: You wound up changing your own role in the film, as well.James: Initially I didn’t intend to be in it.
We filmed my first interactions with Stevie because I knew people would be curious about me, since it was going to be this personal view of him. But I figured that would be the extent of my on-camera presence.I’m not a big fan of diary films. I’m surprised, frankly, that I made a film where I am so present. It just seemed like it was the most honest way to deal with the film. It’s a tricky thing, because some filmmakers are too ready to put themselves in films. I’m like, “I don’t really care about you; I’m more interested in your subject, so stay out of it!
Just make the film.” No doubt, some people are going to feel that way about “Stevie.” Others have said, “No, no, thank God you are a character, because otherwise I don’t know if I’d want to spend this much time with this subject.” A lot of people have very mixed feelings about him, but they also feel for him, and for them the film becomes a powerful and eye-opening experience. IW: You ask Stevie on-camera whether he feels like you’ve stabbed him in the back. In the end, does this film make you feel more guilty or proud?James: I think this film is going to hard for him to watch. So I do feel some guilt about having made the film.On the other hand, there are all kinds of arguments one can make — and I have made to myself and to others — about why we make documentary films and why we follow intimately people’s lives and expose their triumphs as well as their tragedies. There are all those arguments that say, “If we don’t give viewers a window into people’s lives — like the people in ‘Hoop Dreams’ or in ‘Stevie’ — a lot of folks out there will never understand what they go through or who they are and what needs to be changed.” There’s a very good and honest and real social purpose, not just dramatic purpose, to telling these stories. In a film like “Hoop Dreams,” I can take comfort in that.
Steve James Documentary Stevie Update Adobe Pro
In a film like “Stevie,” it’s harder to take as much comfort because of my history with him and where he ends up. For me, it’s the most complicated film I’ve made, and perhaps will ever make.