Stevie

Theatrical Release Date: 2003 03 28 (USA - Limited)

UPC: 658149816824

Studio: Lions Gate

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:null

Summary: In the early '80s, Steve James was a student at Southern Illinois University who volunteered for the local Big Brother program and served as a mentor for Stephen Dale Fielding (Stevie for short), a troubled 11-year-old boy with unhappy family relationships. Given up by his mother when her husband decided he didn't want him in the house, Stevie was primarily raised by his step-grandmother and had already begun to reveal a stubborn and easily distracted personality when he met James. After he graduated from college, James lost contact with Fielding, but in 1995, after James had gone on to a career as a documentary filmmaker (and won acclaim for his film Hoop Dreams), he was reintroduced to Stevie, only to learn that his life had taken a number of wrong turns. After a number of scrapes with the law and on-going battles with his family, Fielding had been charged with molesting his eight-year-old cousin, and he'd opted for a trial (which could lead to a twenty year prison sentence) rather than receive counseling, due in part to his experiences in a mental hospital. James and his wife (who counsels sex offenders) wanted to offer Stevie whatever help they could, and James opted to make a film about him, hoping to discover where Stevie's life and gone wrong and how his tragic turn of fate could have been prevented. At the same time, James (like many others in Stevie's life) began to wonder what they could have done, and to what degree they let him down, with James torn between his feelings for his friend and his need to portray all sides honestly. Featuring interviews with Fielding, his family, and his friends, the documentary Stevie examines how society's safety net failed to catch one young man before it was too late. Stevie was shown in competition at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Category: Family & Personal

Awards: Excellence in Documentary Cinematography – Sundance Film Festival Excellence in Documentary Cinematography – Sundance Film Festival Excellence in Documentary Cinematography – Sundance Film Festival Best Documentary – Chicago Film Critics Association

Features: ccProduction commentary
Unused footage

Stevie

Format: DVD

Release Date: 09/09/2003

Audio: DD2 Dolby Digital Stereo

Runtime: 145 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Subtitles: English,Spanish

Chapters: Side #1 --
1. Opening Title [6:46]
2. Meeting Tanya [1:42]
3. Judy Talks to Stevie [3:19]
4. Stevie in Jail [8:06]
5. Asking for Bail [2:54]
6. Bernice and Wendy [8:25]
7. Foster Homes [10:14]
8. The Public Defender [4:33]
9. Fishin' [5:03]
10. Trying for a Baby [8:12]
11. Surgery for Brenda [9:26]
12. Stevie's Present [10:16]
13. Seeing Chicago [17:34]
14. Trouble Continues [4:15]
15. Stevie's Neighbors [5:00]
16. Saved by God [6:16]
17. Hal and Dorinda [8:33]
18. A New Job [2:23]
19. Little Brother [2:05]
20. Rattlesnake Hill [:47]
21. A New Face [6:02]
22. Sentencing [1:57]
23. Saying Goodbye [7:03]
24. End Credits [4:25]

Josh Ralske

Steve James' documentary Stevie is a discomfiting, but laudably honest film about an accused child molester and the filmmaker's efforts to understand the forces that shaped him. Painfully intimate, Stevie is as much about the filmmaker's responsibility toward the young man as it is about Stephen Fielding's life. But from the opening epigram from William Faulkner, it's increasingly questionable how much James' belated return to his subject's life can help Fielding. Much to his and the film's credit, James acknowledges his sense of futility, even questioning his own motives in bringing Fielding's story to the screen. Certainly, Stevie is a compelling story, about a type of person we never see treated seriously and compassionately in American movies. James' feelings of responsibility toward his subject offer us a way in -- a way of seeing past Fielding's seemingly hopeless present to the mistreated child he once was. The film reaches a nadir of despair as a "friend" of Fielding's, who claims to belong to the Aryan Brotherhood, tells Fielding and James about the horrific type of treatment Fielding can expect in prison if he's convicted of child molestation. But there are also very moving glimpses of hope and happiness in Fielding's life, from the surprisingly clear-eyed devotion of his girlfriend, Tonya Gregory, to the incredible patience and forgiveness of his sister, Brenda Hickam, and her husband, Doug. When James brings Fielding to meet with a couple who were once his foster parents, perhaps the only decent caretakers Fielding ever had in his life, their unconditional compassion sparks the troubled young man's regression to a relatively carefree state, and it's heartbreaking. James doesn't pretend to offer solutions to any of the problems his film addresses, but in offering a glimmer of hope for Fielding's soul, the filmmaker performs a useful and humane task. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Steve James  Actor 
Steve James  Director 
Steve James  Producer 
Gordon Quinn  Executive Producer 
Gordon Quinn  Producer 
Dirk Powell  Composer (Music Score) 
Adam Singer  Producer 
Robert May  Executive Producer 
Stephen Dale Fielding  Actor 
Verna Hagler  Actor 
Bernice Hagler  Actor 
Brenda Hickam  Actor 
Doug Hickam  Actor 
Tonya Gregory  Actor 

Country: USA