(Ed. Note: This was originally published at The Matthew’s House Project.)
2003 was a great year for documentaries. Winged Migration took us to soaring technological heights, and exposed the beautiful minutiae of a broad range of biomes and habitats. Capturing the Friedmans took us to the unexpected depths of a sad and egregious depravity. Spellbound turned what seemed to be an exceedingly dull annual contest into a dramatic nail-biter. And the political shocker Bus 174 probably should be on my top ten for that year, but I didn’t have the chance to see it until much later.
And then there were both Stevie and To Be and To Have, which still remain highly personal and affective experiences. Both films succeed in that they intentionally evoke two entirely different ways of life. Stevie is all about how we are affected by social abandonment and loss, To Be and To Have is all about how difficult and rewarding it is to create and maintain caring and nurturing environments.
Stevie takes us through several years of the life of a fully-grown abandoned child. The director, Steve James, goes back to Carbondale, IL, to find the “little brother” he was assigned to a decade ago in college. James hasn’t seen him for ten years, and he all he finds when he returns with his camera and a sound crew is years of abuse, abandonment, and now a serious criminal charge all wrapped up in a shell of obviously false bravado. After being charged with the molestation of an eight year old girl, we not only watch Stevie come to grips with who he really is, but we also watch those who do care for him coming to grips with who he is. The emotional cycles and profound characters that James unwittingly stumbles on in this story are difficult to write about, it us equallly difficult to envision them being captured professionally on film. Over the course of the documentary we find nothing less than James’ rekindled compassion for Stevie leaking into every frame, leading the story to scenes inexplicably pregnant with both redemption and resignation. Stevie is a terribly emotional experience that leads to its conclusion with the uncomfortable finality of judgment. One hopes that Steve James won’t be able to find material like this for his next documentary.