Around ten years ago, London-based German artist Melanie Manchot made a video art installation called Twelve, about 12 people in early recovery from long-term addiction. Her core character was Stephen Giddings, a young man of 26 years, severely depressed and suicidal and coming from a long line of addiction sufferers.
But when Manchot turned her lens on Stephen a remarkable thing would happen. He would transform from a dejected and passive aggressive character into somebody altogether funnier, and very charming. “It was like Jekyll and Hyde, [he would become] a totally different person who was empathetic, had endless amounts of memory, could act, could inhabit different personalities and had this huge chameleon presence in front of the camera,” the director underlines.
Stephen himself may have been self-deprecating about his talents during the making of the installation, but he nevertheless signed up for drama school when he realized how much the process of acting actually meant to him.
But fast forward two years to 2017 and a deep sense of resignation and self-criticism had once again set in. Lads from council estates in Kirby, a working class district of Liverpool, don’t belong in drama school, Stephen reckoned. He no longer believed in the possibility that he could ever “become an actor.” What’s more, he wasn’t a kid anymore, and he had to get on with the business of living.
That said, Stephen remained in contact with Manchot, eventually telling her of his decision to quit, but he also underlined how he would have loved to have one go at acting in a feature film, if only to fulfil a wild dream. At which point, the director resolved to write her debut feature about this man in whom she had confidence and belief both as a performer and as a subject. But her film would be made from an artist’s perspective, part documentary and part fiction, all the time addressing squarely the demons that have plagued Stephen all of his life, and populated by a cast of actors and artists who have also had to overcome, or are still battling, their own addictions.
STEPHEN tells two stories, that of the titular hero’s upbringing in Liverpool and his struggles with addiction, as well as a modern-day reworking of the story of Liverpool bank clerk Thomas Goudie who was imprisoned in 1901 having embezzled £170,000 (the equivalent of roughly £21 million today) to feed his own gambling addiction. At the beginning we (and Stephen) watch the b/w BFI archive footage of Goudie (shot by Mitchell & Kenyon) being arrested and led away by two plain clothed police officers.
Stephen auditions for, and eventually plays, the role of Goudie in what amounts to a film within a film, one that is, at times, as tense as any gangland thriller, and as emotionally impactful as any fictional work of social realism, whether in the vein of the Dardennes brothers or Ken Loach. Gradually the lives of Stephen and Goudie morph, their desperate stories further blending with the lived experiences of the production’s other performers, as expressed either in interview or artistically during the course of the film.
Before lockdown director Manchot and producer Elena Hill (AMI/Image Expanded, UK) reached out to the Addiction Recovery Services in Liverpool (with whom Manchot had previously worked on Twelve) as well as Fallen Angels, a Liverpool-based dance company headed up by a former heroin addict; and First Take, an impact-oriented production company working with minorities and people in recovery, aiming to give voice to subjects previously denied a platform.
A call for cast members resulted in 25 people showing up, all of whom had “brushed with addiction recovery and mental health.” Manchot describes the casting process as “self-selecting.” The four professional actors in the film were not part of this first call out, cast instead via an agent. “However, their casting process was also much more of a non-traditional one, a series of conversations to see who would ‘fit’ the project in terms of their personal experiences and passion for what we are trying to achieve,” says Manchot. “They were there for a good reason.”
“It was quite extraordinary. The shoot was probably the best three and a half weeks of my life,” the director continues. “And I think for most of the cast as well. I loved working on it so much. It was probably heightened by Covid because we had to postpone four times, but when we came to film last summer and we were all together on set for those three and a half weeks, it was electrifying. I know it sounds like such a stereotype and I’ve never made a feature film before, but everybody came together in this extraordinarily supportive way. It was of course an emotional rollercoaster at times, but incredibly supportive and very powerful.”
“I remember Stephen was nervous about taking this on this role, as he’s not even a professional actor,” Manchot adds. “The potential of this film sits on his shoulders and he was very apprehensive about embarking on it. But then a couple of days into rehearsals he just clicked with everybody. He is in every scene and he was there every day from beginning to end and it really circulated around him, and they all became such a strong and supportive family. A lot of laughter, a lot of joking – it is Liverpool after all. There was a lot of banter but also a hell of a lot of concentration.”
“We were working with people with very checkered backgrounds. We had a really tight schedule and a tiny budget and it was amazing,” she further underlines.
STEPHEN wasn’t developed at any of the core industry project or work-in-progress forums, so it is a new proposition for most programmers, sales personnel and distributors alike.
Manchot stresses her underlying impact mission to highlight the dilemma at the core of her work. “Gambling and gaming addictions are the fastest rising addictions both in this country and internationally. What’s dangerous about them is that they go unnoticed, because you’re not drunk on the street or having a needle hanging out of your arm. They increasingly affect young men and quite often lead to a lot of depression and suicide. It really is staggering how they are rising. Here [in the UK] the NHS has just opened the first underage gambling addiction facilities. That’s how bad it is. They recognize that it’s a real problem, that young people through honeypots and all sorts of strategies are getting lured into gambling at a very, very early age and get really hooked.
”And it’s not just a youth problem, she adds. “It can affect anyone, absolutely anyone, no matter what your background, your class, your age, where you come from, what kind of societies you mix within, economically or where you and your family is situated. It’s right across the board. Gambling addiction doesn’t choose who it wants to affect. It can affect everyone.” Manchot concludes.
