“Capturing the Friedmans”
Slanted and biased

I remembered the story as it unfolded from the news many years ago. It is an interesting non-fiction, crime genre documentary. I was interested in this film. The director, Andrew Jarecki, uses the movie “Capturing the Friedmans” in a slanted and biased way to question Arnold and Jesse Friedmans innocent. I cannot go any further with out defining biased and slanted, biased is defined as ”unable or unwilling to form a fair or objective opinion about somebody or something”. And slanted in defined “to present something in a way that is biased toward a particular person, group, or viewpoint”. The tagline for the film is “Who do you believe?” This is the underlining issue throughout the movie. I feel the documentary covered both sides of the issue, but I still think it is a slanted/biased documentary.
He also gives the viewer little clues to deduce the verdict, just like the jury had to decipher the clues at hand. It had a smooth flow from each topical scene. The stocked film footage of trains, streets, and miscellaneous objects were also effective transitions. To have the Freidman family’s home videos was a priceless instrument that gave the movie a distinctive approach, which I had never seen before. I suspect if the director, Andrew Jarecki, did not have the private home video of the Friedman family, it really would have fallen into a non-fiction stylized documentary category of boring, according to some people’s belief. I wondered about the private home video footage that was not used. If any of it was convicting evidence. I guess I will never really know.
There was a deep social message on how the media can control the minds of America in this film. “Capturing the Friedmans” is a perfect example of how you can make two child abusers lovable and likeable most of the way through the movie. “The film is best approached as two separate works: an oddly riveting chronicle of one family’s devastating demise and, less successfully, an attempt to shed light on the validity of pedophile witch-hunts. The Friedman family’s once disturbing desire to record themselves at all times provides Jarecki with a treasure trove of archival footage, which he expertly combines with present-day interviews and TV news coverage from the time period” (Gonzalez). Which points out the editing is a big part of the movie. The mother never said her view except her belief on time, which was a deciding factor in my eyes. The wife knows her husband, ironically like in “Charade”. And considering that the Friedman family would have to give Andrew Jarecki permission to edit the home videos. That is what helps make the film have a voyeuristic approach. Taking a private reality of the family unit and making those personal moments of arguments and accusations public knowledge. There was a few moments in the film where I got the feeling that the camera was used to help with some insecurities with living with child abusers.
Another way Andrew could have shown Arnold and Jesse in a different light is two unique “ pioneers aware of the radical differences they are overcoming in their approach on” child abuse (Kracauer). That image of their persona is a perfect example of a re-scripted plot to a new documentary; it all depends on the edit.
Did the father, Arnold, and the youngest son, Jesse, systematically abuse the children in the computer class? The evidence they presented in the movie against the Friedman family is limited, but considering the Friedman’s were the customers of the documentary, they had the final say. Unlike in “The Thin Blue Line”, which has a lot of slanted opinions from everyone in the movie, the officials in “Capturing the Friedmans” were more so reporting just the basic facts than biased opinions. Granted, most of the direct interviewing process was with the family members in their living rooms. And, the family of the father and his son were not going to convict or lead the viewer to believe that they committed the seventy plus counts of child abuse.
One repeated issue was the raised question about the parents and police manipulating the children over and over throughout the investigation and trials. Did the police convince the children that the Friedmans had abused them? A few boys only answered this question in direct interviewing. I remember one of the children is for and the other child is against. The officials never really could prosecute the children’s stories. The officials just were aloud to read the statements and affidavits. I found this part of the documentary is very important to create a neutral side for the Friedmans case against the number abused children. But instead, lacked that balance of the documentary, made the Friedmans side more creditable in the truth than the many parents and children. This made it seem like they were an innocent family that has the city on a witch-hunt for blood. The director is leaning toward the Friedman’s side but I was happily surprised about the Judge and Law Enforcements to give their opinions later in the film. I felt it was all irrelevant by that time we as the viewer has already fallen in love with the Friedmans family. The children should have been in the stoplight more, literally but it was to one sided even if they could get voice-overs or special statements of the traumatic events like in the movie “The Thin Blue Line” by Errol Morris.
In the Slant magazine, Ed Gonzalez writes, “There’s an overwhelming sense here that the family’s near obsessive need to record themselves (sometimes in private but knowing full well that someone will see the tape) suggests a constant struggle to validate themselves via images. Jarecki avoids casting Elaine as the demon because he understands her betrayal—that she was forced to live with a man for 30 years who constantly thought of sleeping with little boys” (Gonzalez). Did Arnold Friedman really commit all the acts of sexual abuse? That is a question that was not answered in the movie even though Arnold pleaded guilty. We forget that he had the child pornography magazines. But the most important thing was the mother against her husband and own son. She was supportive in the fight but believed they did do it. The mother, Elaine, acts like she did not believe Arnold. “Elaine is openly despised for her disloyalty toward Arnold. David calls Elaine Friedman cold, humorless, and narcissistic. She might or might not be, but I am bound to say that I sympathized with her. She had spent her life with a man who kept the truth to himself, even when his family was going down” (Edelstein). To completely know your husband and son is her existence of being. And the look of disappointment on her face was completely visible toward her dysfunctional family.
The movie is thorough about Jesse Friedman’s life from a baby to today. I think it was disturbing that he did not get in front of the camera to tell the truth and to protect his name. He skirted around some important questions. If I was to have the chance to finally protect my name and innocents, I would have yelled, scream and fight to let everyone know my side. And the fact the Jesse was passive, calm and disassociated from the situation had a guilty facade. The questions like “what is he hiding?” or “Why did he never say I did not do the acts in question?” came up but never answered. And toward the end of the movie, Jesse’s final demise with the court hearing, filmed of him playing and joking around. I felt like if I were put in that situation, it would be a definite time to cry and reflect. This only gives me the impression of a disturbed psychological boy, distancing himself from reality and taking his punishment that he knows he deserves. “There is at least one moment in “Capturing the Friedmans” that was eating David Edelstein too. The morning of Jesse's sentencing, prosecutors watched from their windows as his brothers videotaped him outside the courthouse. They describe his clowning for David's camera as arrogant and mocking; it confirmed for them that he was indeed a depraved sociopath. But the tape—which we subsequently see—suggests the opposite exactly. It shows a young man in a hopeless situation, resigned to his fate yet acting out his rage and his fear in a kind of heartrending ballet” (Edelstein).
The direct cinema and cinema verite (film truth) is prevalent in this documentary film, but I think it is more of the new style of neo- verité. Neo-verité is described as “an idea, which combines the energy, freedom and commitment of the vérité revolution with a more personal essay form” (Wintonick). Cinema verité seeks any means possible to explore ideas of truth and is intrinsically an inward individual process gradually being revealed.
In conclusion, this movie is a slanted and biased documentary in my opinion. The family would not have convinced to release the home videos if the director, Andrew Jarecki, was going to bash Arnold or Jesse Friedman. And the Friedman family is persuasive to be on their side. We by the end, come to know and love the Friedman family. All their little quirks and clowning around were caught on tape. I feel that the director, Andrew Jarecki, wants us to be sympathetic towards Jesse and his family but to dislike his father, separating the same acts of crime like with the court trials. Andrew did something different, giving the movie closure and that I was not expecting. It was also a twist as rather to mourn and honor Arnold’s death. I felt the friends and family were happy and felt relieved to be rid of Arnold. By having everyone pass judgment on his soul and spit on his grave, proves that one man’s death can kill an entire race of people.

Bibliography

 

Callison, Candis, “Comparing Direct Cinema and Cinema Verité“, Documenting Culture November 14, 2000, pg 1 http://web.mit.edu/candis/www/callison_truth_cinema.htm

Edelstein, David. “His Father's Son The haunted men of Capturing the Friedmans” June 5, 2003. http://slate.msn.com/id/2084025

“Encarta® World English Dictionary” Microsoft Corporation, Bloomsbury Publishing, 1999

Gonzalez, Ed. “Capturing The Friedmans”, Slant magazine, 2003. http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=686

Haviland, David. “Capturing The Friedmans (15)”, Daily Info, Oxford, 3/31/04

Jarecki, Andrew. “Capturing the Friedmans” 2003

Kracauer, Siegfried. “Theory of Film”, Oxford University Press, 1960. Film Theory & Criticism 1 http://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/reviews/film/Friedmans.htm

Mooney, Chris. “Exonerating the Friedmans” Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal July 7, 2003. http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/friedmans/

Wintonick, Peter, “Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment” National Film Board, http://www.onf.ca/cinemaverite/english/index.html 8/13/04 1