Na Captura dos Friedmans

After reading some of the comments here on IMDB, I was really intrigued about seeing Capturing the Friedmans. However, shortly into the film my training as a historian kicked in. Now, I am no film critic, nevertheless, I have studied documentary film making, and as a historian I must warn those that view this film that the documentarian's methodology is a bit sketchy. If you saw the film in the theater, then you missed the discussion sessions included in the special features of the DVD. Here it is revealed, by those involved in the investigation (judge, detectives, lawyers) that many important details were left out of the movie: the three other adults accused of sexual misconduct associated with the case, that Arnold confessed and gave police the names of the children he had abused so they could interview them, that Jesse went on Geraldo (against the advise of his lawyer - and a signed affidavit declaring as such) and confessed to the American public that he has been abused by Arnold, that the private investigator never contacted the Great Neck police and never reviewed first hand the evidence of the case - and much more stuff that when left out of the documentary skews the viewers perception of the case and creates a false context. This is irresponsible on the part of the documentarian - and altogether bad history.

Here is the big question: What was it about the case that made Jesse confess, and why was his mother pushing it so hard? The documentarian should have grappled with this. It would seem to me that a trail would have been in the best favor for Jesse - since a great deal of what he was accused of seems so unrealistic - given the lack of physical evidence. However, there must have been something else, something that the prosecution had that would have damaged the defense's case. This must have motivated Jesse's mother to push for the plea bargain - it must have saved time, money, and years on Jesse's sentence. But the documentarian gives us no glimpse into that, and take away aspects of the case, and is completely irresponsible as a documentarian.

Do I believe Jesse is guilty? Yes. In the footage of the Judge addressing a crowd during the Q&A at the Great Neck premiere of the video, she makes a pretty convincing case that Jesse's new claim to innocence is retrospective back peddling - and don't even get me started about David.

So, this is just a bit of what I think about Capturing the Friedmans. Let me know what you all think.

The common trend amongst modern documentary-makers seems to be to step back from the subject matter and let it speak for itself – no voiceovers or preaching – simply fly-on-the-wall stuff. Perhaps the perception is that investigative journalism is too intrusive a medium for the movies and better served on hard-hitting TV shows. But a story such as the Friedmans' needs some further digging despite the impressive raw materials. We have interviews with the major protagonists and oodles of camcorder footage but no incisive questioning or comment from the filmmakers and as compelling and interesting as this film is, the ultimate feeling is one of frustration.

The story of the Friedmans is murky and disturbing and needs poking around with a big stick before the truth can begin to emerge. The family is superficially ordinary: Jewish, middle-class and pillar-of-the-community. Patriarch Arnold is a well- respected and award-winning teacher; wife Elaine is typically supportive and subordinate and their three boys have a touching and incredibly close bond neatly recorded for posterity in hours of home-video footage. But all is not well in sunny suburbia. The police intercept a package intended for Arnold that contains a magazine of child pornography and dirty secrets and wild accusations are soon sullying the family name.

Former pupils come out of the woodwork and accuse Friedman of abusing them in the computer classes he ran out of his own home. His youngest son Jesse is also implicated. In all, over 200 separate charges of rape and child molestation are brought against the two despite no complaints being made by pupils at the time of the alleged assaults and not a shred of physical evidence. An intriguing tale, undoubtedly, but what makes this film unique among all the other tepid yarns about serious crime is that the Friedmans kept the camera rolling.

After Arnold and Jesse are bailed, the family closes ranks and plots their defence. It is fascinating stuff. Arnold retreats into a mumbling, guilt-ridden shell while the rest of the family is split asunder by Elaine's scepticism and despair and the boys' fierce defence of their father. Eldest son David is the most bitter. He is incredulous that such absurd charges have been brought against his father and brother and is determined to clear their names. His video diaries and monologues are insightful as are the family arguments he faithfully films. He emerges as the least stable of the lot of them: A confused, angry, indignant voice petulantly and blindly mitigating his father's flaws; devastated and helpless as his cherished family idyll crashes down around him.

I will not detail events of the trial suffice it to say that the outcome asks more questions than this film can answer. Arnold's history of sexually abusing his own children is hinted at but never fully broached despite long and otherwise candid interviews with both David and Jesse and Arnold's younger brother. All are steadfast and confident in Arnold and Jesse's innocence.

It is difficult to say whether the film sides with the Friedmans or not. Certainly it does not hold back in detailing the hideous crimes that are alleged: Prosecutors, frustrated defence lawyers and victims are all wheeled out but are not truly convincing in their condemnation of Arnold. He actually emerges as a meek, dignified martyr who, at his death, leaves a string of embittered, broken people still adamant that the whole affair was one hideous misunderstanding. This is not your standard paedophile. The true extent of his crimes may never be known and the footage of his loving family make the allegations against him all the more unpalatable and grisly.

As an interesting footnote, eldest Friedman son David (the wrathful, resentful brother) is also the premier children's entertainer in New York. While there is no suggestion he has any history of sexual crime himself, one would have thought his family name may be something of a hindrance in his line of work. But he is still clowning away merrily and the mud doesn't seem to have stuck – America is a strange place.

7/10

You really have to be open-minded watching this, because it deals with subject matter that's so easy for us to condemn without the will to examine. We have a man, Arnold, who is accused of child molestation after porn magazines are found in his possession. We have his son, Jesse, who is accused of being his accessory in the molestations. Jesse says that he was abused by his father at a young age and that he enjoyed the attention. Then Jesse says his lawyer made that up. A man slouched on a couch, inarticulate and seemingly placing himself in a sexual position while being interviewed for the film, gives testimony against the Friedmans that led to 35 criminal counts. Jesse claims he is innocent. Someone is lying.

This is rich, complex stuff, and the filmmaker doesn't put his own views into the film. He doesn't question the interviewees outright -- although he does "catch" one guy, and contrast different remembrances, some of which indict the Friedmans, others that wave away all accusations. The story gets told to us largely through Arnold's home videos, and so we're witness to the family's self-destruction. This is Shakespeare, and there's a shattering moment when Arnold's wife, Elaine, asks, "Where did this come from?"

The film is craftily put-together -- there's a shock left until the end, the kind of thing that calls into question what we've just seen -- and the filmmaker looks at the situation as a family drama, with the backdrop of the trial, where understandably furious parents try and attack Arnold ("You raped my son!"). But the film also has this sense of sleaze -- or, at least, the sense of something iffy: the sex is inherently "dirty" -- Arnold bought gay-related magazines, and the film has mentions of incest. There's a kind of public hysteria that exists, where people throw their hands up into the air when anything deviating from the sexual norm is mentioned, and refuse to even listen to an argument that suggests there might not actually be anything wrong. But I think it's important to stand back and analyze the situation before we make our decision about Arnold. He does, in fact, eventually admit to abusing one child, a son of a friend, so he is a molester; whether or not he abused the children that he taught and that is the subject of the documentary is another matter; my own feeling is that the evidence is pretty sketchy, and that he was made an example out of for possessing magazines. (And he does openly admit to having experimented sexually with his brother -- whose admission at the end of the film is revelatory -- and his lawyer says that Arnold expressed arousal at one young boy bouncing on his father's lap when the lawyer visited Arnold in jail.) It's my belief that there's nothing wrong with Arnold's pedophiliac desire and owning of child pornography. (Although obviously the purchasing of pornography fuels the industry which in turn exploits and abuses more children, but I'm talking specifically about his mental state.) If he didn't act on his desires, then he does not deserve to have his life and his family's life torn to shreds.

As the film goes on, it becomes clear that Arnold, this somewhat meek, nebbish figure, probably isn't the monster he's made out to be. One student made claims against him, we learn, to "get them off my back," meaning the investigators. That claim led to 16 criminal counts. Some of the charges against Arnold sound horrific, but are pretty unbelievable, like the idea he lined the children up naked in a leap frog position, and then proceeded to penetrate them one by one. (The simple mechanics of male-male intercourse don't make it that easy.) The police claimed that Arnold had stacks upon stacks of child (or, really, adolescent teen) pornography; yet his wife never managed to see them, and the photos of the house taken during the investigation show nothing. These are the reasons that prove Arnold's innocence, not the comments made, like the one by Jesse's friend, who says that he couldn't be a violent molester because he was so quiet in everyday life. (We all know how wrong-headed that idea is.) This is a terrific documentary; the investigation and the children's memories all swirling together, but what makes it so crushing is how it affects the family. The looks and the words and the shadows of doubt they cast on one another is far worse than any jail sentence. 9/10

Wow! This movie was nothing short of absolutely fascinating!!!!!! It really leaves you with more questions than answers. Just when you think you've got a little shred of truth, your theory gets blown out of the water.

I watched this movie alone, and I've been wanting to dissect it with somebody ever since. To me, the most sympathetic people in the movie were Jesse and the Mother. Yes, the mother was weak and she dealt with a lot of the issues by not dealing with them, but she was at least honest, and honesty was a very rare commodity in this family.

Also,I really tended to believe Jesse. I don't think that his father molested him, but I think that the father might have molested David (the clown). David was sooooo deep and heavy into denial - he completely villainized his mother and held his father accountable for as little as possible.

This movie leaves A lot of fertile ground for amateur psychologists...It is probably the most fascinating "case study" of a dysfunctional family that has ever been documented.

It kind of makes me wonder how must families would end up looking under such close scrutiny....

Knowing some of the parties involved in the actual case I was curious to see the film to see how they came across on the big screen. I was however reluctant to see it since the furor over who did what or who didn't or who's lying or not was clouding my perception of the film from the get go.

I let time pass and finally sat down to watch the film once I thought things had calmed down.

As a document of a family on the path to destruction I am floored by the film. This is a heart breaking exploration of how things are not what we think they are and how character flaws can and will wipe out the ones we love.(Although I think Character flaws is the wrong term)

A great deal of the later half of the film dances around whether Jesse, the son who pleaded guilty to the charges, was really guilty. Its here I found the film to be slightly flawed because to me the film wants to have it both ways, him guilty and innocent. I think the film makers should have picked aside, since what they have done here seems less than subjective and fair (to either side)

This is a tough film. If you can't handle frank sexual talk about child molestation then stay away. However, if you want to see an excellent film about a family in crisis then see this film.

9 out of 10.