CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS ***

I've seen "Capturing the Friedmans" three times now and I think it's a great piece of documentary film-making but I question my motives for watching it just as I question Andrew Jarecki's motivation in making it. The Friedmans were a fairly typical middle-class Jewish American family; father, mother, three sons, close-knit and living much the way so many families like this do but at the heart of this all-American family lay a dark secret. Father Arnold was a paedophile with a taste for young boys. At first, it seemed that this might just be a case of a man who liked to look at pictures of young boys in sexual situations until the police discovered that Arnold and his youngest son Jesse taught boys computer classes in their home and that during these classes sexual abuse of the boys might be taking place.

What distinguishes "Capturing the Friedmans" from other pieces of 'gutter' investigative journalism are the Friedmans themselves. As Jarecki's film shows they were far from typical. They were not just 'close' but almost pathologically narcissistic. They, and by 'they' I mean the father and the sons, (the mother was mostly left out), loved making home movies, being photographed, putting on shows. In other words, they liked to 'perform'.  There was, therefore, a lot of home-movie footage for Jarecki to draw on while the surviving Friedmans, (the oldest and youngest son, the mother, Arnold's brother) were more than happy to talk to Jarecki and 'perform' for him for the purposes of this film. Arnold was already dead and the middle son refused to be interviewed.

But why did Jarecki make it and why should we want to see it? Is this film 'in the public interest'? It's certainly prurient and the descriptions of what was alleged to have happened are certainly explicit but 'alleged' is the key word here. When Jarecki made his film the case had already been tried but maybe Jarecki felt the outcome wasn't entirely satisfactory. Could the Friedmans have been innocent of the charges brought against them and edited the way it is, "Capturing the Friedmans" becomes something of a real-life thriller; a private nightmare played out, seemingly willingly, in the public gaze. Yes, it's brilliant 'cinema' but deeply depressing. Ultimately it asks more questions than it answers and perhaps it says as much about us as it does about the Friedmans or Jarecki. I can't imagine anyone watching this without feeling a little sick and if we can watch it without being moved, shocked and upset then I think we really need to take a serious look at ourselves. See it and make up your own mind.