Capturing The Friedmans

I read a brief description of "Capturing the Friedmans" before I actually watched the film. The description of the film paired with the suggestive nature of the title led me to assume it would be a story where a sick and undoubtedly guilty man would be found out and rightfully persecuted for his crimes. What I experienced was vastly different than what I expected. The title is appropriate and to the point: the Friedmans are "captured." However, this hardly refers to their alleged crimes, because it is the chaos defining their struggle with the social and legal systems, and the wounds suffered by an already dysfunctional family which ultimately give the title meaning. By the end of the film, we still may not be sure whether or not Arnold and Jesse are guilty of the heinous crimes they are accused of. The only thing we can really be sure of is that we can't fully trust either side. In the end, we have so many people telling us exactly what took place, yet I was left with no idea who to believe. Andrew Jarecki examines the cases of Arnold and Jesse Friedman from all sides and, by skillfully straddling the line between perception and reality, is able to create a haunting commentary, not about their specific crimes, but rather about the evasive nature of facts.

The Friedmans live in Great Neck, Long Island, an affluent community where social status and its associative symbols reign supreme. Because of this, there is a an heir of competition between families over things like clothing, cars, children's achievements, and the idea that "everybody's kid is a genius." It is the sort of place where nobody could stand to have a black mark on their family name. Because of this, it makes sense that neighbors would be very quick to jump on a family scandal made public. A huge factor in "Capturing the Friedmans" is the role of hysteria associated with crimes of pedophilia in general. Because these are considered some of the worst offenses a person can commit, one might assume that if a person is accused by the police, ample investigation has taken place and the person is likely to be guilty of the crimes. Though by the end of the film, I was left unsure of Arnold and Jesse's guilt or innocence, it was clear that thorough investigation had not taken place before their convictions were made. Even though no forensic evidence was ever discovered to prove one way or another that the alleged molestation had taken place, the community was in an outrage. Arnold and Jesse received death threats, and parents of alleged victims almost seemed to want to believe the allegations because it was easier and more socially acceptable to believe the police than to follow an individual line of reasoning. One father of an alleged victim who is interviewed throughout "Capturing the Friedmans" describes the backlash he and his wife received from the community for concluding on their own that their son had never been molested. Neighbors and parents of Arnold's other students seemed outraged that they had strayed from their communal state-of-mind for fear that they were being foolish by believing the police account of things. Essentially it seemed as if they felt they were being called silly for not attempting to draw their own conclusions and recognizing the possible failings of the legal system.

Whether or not Arnold and Jesse are guilty of their crimes becomes less and less relevant as the film delves into the often unfair and seemingly even extralegal methods employed by the police leading the investigation, as well as the persecution of the two. After the discovery of Arnold's child pornography and his subsequent arrest, the police began to conduct a series of questionable interviews with the students from Arnold's computer class. Detective Francis Galasso and Detective Anthony Sgueglia alternately describe contrasting methods for interviewing the children. Galasso describes the better way to go about it, talking about how children want to please and give the right answer, so the interviewer must be very careful not to ask leading questions or make remarks with any sort of bias or emphasis on right or wrong. Sgueglia, on the other hand, describes a much more dangerous and faulty method, in which questions are phrased in ways like, "Arnold Friedman molested you, didn't he?" This would be followed by the insistence that the police knew that this had happened if the child said "no" or seemed uneasy about answering the questions. One of the greatest faults of this method is that it makes it very unclear whether the children's feelings of uneasiness are created by the trauma associated with being harmed, or by the stern, assumptive tone of the questioning. According to the film, this method of questioning has been known in many cases to provide false and unreliable information.

Even as we are unable to draw any concrete conclusions as to Arnold's or Jesse's guilt, we are flooded with information not just about the conviction and trials but also the inner workings of their family life. As viewers of "Capturing the Friedmans" we are afforded the privilege of reviewing the case not just from outside information, but also from direct interviews of family members as well as recordings of the daily life of the family during the time of the trial. One would think that with this plethora of information we might be able to conclude definitively for ourselves what actually took place. However, the goings-on of the family turn out to be just as confusing as the testimony of the police and really only serve to reveal a dysfunctional dynamic that likely existed long before any accusations were made.

By the End of "Capturing the Friedmans," I found myself just as confused as I was at the beginning. We can acknowledge that Arnold was certainly capable of committing the crimes he was convicted of, yet it also still seems possible that he was framed. Instead of a conviction of guilt or proof of innocence for Arnold and Jesse, I take away from this film a story of a broken family and an increased wariness of the very possible faults and failings of the legal system, the word of which many of us take for granted more often than we should. Andrew Jarecki does a brilliant job of turning focus from the nature and severity of the crimes to the disjointed and often ineffective methods of discovering the truth.