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138 reviews in total

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134 out of 151 people found the following review useful:
The Friedmans Weren't Captured, They Submitted Entirely, 6 July 2003

Author: Ralph Michael Stein (riglltesobxs@mailinator.com) from New York, N.Y.

Documentaries that focus on the lives of their subjects are intrinsically voyeuristic. The documentarian must be objective while often prone to being seductively enmeshed in his/her subjects' views of their lives.

"Capturing the Friedmans" takes this reality to a much deeper and excruciatingly raw level. Long before Arnold Friedman, a deeply respected and retired high school teacher who moved on to teaching computer skills when PCs were rare, and one of his son's, Jesse, became defendants in a widely reported and still remembered pedophile case, filming and taping each other was a family staple. What starts as a not uncommon family avocation turns infinitely darker as several of the family members seem compelled to record disturbing intra-family encounters that both enthrall and repel.

Based on a U.S. Post Office investigation leading to a search of the Friedman's Great Neck, N.Y. home it is immediately clear that the pater familias at the least was a dedicated, devoted collector of sickening homosexual kiddie porn. On that charge at the least he was fully eligible for and deserved a long prison sentence.

But the initial investigation yielded verbal complaints by boys that they were sexually abused during the computer training sessions in the Friedman home by both Arnold and his son, Jesse. Also living in the house were his wife, Elaine, and two other boys, David and Seth.

The police investigation led to myriad charges lodged against both Arnold and Jesse and the legal proceedings drew national media attention (which I well remember).

No forensic evidence existed to link either Friedman to the crimes let alone establish that they had occurred. All the evidence, which was never tested in court, came from kids questioned by police and, apparently in many instances, the kids were seriously encouraged by outraged parents who, themselves, had no factual basis on which to proceed.

Both Friedmans eventually and separately pleaded guilty to reduced charges. Arnold went to prison and subsequently committed suicide, leaving Jesse $250,000 in insurance proceeds. Jesse, who maintains his innocence to this day, served thirteen years of a six to eighteen year sentence.

One son, Seth, refused to participate in this project. The other son, David, is a high society children's birthday party clown in New York City known as "Silly Billy." He worries in the film if his career will be affected. How could it not be, especially as he is the angriest speaker on the screen. And not the most rational either.

On many levels this is a deeply disturbing film. First, the family members who cooperated by giving film to the director and allowing very free-wheeling interviews reflect the reality of a hopelessly dysfunctional family, people who had deep troubles long before the postal police showed up with a search warrant. Elaine is alternately revealing and guarded but it's clear that her union with the popular Arnold was disturbed, emotionally, sexually and even in terms of practical matters like childrearing.

The family films show the deterioration of the sons' relationship with their mother whom they hotly blame for supposedly not standing behind their father. She is savagely abused verbally in scene after scene. Arnold remains a very passive, almost detached witness of his family's self-immolation as he and Jesse await possible trials and almost certain imprisonment. At one point Arnold appears to be nothing more than an onlooker as his sons tear into his wife who gives back a spirited defense.

The most sympathetic character is Arnold's brother who can not recall Arnold's admitted and hardly self-serving statement that he engaged in sex with him when they were little kids. The brother's anguish about the dissolution of the family is heartfelt and affecting. He truly is a victim.

Beyond all the family sturm und drang is the legal story and it's troubling. This case took place while accustations of child abuse in daycare facilities flew through the headlines. An expert debunker of many such cases is on screen to offer her views. She resolves nothing but plants a kernel of doubt as to the state's case. It is clear, however, that there were more than a few instances when the rule of law succumbed to a miasmic hysteria.

A greater injection of skepticism comes from the back-to-back explanations by two involved detectives as to how to question juveniles who might have been victimized by sexual predators. One has the right answer, the other a technique proven to lead to false accusations.

What followed the investigation was the loding of so many charges against each defendant as to constitute an extraordinary episode of overcharging. Overcharging - hitting a defendant with every conceivable charge and instance of its commission - is common. It gives police much credit for clearing cases and prosecutors leverage in getting a plea deal. In the case of the Friedmans the plethora of charges, as opposed to whether each or both committed heinous offenses, is simply unbelievable. As even the prosecutor admits, not one child was injured or crying when picked up by parents at the home/computer school yet some claimed to have been anally sodomized dozens of times. That's just not possible.

What "Capturing the Friedmans" shows is that when a defendant like Jesse recants after pleading to so many counts it's impossible to ever be sure whether the allocution required at the guilty plea hearing was genuine or, as Jesse later claims, the inevitable needed confession for the best deal he could get to avoid life in prison.

My view as an experienced lawyer is that both were guilty of SOME offenses against young boys. Jesse's protestations of innocence have the scent of the eternally unrepentant malefactor. But I can't prove it and neither could the documentarian. Arnold's starting point as a fervid consumer of kiddie porn magazines makes it easier to believe he graduated to the next step. But, again, whether a jury could have so concluded beyond a reasonable doubt is something we can never know. David's defense of his dad and brother is so emotional and projected with the weight of many repetitions over the years as to be worthless.

We will never know what actually happened. This glimpse into the lives of an affluent family whose home life was rocky before the accusations is haunting, troubling. It demands that we think about what we do in the vital and right but sometimes off-kilter attempts to protect the young and punish their violators.

9/10.

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90 out of 97 people found the following review useful:
An assault on our expectations of truth, 18 August 2003
Author: Howard Schumann from Vancouver, B.C.

In 1987, Great Neck, Long Island, a comfortable upper middle class town, was rocked when Arnold Friedman, a respected high school teacher and his 18-year old son, Jessie were arrested on charges of molestation, rape, and sodomy against young boys to whom they taught computer classes in their basement. The documentary Capturing the Friedmans is a dark and disturbing look at the Friedman family (Arnold, sons David, Jessie, Seth and their mother Elaine) that compels us to sift through the ambiguous evidence and determine for ourselves the question of their guilt or innocence. "It's a combination of different versions of different stories", says first-time director Andrew Jarecki, who assembled video footage filmed by eldest son David, news accounts, still photos, and his own original material, and turned it into one of the most powerful films of the year.

The documentary was conceived by Mr. Jarecki after working on a piece about "Silly Billy" (David Friedman), the number one birthday clown in New York City. He found David to be a sad clown underneath the happy face and began to probe deeper, ultimately discovering the arrest, court case, and David's obsessive home videos documenting the family's deterioration. The first glimpse we get is a video of the happy family having fun at the beach. We are soon jolted by the revelation that Arnold collects child pornography magazines. After being alerted by the postal authorities, the police search his house and find a printout of a list of students he taught computer literacy. Former students are tracked down and interviewed, and Arnold and his son Jessie are accused of committing hundreds of acts of sex with their students. Listening to the Police Department, one might conclude that they are guilty, but as the film progresses doubts are raised about the validity of this conclusion.

We are told that there was a complete lack of physical evidence, that witnesses may have been hypnotized, possibly coerced to give information and that some students denied anything ever took place. I began to question. If there was all of this going on, why didn't any child speak up or complain of a stomachache and refuse to go back? Why did they re-enroll for the advanced course? Everyone is convincing on camera but we are left scratching our heads wondering what is fantasy and what is truth. Both Arnold and Jessie maintain their innocence, although Arnold admits to being a pedophile and molesting two boys at the family's summer home as well as his younger brother Howard. Though Arnold received a life sentence and Jessie was released after serving 13 of his 18-year sentence, it is equally plausible that they were completely innocent, somewhat innocent, or completely guilty.

While dissecting the inner workings of the family, Jarecki looks into the nature of memory to such an extent that Capturing the Friedmans is an assault on our expectation of truth. We expect the case to unfold with a clear identification of the perpetrators and victims, that some revelation of intimacy will arise from home videos of the family's unguarded moments, but our desires are never fulfilled. We are tantalized, still seeking the missing piece to the puzzle. Though we may never know about Arnold's or Jessie's guilt or innocence, to me the family was a disaster waiting to happen, having bottled up inside of them years of anguish and guilt. At the end, I felt tremendous sadness that we do not always have the emotional strength to act in our own best interests, to admit our vulnerability to each other, or operate in a way that nurtures our capacity to love. For the Friedmans, the legacy of this failure is a stigmatized life and painful memories that will remain forever.

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77 out of 82 people found the following review useful:
gripping but frustrating documentary, 3 April 2004
Author: Roland E. Zwick (magneteach@aol.com) from United States

Just one of the many outstanding documentaries of 2003, `Capturing the Friedmans' is a riveting, depressing and ultimately quite frustrating account of a pedophile and the effect he has on his community and family.

In 1984, Arnold Friedman, a highly respected husband, parent and teacher living with his wife and three sons in an affluent suburb of northern Long Island, was arrested on more than a hundred charges of child molestation, purportedly committed while he and his youngest son, Jesse, were running a computer class (for boys only apparently) out of the family's home. Jesse, 18 at the time, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of sodomy as well. `Capturing the Friedmans' looks back not only at the trial and the circumstances surrounding it, but attempts to come to grips with how all of this affected each of the family members and the community at large. By combining present day interviews featuring several of the family members as well as some of the law enforcement officials involved in the case with glimpses of the family's life caught on film and videotape both before and after the arrest, director Andrew Jarecki creates a fascinating view of a family and a community torn asunder by crisis. We witness how each member of the family reacts to the situation. The older sons close ranks and remain faithful to their father while the mother attempts to distance herself from the crisis at hand. We see the denial and the enabling that are common in situations such as this one, as well as the way in which deep-seated and hitherto hidden feelings of anger and resentment can suddenly break forth and rise to the surface. Because the Friedmans' sons were obsessed with videotaping the events of their lives, the filmmakers had a plethora of highly revealing clips to choose from in weaving their grim but insightful tapestry.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of `Capturing the Friedmans' is that, even though the filmmakers acknowledge Arnold to be a pedophile, they obviously have grave doubts that the crimes for which he and his son were ultimately convicted ever really occurred. And, indeed, the scope, elaborateness and longevity of the alleged sexual abuse and the lack of prior reporting by any of the children who were the alleged victims do raise some troubling questions of credibility and plausibility in the viewer's mind. In fact, this whole case has eerie and disturbing echoes of the highly publicized McMartin Preschool trial, which was happening at roughly the same time. Even the people the filmmakers interview often contradict one another, leaving the audience not knowing who is telling the truth and who is lying – either deliberately or, perhaps, subconsciously. It is this air of inconclusiveness that accounts for the viewer's feeling of frustration at the end. Although the moviemakers' sympathies seem to lie more with the family than with the court, we can't help thinking that maybe no one is really telling the whole truth and that perhaps the reality, as is so often the case in life, lies somewhere in between.

If nothing else, `Capturing the Friedmans' serves as a reminder of just how messy and complicated an issue child molestation can be. With emotions running so high on both sides of the issue and the consequences so devastating for all the parties involved, the film at least shows that convictions in such cases must be pursued with the utmost rationality, rigor and care.

Whatever the truth in this case may be, the fact remains, though, that Arnold Friedman's actions led to the disintegration of a family and an undeniable human tragedy.

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52 out of 54 people found the following review useful:
Andrew Jarecki's `Capturing the Friedmans' is as real as hidden family dysfunction could be on film., 25 June 2003
Author: John DeSando (jdesando@columbus.rr.com) from Columbus, Ohio

Forget TV reality shows: Andrew Jarecki's `Capturing the Friedmans' is as real as hidden family dysfunction could be on film. Out of a seemingly-normal Great Neck, N.Y., middle-class family comes a tale too unique to be discounted: Honored teacher father and boyish son are charged with molesting young boys who attended dad's after-school computer class. It's known that dad reads child pornography, but the questionable molesting becomes a crisis fulcrum for the entire film.

`Friedman's' is unique for 2 reasons: 1. Better than almost all other documentaries, even `Paradise Lost,' it reveals the ambiguity and uncertainty in most litigation. 2. It uses copious home movies to reveal the major characters at play and rest without helping to determine guilt or innocence.

Jarecki, a co-founder of the Internet site, Moviefone, has admitted that after all the hours of interviews and miles of footage, he is not certain about the guilt of the father and son. Even the homemade family film, filled with slapstick and confession, is either so disingenuously crafted by another son to create the uncertainty or so naive as to be believable.

With that ambiguity, ironies abound: Award-winning teacher Arnold has a sleazy secret life centering around the very students he is guiding; Arnold's ex-wife is so remote from this male-dominated family that she may not have had a clue, yet her reunion with Jesse after his prison term is amazingly joyful and honest; son Jesse disclaims helping dad with the molestations yet confesses in the end, he says, because the law and the town are stacked against him.

Most fascinating to me, an amateur chronicler of my own family, is the Friedman's (and by inference, America's) obsession with documentation. The night before dad goes to prison is videotaped; the night before Jesse's incarceration, brother David records him in various poses, most of them loose and sometimes laced with self-deprecation.

Jesse is videotaped outside the courthouse the day of his confession dancing a jig and generally goofing. Is this nervous energy, an act to neutralize a fear of imprisonment or an egregious act meant to outrage the judge and jury? Ambiguity rules here.

David, the narrator brother, leads his life as Silly Billy, the most sought after birthday clown in new York. The irony is rich.

I don't know if I can ever believe what I see again. I do know I will more carefully watch every documentary from this day forward. This one unambiguously deserved the 2003 Sundance grand jury prize.

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20 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
Compelling and frustrating, 1 August 2004

Author: FilmOtaku (ssampon@hotmail.com) from Milwaukee, WI

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A few years ago, Andrew Jarecki set out making a documentary about children's party entertainers in New York. After spending a couple of weeks interviewing the city's number one birthday party clown, David Friedman, he realized that there was a more interesting story to tell, and pitched his original idea.

That story is Jarecki's painful and compelling documentary `Capturing the Friedmans', the story of a family that is torn apart by the family patriarch's (Arnold Friedman) penchant for child pornography who is caught receiving pornographic material in the mail. The ensuing investigation (or witch hunt, depending on your perspective) by the Nassau County police leads to two arrests (Arnold Friedman and his youngest son Jesse) for pedophilia, among many other things. The question posed is, based on the evidence presented, and the integrity of the investigation, are the subjects guilty?

The Friedman family are a fascinating study of the American family, and it is painful to watch them fall apart. Due to Arnold Friedman's fascination with film and video, there are an abundance of home movies shot by the family members themselves to assist Jarecki in showing us the `real' family; and what we see is not always pretty – especially once David, in an almost prophetic way, decides to document the family almost continuously after the arrests. In the footage other than the home videos, Jarecki provides us with thorough interviews with members of the investigative team, the judge who oversaw the charges, the family members and some of the alleged victims themselves. The further the investigation digs, the more precarious the evidence becomes, and the result is both frustrating and amazing; a documentary that doesn't give us all of the answers – mainly because the true answers may never be uncovered.

`Capturing the Friedmans' was an Oscar nominated documentary in a year that brought us several strong documentaries such as `Balseros' and `The Fog of War'. Andrew Jarecki provides us with enough food for thought to serve a seven course meal, and while the subject matter isn't pleasant, and is often depressing, it is a very compelling story and well presented film that makes the viewer look beyond the surface to achieve their own conclusion.

--Shelly

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24 out of 30 people found the following review useful:
Thought-provoking, sad, and compelling, 2 October 2004
Author: bondgirl6781 from Florida, USA

I rented Capturing the Friedmans out of curiosity. I have read about these child molestation cases made during the eighties in which many innocent people were sent to jail because of the incompetency and lack of experience the cops had in dealing with these cases. The documentary centers around the destruction of a family after Arnold Friedman (patriarch) and the youngest son, Jesse, are accused of committing horrible acts against children. Arnold Friedman as it turned out was into kiddie porn and he got busted and then led to a series of accusations made against him by his students. The documentary uses footages filmed by the Friedmans that captured all the events and reactions during the trial. It was like the film Happiness, but only real. Watching the film I saw glimpses under the surfaces of these seemingly "normal and happy" people. The eldest son, David, is angry and in denial of his father's homosexuality and pedophilia. Elaine Friedman is a woman who had lost all identity of herself and eventually begins to turn on David (who still resents his mother to this day), Seth (the middle son) refused to be interviewed for the documentary but he is shown in the features. What is fascinating and even laughable is how the cops who were handling the case were incompetent and they coerced the "victims" with the exception of one "victim" whose face and name are anonymous. I for one analyzed and found that while Arnold Friedman may have been the one that was guilty I felt sorry for him and yet angry. He knew that his own guilt and his own perversions were not only convicting him, but they were putting his family in danger and they were the ones in trial. I don't think that Jesse Friedman did anything nor was he abused by his father. I am sure that Arnold may have played out his fantasies in his head and possibly with one or two children, but I do not think he made any advances against or even harmed his sons. I felt that the real bad guys were the lawyers and the cops who investigated and coerced the testimonies of the children interviewed and the majority of the children who accused Arnold and Jesse Friedman later on recanted their testimonies and said that nothing happened and that they only said what they said to make the interviews stop. Hell, a parent even said that a police officer threatened his son into testifying against the Friedmans. If you are a psychology or criminology major than this is a great film to study.

It is also sad because we see a family being ripped apart by secrets that are convicting them and putting them before the public. Capturing The Friedmans is a fascinating character study and a devastating one to watch.

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28 out of 40 people found the following review useful:
9/10, 22 October 2004

Author: desperateliving from Canada

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

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19 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
The outline of Hysteria, 14 June 2003

Author: Joel Rosenbaum from Boston, MA

Outstanding documentary, which demonstrates how quickly life can fall apart for anyone. The center of attention, of course, is Arnold Friedman, a pedophile whose personal issues create a firestorm that destroys his own life, but more tragically, the lives of his children. There are so many facets to this documentary that it amazes me that they could all be captured in the film's running time. Several important issues are highlighted; front and center is the hysteria surrounding pedophilia that emerged in the late eighties. Amidst the background of the McMartin and "Little Rascals" trials and the culture of quack psychology (repressed memories, hypnotic suggestion) emerged the case of Arnold Friedman.

The most interesting aspect of this case was that Friedman was a pedophile - there is no doubt about that. The question is whether he was guilty of the crimes charged, more than 300 charges of child abuse. Furthermore, could his son and assistant, Jesse, also be guilty? The filmmaker does not force out any answers to that question, but the testimonies of his accusers and the incompetent buffoonery of the police involved in the case lead one to conclude that the answer is a resounding "No."

The crimes are only part of the story. The true story lies in the destruction of the Friedman family. Arnold, the eccentric intellectual and apparently loving father turns out to be feeble and a pedohpile, a man crippled by guilt. Elaine, the "loving wife and mother" who is frozen out by her family turns out to be a weaker human being than her husband, bowing under pressure to administer horrifying "advice" to her youngest son. The brothers, lead by the eldest, fight a losing battle to save their family. One of the most tragic and moving pictures I have seen in ages.

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20 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
Pro or Con: A brilliant look at a family imploding, 8 July 2004

Author: dbborroughs from Glen Cove, New York

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.

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11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Provocative, Compelling and Disturbing, 31 January 2004

Author: itsonelouder from Denver, CO

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Based on double DVD. Sort of a SPOILER, although there is no plot or ending to be "spoiled." Of interest here is the journey, not the destination. A "you decide" type of film.

In advance, it is helpful to know that this documentary originally was intended to be a light-hearted piece about professional birthday-party clowns in Manhattan, but the familial heavy baggage of one of its primary subjects, oldest son David Friedman, led to this darker and more compelling story of a family destroyed by human flaws and fate. The viewer can opine whether the cost to these individuals was appropriate and justified. And the viewer also can become emotionally invested in whether any redemption or restitution is still in the future for members of this family.

`Capturing the Friedmans' is a short synthesis of many hours of available documentation from multiple sources, reflecting snowballing events that occurred over months and years during the mid to late 1980s in Long Island, New York. In the shadow of the California `McMartin pre-school' alleged sexual abuse scandal, the somewhat unassuming and admired schoolteacher/musician Arnold Friedman was caught by postal examiners receiving and sending pedophilia pornography.

This aberration evolved during Arnie's childhood, was acted on to at least a limited degree twice in adulthood, and was a source of guilt and worry to him with respect to his own three sons. A subsequent zealous investigation resulted in Arnie and youngest son Jesse, 18, being accused of sexually abusing many young boys during home computer classes. Under conditions interpreted as nearly hopeless for the defense, both ultimately felt forced to plead guilty to hundreds of counts of abuse. Jesse was recently freed after serving 13 years of a 6-18 year sentence. After an insurance provision was satisfied wherein Jesse would be the beneficiary, Arnold committed suicide in 1995 during his 10-30 year prison term.

The film addresses perceptions of reality as related to association, persuasion, selective memory, exaggeration, groupthink, and mass hysteria. It is unforgettable* and provokes strong and contradictory opinions, an indication of the film's strength and balance and of its construction and editing. People will even argue passionately about the `true' meaning of the title without coming to agreement on which is `right.'

(* but what each person focuses on and remembers from the film is as variable as the memories of those involved in the original events!)

Apparently the first cut of the film was more than 5 hours in length, and presumably just a portion of such edited material is included on the companion DVD. Understandably, a limited number of principle parties were interested in participating in this documentary - whether anonymously or identified - with personal and professional credibility at stake and with the cushion of time upon which to reflect and reevaluate. Middle son Seth Friedman declined involvement.

Watching the film is a bit like sitting through an abbreviated version of trials that never occurred, with a few needed short breaks thrown in. But less like a courtroom, the film alternately weaves plaintiff and defendant evidence and testimony in a manner that keeps the viewer `jury' both alert and interested. We certainly are influenced by the filmmakers' decisions of what to include in the final edit and the order in which the material is presented, just as we would be with courtroom decisions over what evidence and testimony could even be introduced. We also see background material that we likely would never see in a courtroom setting.

I believe that the director pursued this documentary, a tangent of his original intended subject matter, without prejudice and that he did a good job of presenting a succinct and balanced perspective (a `Cliff's Notes' version of the story). Some of the evidence speaks for itself, and other things are more ambiguous. The demeanor and interview presentation of one anonymous alleged victim, from whom a significant number of the charges originated after his post-hypnotic `recollections,' was not staged to influence the viewer. One alleged victim's testimony would require that he had been molested approximately once every thirty minutes during all the time he spent in the Friedman home.

In an included Charlie Rose interview, the director admits that he felt as though all parties he interviewed had a personal `agenda' except perhaps for Jesse himself. We, the viewers, don't really know the significance or importance of material not included in the film and extra disk. Although the director does not admit a personal stand on the total `truth' in this story, he does express affection for the very imperfect family whom he got to know quite well over the 3-year project life. Auxiliary film footage after a Tribeca (NYC) premier showing of the film captures questions and discussion from an audience that included many of the principles interviewed in the documentary. Emotions still run high. Yours probably will, too. I hope the film wins an Oscar.

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