Capturing the Friedmans
| Capturing the Friedmans | |
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| Directed by | Andrew Jarecki |
| Produced by | Andrew Jarecki Marc Smerling |
| Starring | Arnold Friedman Elaine Friedman David Friedman Jesse Friedman |
| Music by | Bill Harrington Andrea Morricone |
| Cinematography | Adolfo Doring |
| Edited by | Richard Hankin |
| Distributed by | Magnolia Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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107 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Capturing the Friedmans is a 2003 HBO documentary film directed by Andrew Jarecki. It focuses on the 1980s investigation of Arnold and Jesse Friedman for child molestation. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 2003.
Some of the Friedmans' victims and family members wrote to the Awards Committee protesting the nomination, their identities confirmed but protected by the judge who presided over the court case.
Jarecki initially was making a short film, Just a Clown, which he completed, about children's birthday party entertainers in New York, including the popular clown David Friedman ("Silly Billy"). During his research, Jarecki learned that David Friedman's brother, Jesse, and his father, Arnold, had pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse, and the family had an archive of home movies. Jarecki interviewed some of the children involved and ended up making a film focusing on the Friedmans.
The investigation into Arnold Friedman's life started after the U.S. Postal Service in 1987 intercepted a magazine of child pornography received from the Netherlands. In searching his Great Neck, New York home, investigators found a collection of child pornography. After learning that Friedman taught children computer classes from his home, local police began to suspect him of abusing his students.
During police interviews, some of the children Friedman taught reported experiencing bizarre sex games during their computer classes. Jarecki interviewed some of these children himself; some stated that they had been in the room with other children alleging abuse, and that nothing had happened. The film portrayed police investigative procedures as the genesis of a "witch-hunt" in the Friedmans' community. The charges assumed that the abuse had taken place with multiple children over an extended period of time, yet none of them ever told any of it to anyone, nor were they in distress when parents arrived to pick them up from the computer classes.
The Friedmans were allowed to stay at home in order to prepare for court, and took numerous home videos while Arnold Friedman (and, later, his son Jesse) awaited trial. The videos were not made with publishing in mind, but as a way to record what was happening in their lives. The movie shows much of this footage: family dinners, conversations, and arguments. Arnold's wife, Elaine, quickly decided that her husband was indeed guilty and advised him to confess and protect their son; she soon divorced him.
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