I admit to being ambivalent about Capturing the Friedmans.
On one hand the film does a fine job of validating the claim that documentary is more of an "experience" than an "object" (a topic we'll discuss this coming week). We are acutely aware that we are somehow active in piecing together the story. Moreover, we are aware of the film's very conscious (recognizable, not hidden) awareness that it too is putting this enigmatic puzzle together. We can recognize the choices the film has made in framing (the male on the couch) and in editing (intercutting between home video and contemporary footage). I don't mind a film's overt activeness in this manner (see any Errol Morris film, e.g.).
On the other hand (though I am sure there are more than two hands here), the film is frustrating in this very way. For instance, Debbie Nathan, the journalist who looks into false memory/sex abuse cases, is quite intentionally not given the space to develop a linear story. The film consciously stops her narrative telling and moves to another's view so often that it leaves me wanting to hear more from her (actually, she seems the only one able to tell the "whole" of the story). It's as if the film withholds information for its own "artistic/creative/power" benefit.
Thus, I admit I picked this film because of what it exposes about documentary film(-making), more than about what story it tells us.
This is Yonas Michael Wondwassen, responding for a blog about "Capturing the Friedmans".
ReplyDeleteI personally loved this documentary because it raised an array of different questions, most of which people would demand solid answers to, without entirely resolving all of them. The filmmaker gave the audience enough reason, through testimony from the accuser's and revelations of his troubled past, to believe that Arnold Friedman committed the crimes he was accused of, to some capacity. He also gave the audience reason to believe that the accusations were not necessarily substantial, with legal arguments raised by the lawyer and the indication of stretched truths as a result of mass hysteria. Though, on some level, it didn't actually matter.
The filmmaker started the documentary and built it as a back-and-forth between what was indeed "the truth." But, somewhere towards the latter portion of the film, it became less about the accusations and trials and more about the family being torn in the center of the chaos. He took such a controversial case, in the midst of a cold, brutal environment, and humanized the individuals behind the scrutiny.
“Capturing the Friedmans “, was a very frustrating documentary to watch. Within the whole two hours of the film there is a constant battle of whose truth to believe. The film maker makes no clear statement for the viewer of what the truth. At the end of the movie the viewer is still left to wonder if Arnold and his son Jesse were indeed guilty or innocent. One way that the truth seemed to be constantly manipulated by the director was with the cuts of one party for the Friedmans and then cutting to the party that were against them. This film as a whole presents facts in an attempt to tell both sides of the story. However, no one expect for the journalist, really seems to be making valid points. By the movie’s end I’m still left confused as to whether they were guilty or not.
ReplyDeleteNicole White
I felt as if the film was continually asking "what if" questions. What if the two were guilty? What if they were innocent? What if all the testimonies were made up? It presents evidence to support any theory that it itself proposes, but never goes so far into answering these questions. I agree that they did not give enough time to Debbie Nathan, a person with actual knowledge and expertise on the subject who could clarify or enlighten the viewer as to the legitimacy of the case. In place of her, there was all too much footage of Friedman's brother, explaining how the family was tearing apart; a fact that is easily discernable from the reels of home footage.
ReplyDeleteMartin Madert
Whether or not this film was effective in the way it presented the so-called truth of what happened, what I found to be the most significant aspect of "Capturing the Friedmans" was the way it allowed viewers to go into a very personal level with the main (social) actors, in particular the family. So I think the director did a fantastic job of getting the audience hooked onto the internal working of the family and because the Friedmans were so dysfunctional, the film became what it is. That said, one criticism which Dr Roberts mentioned can be explained, mainly the way the film "cuts off" the journalist who seemed to have more insight into what really went on - be it in the legal domaine or in the personal life victims and the accused family. Despite this criticism, I thought the film was very well balanced between internal dramatic narrative and external expert narrative (journalist).
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