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Capturing the Friedmans [DVD] [2004] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]
 
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Capturing the Friedmans [DVD] [2004] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

DVD ~ Arnold Friedman
4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Capturing the Friedmans [DVD] [2004] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]
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Product details

  • Actors: Arnold Friedman, Jesse Friedman, David Friedman, Elaine Friedman, Seth Friedman
  • Directors: Andrew Jarecki
  • Producers: Andrew Jarecki, Jaye Nydick, Jennifer Rogen, Marc Smerling, Peter Bove
  • Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Colour, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
  • Language English
  • Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
  • Region: Region 1 (US and Canada DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
  • Number of discs: 2
  • Classification: Unrated (US MPAA rating. See details.)
  • Studio: HBO Home Video
  • DVD Release Date: 27 Jan 2004
  • Run Time: 107 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B0000SXK0Y
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 49,608 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
A Sundance Grand Jury prize-winner and a true conversation starter, Capturing the Friedmans travels into one apparently ordinary Long Island family's heart of darkness. Arnold and Elaine Friedman had a normal life with their three sons until Arnold was arrested on multiple (and increasingly lurid) charges of child abuse. Because the Friedmans had documented their own lives with copious home movies, filmmaker Andrew Jarecki is able to sift through their material looking for clues. Yet what emerges is more surreal than fiction: the youngest Friedman son went to jail; the eldest became a birthday-party clown. In the end, we can't be sure whether Arnold Friedman is a monstrous child molester or the victim of railroading. The portrait of a disconnected family is deeply disturbing, either way, and this film is further proof that a documentary can be just as spellbinding as anything a great storyteller dreams up. --Robert Horton

On the DVD:Like the film itself, the bonus disc that accompanies Capturing the Friedmans asks a lot of questions, offers a few pertinent answers, and leaves a legacy of mystery in a case that many never be fully solved. What really happened in the basement of the Friedman home in Great Neck, New York? Is Jesse as guilty as his father in the notorious case of child molestation? Additional excerpts of the Friedmans' home movies only deepen the uncertainty we feel after viewing the film, and video footage from two early premiere screenings demonstrates that emotions will continue to run high as long as lingering doubts remain. The "altercation" at the New York premiere is actually rather benign, but only because filmmaker Andrew Jarecki kept the crowd under control before arguments could boil over; at the Great Neck premiere, the case's judge gets a chance to comment on facts that the film omitted while praising its overall veracity. Uncut footage of the prosecution's star witness makes it clear that the case was on shaky ground; even more than in the film proper, this witness (whose face is hidden in shadow) comes off as marginally credible at best, and at worst a vindictive liar, further suggesting serious weaknesses in the prosecution's case.

On a lighter note, "Just a Clown"--the film Jarecki was making when he discovered the true scope of the Friedman story--is a delightful portrait of New York party clowns and their reigning king, David Friedman, whose business thrives as he caters to wealthy Manhattanites. It's clear proof that Jarecki's a gifted documentarian. A featurette about Andrea Morricone (son of the great film composer Ennio Morricone) highlights his creation of the film's evocative score. Returning to the Friedman case, an interactive dossier of Friedman-related media delves deeper into the lives and personalities of this dysfunctional American family, and "Jesse's Life Today" examines the ex-convict's relatively upbeat recovery from 13 years in prison for a crime he allegedly didn't commit. For armchair detectives, an extensive menu of pertinent documents are provided as DVD-ROM content, the most fascinating being Arthur Friedman's confessional "My Story," a psychologist's assessment of alleged vic! tims, and a curiously revealing "Friedman family contract." Taken together, these and other documents add even more complexity to the film's compelling, Rashomon-like study of truth. --Jeff Shannon

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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A highly intelligent and well made documentary, 3 Feb 2005
This review is from: Capturing The Friedmans [2004] [DVD] (DVD)
I only rented the main feature through the Amazon rental scheme, so cannot comment on the extra features on Disc 2. Having said this, I wish that I had rented both discs as watching the film left me absolutely intrigued by the case and wanting to know more.
For the movie itself - it is an incredibly involving and at times shocking insight into how a seemingly ordinary family is torn apart by allegations of child abuse brought against the father and youngest son in the Friedman family. While the allegations themselves seem highly implausible, your certainty about this is always being undercut by potentially relevant evidence the other way. For example, the revelation that Arnold Friedman admitted to 2 incidents of instances where "he took liberties" with young boys when on summer vacation at his beach house, also the suggestion that he had a coercive relationship with his younger brother aged 8 when he was 11. While the brother himself denies this flatly, I am not sure that anyone would be brave enough to be filmed on a documentary - with his partner sat next to him all the while, although this is only suggested late in the movie when the camera fades out to a wider view as opposed to a talking head - admitting to this.
What was most fascinating was the footage filmed by one of the brothers in the time after Arnold had been arrested. The family pretty much divides along gender lines, with the boys vehemently denying that the allegations could be true with the mother saying that "she does not know." There is the whole issue of whether there was almost an unspoken compact between the father and the sons he had potentially abused versus the mother on the outside of this relationship. This comes into focus in the disputed version of events between Jesse and his lawyer when plea bargaining - the lawyer stating that Jesse admitted that his father had regularly abused him while he was growing up while Jesse states that the lawyer suggested he testify in this way to get a reduced sentence. Some of the denial from the oldest son, David, seemed so strident that I wondered whether this was part of a blocking mechanism.
What really made the film gripping was the absence of the main character (and one of the brothers) who the allegations were levelled against, Arnold Freeman. By the time the film was made, he had committed suicide, so the director could not ask him. Even while he was on film at home after the arrest had been made but before he was sentenced, he seems to have very little to say about what has happened while all around him are arguing and tearing strips out of each other. You could read this as the weary response of a beaten man. Alternatively, it could be the reaction of a man who knows he has done something wrong, though quite what we will never know. Interestingly, the one time in the film where he looks relaxed and happy with his family is the night before he received sentencing.
Arnold Freeman obviously was a paedophile, as the shocking testimony of one witness shows when he got excited by a 4 year while he was being visited in prison, but this doesn't necessarily mean that the charges against him were valid as many of the witnesses who testified against him appeared in the film to state that they were pretty much led by police and prosecutors to give the desired answers, especially the witness whose memories of abuse came from recovered memory therapy.
I do not know what the truth was after watching this film but I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who wants an intelligent, thought provoking and moving documentary. The interview with the film maker after the feature is also very worth watching. I will be watching the movie again before I send it back in the light of his comments.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing and Compelling, 4 Aug 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Capturing The Friedmans [2004] [DVD] (DVD)
Watching this documentary is an amazing and potentially exhausting experience. In summary, the film centres on a family (the Friedmans - father, mother, 3 sons) who live in Great Neck, Long Island. The father and one of the sons are accused of molesting students of a voluntary computer class which is run at the family home after school in the early 1980s.

Amazingly, the family, who have always used video cameras to document their lives, film themselves during the ensuing hysteria surrounding the allegations. The viewer is therefore privy to highly personal family arguments and video diaries.

As time passes the allegations against the accused become more and more outrageous, particularly as no physical evidence is ever found. The prosecution relies entirely on testimony from 'the victims' some of which is elicited only after they have undergone hypnosis.

The reaction of the community is predictably hysterical - rumour and death threats long before any real facts are known. NB: If you think this could only happen in America, remember the News of the World 'outing' of sex offenders some of which were no longer at the addresses published and the resultant violence against innocent people?

Perhaps the most clever aspect to the film is that just when the viewer thinks they have made up their mind as to the innocence or guilt of the accused, something else is revealed which questions your judgment.

Modern day interviews with the family, the victims and the police further adds to the confusion.

Without giving too much away I will only say that this is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen with the genuine family footage making it all the more compelling.

The DVD extras are also exrtemely worhwhile, especially the heated debate between the 'cast' in the theatre where they have just watched the premiere of the film. There are also updates on the family and developments since the film was released cinematically.

Trust no-one.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Even if u have seen the film you'll want this!, 15 Feb 2005
By Mr. Shumit Rehman "shumboom" (London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Capturing The Friedmans [2004] [DVD] (DVD)
I first saw this film on the DVD and was appalled,shocked,mesmerised etc. There are enough good reviews of this film out there. But it is the dvd extras that are fascinating, particularly a showing of the film with many of the actual people in the audience, eg social workers, police and one of the sons. If you want to know what happened after this film was made and shown then you have to get the DVD.
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 		 Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't believe the truth
To say this movie is 'thought-provoking' is perhaps putting it a bit lightly. "Capturing The Friedmans" should go down as one of the bravest and most honest films about the... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Mr. M. Bloomfield

5.0 out of 5 stars this is something else!
capturing the friedmans is a stunning documentary,without fear of exaggeration,that is exactly what it is. Read more
Published 21 months ago by sean paul mccann

5.0 out of 5 stars younger perspective
as a younger person i felt watching this for my current media studies a level work that this film is gripping and gives the audience the opportunity to make up their own mind. Read more
Published on 5 Jul 2007 by K. L. Saville

3.0 out of 5 stars Weird family, biased film
I saw this film without knowing the story of the Friedmans. During the film I went from believing they were innocent to thinking they were guilty and back and forward and so on. Read more
Published on 30 May 2007 by Maris Crane

3.0 out of 5 stars Strangely unpleasant
This strange documentary about a family torn apart by allegations of child abuse is a mixture of interviews and bizarrely honest home movies which gives the viewer an unsettling,... Read more
Published on 23 Feb 2006 by Neb

3.0 out of 5 stars Strange family!
This is a documentary, looking back at the Friedman mass child abuse case in the USA. I think the documentary is their to shed concerns over the conviction of father and son,... Read more
Published on 17 Oct 2005 by Ken Harrington

5.0 out of 5 stars Ambivalence
Let us first differentiate some things: as a documentary, CTFs is technically faultless and one shrewed piece of narrative. Read more
Published on 10 Aug 2004 by Petrides Antonis

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly a must see documentary
When teacher's dark side's revealed mass hysteria grips the small community and truth (who abused whom, when, how and whether) slips away. Read more
Published on 9 Aug 2004 by Stephen Newton

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