INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Capturing the Friedmans

Want to see a family disintegrate? The arrest happened on the day before Thanksgiving in 1987. Arnold Friedman, a mild-mannered science teacher in Great Neck, N.Y., was nabbed in a police sting for ordering kiddie porn from the Netherlands. When the authorities discovered that Arnold was also giving computer classes to youngsters in the family basement, they investigated further. In short order, Arnold and his youngest son, Jesse, were charged with a massive number of counts of child sexual abuse.

Documentary filmmaker Andrew Jarecki came to Capturing the Friedmans indirectly. While making a movie about children’s birthday party clowns in New York, he met David “Silly Billy” Friedman, the most successful of the city’s clowns. He was also one of the most bitter, which piqued Jarecki’s interest. He learned the history of David’s family, along with another startling fact. Back in 1987, David shot home movies of the entire ordeal, through the trial and beyond.

And so Capturing the Friedmans was born, with Jarecki interviewing all the Friedman family except for middle-son Seth, who passed on the project, along with police officers, prosecutors, the judge and several veterans of the computer classes. That footage is skillfully intermixed with the home movie footage and some TV news clips. The results are riveting.

Remember when we first became aware of the fundamentals of sex? Remember how scary it was? The notion of a grown-up forcing a child to deal with all of that prematurely seems unthinkable. Don’t look for any insights in the film. Jarecki doesn’t press Arnold or Jesse on why they did it, the discussions instead focus on whether or not they did it in the first place. Listen closely and try to sort it out.

You will hear a staggering number of contradictory statements. “I did it.” “We did it.” “I didn’t do it and I only confessed because they pressured me into it.” “I didn’t do it and I only confessed to save him!” You’ll hear from computer students who had no memory of being molested until they were hypnotized. You’ll hear police officers, prosecutors and the judge make statements that indicate their predisposition to a guilty plea, and statements that show a willingness to violate the rules in order to get one.

And you will see a family disintegrate. Watch mother Elaine wince as her husband and her boys crack wise. Witness the battles between husband and wife, between mother and sons. Listen to the screaming, the histrionics. And ask yourself: Why did they let young David film all of this? And why did almost the entire family agree to participate in this movie? David “Silly Billy” Friedman is a bitter clown.