Capturing the Friedmans

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. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2003. Some of the Friedmans' alleged victims and family members wrote to the Awards Committee, protesting the nomination. Production Jarecki initially was making a short film, Just a Clown (which he later completed), about children's birthday party entertainers in New York City, 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. Synopsis The investigation into Arnold Friedman's life started in 1984, when the U.S. Postal Service intercepted a magazine of child pornography sent to him from the Netherlands. In 1987, investigators searched his home in Great Neck, New York, and found a collection of child pornography. Upon learning that Arnold taught computer classes for preteen boys in his home, authorities interviewed the students, some of whom alleged they had been subjected to physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Arnold and his youngest son, Jesse, a young adult who assisted Arnold with the classes. The two men were arrested and accused of committing hundreds of crimes, throwing the community into turmoil. They were eventually able to get out on bail and returned home to prepare for court, hanging their hopes for acquittal on the lack of physical evidence against them and reports of the coercive tactics and leading questions that had been used to question the students. Around this time, David, Arnold's eldest son, got a camcorder, and he recorded hours of home videos during this period. The videos were not made with the intention of showing them to the public, but the film incorporates some of this footage, which consists of family dinners, conversations, and arguments. While Arnold's three sons (Seth, the middle son, chose to not participate in the documentary) believed Arnold and Jesse were innocent, Elaine, Arnold's wife and the mother of the boys, was unsure of her husband's innocence, and she encouraged Arnold to confess, hoping that would somehow help Jesse's case.