For a film featuring a clown, Capturing The Friedmans is far from the jolliest affair, yet this complex and compelling Oscar-nominated documentary has achieved far beyond generic expectation. In addition to taking the Grand Jury prize at Sundance, it’s being widely hailed as a masterpiece of Shakespearean intrigue – and rather shockingly, it’s actually making money at the box-office.

At the centre of the film is a controversial case beginning in 1987, when the police swooped upon an apparently respectable middle-class home in a Long Island suburb, following a tip off that Arnold Friedman, a computer teacher and father of three, was in possession of a child porn magazine. So it proved. Yet, the flurry of hysterical allegations that followed Arnold’s initial arrest are extremely difficult to swallow. As matters quickly descended into a full-scale witch-hunt, wild reports of ritual, orgiastic abuse perpetuated by Arnold and his younger son Jesse – then aged 18 – began to emerge. As described in the film, the competitive, suburban environment led to a bizarre scenario whereby pushy parents were trading boasts along the lines of ‘if your son was abused five times, mine was abused six’.
More disquieting still were the inept and unnecessarily aggressive judicial proceedings that followed. Despite claims from the investigating officer Frances Galasso that extreme care was taken, “because the one thing that you worry about is (that) just charging somebody with this kind of crime is enough to ruin their lives,” no physical proof for abuse was ever established by her efforts, and her use of evidence garnered from suggestible children under hypnosis is highly dubious.
Consider also that the alleged victims neither reported anything, nor quit Arnold’s computer classes where the abuse was said to take place.
However, this is more complicated than a straightforward travesty of justice. The film contains graphic accounts of abuse by one of Arnold and Jesse’s alleged victims – and before committing suicide in prison, Arnold Friedman did indeed admit to two earlier acts of sexual abuse against children. It should also be noted that while Jesse has since vehemently claimed that he was pressurized into his guilty plea, both he and his father pleaded guilty in court.
Capturing The Friedmans skilfully correlates this seemingly contradictory material, and examines the case’s impact on the Friedman family through news footage, interviews and son David Friedman’s extraordinary collection of home movies dating from around the trial that followed.
As director Andrew Jarecki has it, this is less a film about “the rail-roading of a paedophile, or the trial of Jesse Friedman” than a kind of negotiation with “the process of discovering truth. I want people to think, but I don’t want to tell them what to think. You know there was never a trial for this, so there’s a need for conflicting evidence.”
Well, mission accomplished. Amidst all the varying perspectives offered, not one of the film’s participants emerge as a reliable narrator of events, and their recollections all prove warped by denial and clouded wishful thinking.
For example, Friedman matriarch Elaine claims that her husband, Arnold “just liked pictures”, then unthinkingly recalls being shown some of her husband’s pornography with the words: “I didn’t see it. My eyes were in the right direction, but my brain saw nothing.”
“It’s even better than that,” offers Jarecki, a very affable man who keeps trying to foist pieces of Toblerone on me, “I brought Elaine and her new husband to watch the film before it was being premiered. And she sees herself saying that opening line – ‘Let’s face it, Arnie liked pictures’ and she turns around to me incredulously and says ‘I never said that!’ So she wanders out into the hall and sits on the floor, and goes ‘I think I’ll just listen to the movie.’ So I go out and coax her back, because I’ve spent three years on this film, and I want her to see it before the press do. A few minutes later she sees herself talking again, and turns around again and goes ‘I never said that either!’ She’s just so off the wall! But I don’t suppose anyone could deny her the right to be so after everything she’s been through.”
Jesse is reportedly closer to Elaine now than before the film, but it’s striking throughout how the family collective’s anger with their sinister father is almost entirely displaced onto their shrill, worry-prone mother. In one memorable and fairly traumatising scene, David in particular can be heard savaging her verbally for not showing his father enough support. He also describes his father as being ‘pussy-whipped’, a very unusual term to apply to one’s own mother.
“She’s definitely taken the fall,” says the director, “but it’s strange – Elaine is a very divisive character, and it tends to be along gender lines. Very often, if you’re walking behind a couple leaving the film and going out to their car and you happen to notice that they’re arguing – and I’ve attended a lot of screenings so I know this happens quite a bit – invariably, they’ll be fighting about Elaine. The husband will be talking about that awful woman, and the wife will turn around and say ‘Awful? Are you kidding? She was holding that family together’.”

Almost typically for this kind of documentary, the project came about more by accident than design. Jarecki, pursuing his childhood passion for magic tricks, set out to make a movie about clowns working the New York children’s party circuit.
The absolute king clown was Silly Billy, David Friedman’s alter-ego,” says Jarecki. “He worked mainly for celebrities and the Park Avenue set. But when I was interviewing him, he seemed very morose, and very angry, especially about his family.”
David’s reluctance to discuss his family and general ill-disposition led Jarecki to his initial discovery about David’s father and brother and dozens of sex offence charges years earlier. David’s subsequent involvement in Capturing The Friedmans can surely have done little to enhance his career as a children’s performer, can it?
“I know and that’s despite the fact that there is absolutely no question about David’s character and integrity. I’ve known this man for three years, and I can vouch for his integrity. But he works as a children’s clown, and with something like this, even the association is damaging. And he’s already a very defensive person, having seen how quickly the hysteria rose up on Long Island. It’s unfortunate but this certainly hasn’t helped his career. But I do think it has helped him as a person. Even during the film you can see how much in denial he is. It’s only now, after the film and all the various Q & A sessions that he’s attended, that’s he’s finally coming to accept that if his father had this great flaw, it’s still okay to miss him.”
Things have also improved for brother Jesse. He was recently released after spending 13 years in jail. The terms of his release are, however, extremely restrictive.
“He’s been made a Level three sex offender under Megan’s Law. This means he’s down as a violent sexual predator. He has to be home by seven o’clock. He’s electronically tagged. He cannot be anywhere near children. He can’t go near a toy-store, and he can’t live in a building where there are children. And you try finding a building in Manhattan with no children – it’s impossible.”
Has Jarecki ever felt under pressure to take a more active role in Jesse’s case?
“Yeah. Sometimes Jesse has said to me, why don’t you come out and just say definitively that you think I’m innocent. And that’s difficult. But for me it was important to bring the evidence to the audience and let them form their own opinion.”
Nonetheless, while the self-made multi-millionaire turned filmmaker hasn’t categorically stated his belief in Jesse’s innocence – lest “an agenda get in the way of the film” – it’s clear that there’s more than a keen legalistic sensibility underpinning his difficulties with the case. He may not say outright, but when asked if he would have any problem with Jesse being around his own children (Jarecki has two boys and a third child due soon), he responds cheerfully and emphatically – “Absolutely none. I’d have no difficulties with Jesse being around. I guess that tells its own story.”
Capturing The Friedmans may be Andrew Jarecki’s first feature, but he’s been far from idle before now. This Princeton graduate has previously worked as a musician (co-writing the theme song for TV series Felicity), and founded the on-line guide and ticketing service Moviefone. Quite clearly he wasn’t the kid smashing Porsches at the gates of his Ivy League college.
“No. I was never that guy,” he confirms. “I was never decadent. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. But I love arguing, and when you’re in business – as I was – you’re literally always embroiled in legal proceedings of some kind or another.”
Especially if the business is as successful as his Moviefone was. Back in 1999 he was able to sell this thriving business to AOL for $388 million. This begs the most perplexing question of all. Why isn’t he sitting on a beach somewhere in the Bahamas?
“Well, I’ve always had this dual personality. My father was a psychiatrist and a businessman, and my mother was a film reviewer for Time, so I have corresponding interests in commerce and art that I’ve needed to pursue. But wow, you’ve just given me a really great idea.”

REALITY BITES
Ten Classic documentaries of recent years

1. The Buena Vista Social Club (Wim Wenders, 1999) – Cultural tourism? Perhaps. But it's sure hard to argue with Ry Cooder's collection of elderly Cuban musicians or Ibrahim Ferrer's celestial voice.

2. When We Were Kings (Leon Gast, 1996) – A supreme account of the Rumble in the Jungle – the 1974 heavyweight championship between George Foreman and some has-been by the name of Mohammed Ali. A fascinating look at a time when Black Power meant just that. The contributions from Spike Lee, Norman Mailer and the late George Plimpton aren't bad either.

3. One Day In September (Kevin McDonald, 1999) – An engrossing Errol Morris inspired blend of archive footage and interview detailing the kidnap and massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

4. Biggie And Tupac (Nick Broomfield, 2000) – A typically amusing, self-involved venture from Mr. Broomfield but Suge Knight's whiff of sulphur is unbelievably compelling. Salacious in a good way.

5. Kurt And Courtney (Nick Broomfield, 1998) – Despite wild inaccuracies and a nasty agenda that even the most naifish 11 year old Nirvana fan could spot, there's no denying this flick's exploitational car-crash appeal. For shame.

6. The Filth And The Fury (Julien Temple, 2000) – Two of rock's finest raconteurs – Malcolm McLaren and John Lydon – ensure that this is a gripping response to The Great Rock n'Roll Swindle.

7. Dark Days (Marc Singer, 2000) – Groundbreaking documentary with unforgettable DJ Shadow score detailing the lives of the homeless who dwell beneath New York city. A deeply affecting real life Subterranean Homesick Blues.

8. Sex – The Annabel Chong Story (Gough Lewis, 1999) – Can a gang-bang be art? That's the premise of this disturbing documentary. Even dear old Lydia Lynch would think twice about fucking 251 men in one day for performance purposes.

9. The Year Of The Horse (Jim Jarmusch, 1997) – Presumably there are those who haven't darkened the door of a cinema since. Lucky for them Neil Young's neo-hippie musical Greendale is almost upon us. The kids will be queuing round the block, eh?

10. Aidan Walsh (Shimmy Marcus, 2000) – This inspired debut feature is a fond, moving, smart, funny account of the Dublin music scene's preeminent eccentric.

With thanks to the Irish Film Institute for figures