Interview conducted by Josh Horowitz
February 4, 2004
I would make the case that the most dramatic, intense, thought-provoking and unexpected drama of the year is a documentary called CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS. It’s a heart-breaking portrait of the Friedmans of Great Neck, New York, a family that was torn about in the 1980s because of pedophilia allegations against both the family’s patriarch Arnold, and one of his sons, Jesse.
Directed by Moviefone founder Andrew Jarecki, CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS, began as a documentary about professional clowns in New York. However after famed clown Silly Billy, aka David Friedman, slowly revealed his family’s unusual background to Jarecki, the director was compelled to follow the story where it took him.
The film utilizes copious amounts of home movies from the Friedmans themselves in creating a tragic tale of a seemingly normal family torn apart by secrets, lies, and perhaps, the film insinuates, an overeager Great Neck police department.
The story of CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS continues past the end of the film. Convicted pedophile Jesse Friedman, who today is out of prison, has recently filed a motion to have his conviction overturned, based on much of the evidence uncovered in the making of the film.
I spoke to director Andrew Jarecki soon after he returned from Sundance on the day his film was announced as one of the Oscar nominees for Best Documentary and just as the new dvd of the film had been released.
Josh Horowitz: How was Sundance?
Andrew Jarecki: Compared to last year [when CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS was shown] it was totally relaxed. We had this clown movie [JUST A CLOWN] there that was fun. For people who enjoyed CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS, it was particularly interesting.
JH: It probably has more of a resonance than you even initially intended.
AJ: Yeah exactly. My editor has been calling it the insane companion piece to CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS. (LAUGHS)
JH: How was the thing at the 92nd street Y panel you did recently in New York?
AJ: It went really well. We had an amazing panel. It was gratifying to see the people in the audience had seen the film and that they had strong feelings
about it. They had Adam Cohen from the New York Times [on the panel]. He’s the youngest member of the editorial board and he’s really good on justice issues. Barry Scheck, Jeffrey Toobin, Linda Fairstein [were there]. She had an interesting perspective on the prosecutor side of things. It was just a great group.
JH: You’ve done so many of these Q&As. I know when I saw the film at the Angelica [theater] you were there for a post-film Q&A. I imagine this doesn’t get old because it’s something you’re very proud of. Has anything surprised you in the course of all these forums? Any new topics that come up or ones that always repeat?
AJ: I think you have your finger on it. If it’s a new group of people who have a contribution to make, it’s fascinating to me because, for instance at the 92nd Street Y event, I got to know Barry Scheck better than I had before and he agreed to read Jesse’s 440 motion. Because it’s a documentary and because the events it deals with continue, it hasn’t gotten old.
JH: It’s almost this living breathing thing.
AJ: Yeah. I have to say the Q&A period turned out to be valuable in another respect. We got a chance to hear about the issues and questions that people had after seeing the film and then because we were at that time deeply into cutting the dvd, it really became the springboard for the evolution of the dvd. So the DVD in a way is directly responsive to the kinds of things that moved people in the film.
JH: Can you give me an example of something that came as a response to what you were hearing?
AJ: The most obvious one is when we premiered the film in Great Neck and we had this one crazy night. The district attorney, Joe Onorato, called up and said “I want to RSVP for the screening” and we said, “will that be you and Mrs. Onorato?” And he said, “No no no, we’re all coming. Me, the judge, the postal
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inspector, all the detectives who interviewed the kids, Fran Galosa.” And it was the same night that the Friedmans were all coming. It was a really interesting moment at the end of the screening where everyone who had a vested interest in the film was present. Emotions were very high and so there really was a sort of altercation after this. We did it as a town meeting kind of thing and people got up and really went after each other. It was nearly uncivilized and once we knew that everybody was going to be there, we had to film it. So we cut it down to eight minutes and put it on the DVD. It’s really interesting. When you see the film, one of the questions that emerges is, how did the people in the film react to it? So now there’s a way for you after you watch the dvd to just click on it and see exactly how they responded. It’s unique to DVDs to be able to do something like that.
JH: Have you made an extended cut of the film? I know early on you had a five-plus-hour cut.
AJ: First of all, the cut that was in theaters really is the directors cut. It’s the movie that I set out to make. But at the same time for people who were intrigued by one aspect of the film, there’s a way to get into all of those subjects. The dvd is a very curated version of a lot of the material that would have been in a longer cut but combined with a lot of original stuff. There’s this whole second disc called CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS: Outside the Frame. It’s either things that weren’t in the original film because they didn’t fit or things that were made from scratch for the dvd. There are basically 32 short films ranging from a minute to ten minutes. We’ve reconstructed the Friedman house and living room so you can click on the coffee table or the photo album. If you click on David you get this film, JUST A CLOWN. If you click on Jesse you can get something called “Jesse’s First days Outside of Prison.” I gave David a video camera when Jesse was released and told him to just film the first week of what Jesse’s life was like. Just because I thought it would be fascinating to see what happens to a kid who is as articulate as Jesse and who’s gotten out of jail after 13 years. They go to the motel to meet up with Seth and David gives Jesse the card key to get into the room and he has no idea what that is. He gets a cells phone and he has no idea what to do with it. And it becomes quite sad when Jesse comes back to David’s apartment in New York and there really is no place for him and David doesn’t really have a bed for him. And David doesn’t really know what to do with his brother. It made a very interesting little segment. In the Jesse section, there’s something called “Jesse Looks Back” where we really sat with him and said, “what if things had been different? Do you look back and think, why did I plead guilty?” We decided we would work until we felt good about [the DVD].
JH: The film negotiates a fine line in not making a case for the Friedman’s guilt or innocence yet it seems clear to me in interviews that you believe Jesse was innocent of these crimes.
AJ: I feel like I never had anyone credibly tell me Jesse Friedman did anything bad to them. I thought that the role of the film was not to advocate for Jesse but rather to just put forward the material that might have been put forward had there been a trial and to let the audience get to whatever conclusions they would get to. It was an opportunity we sort of had uniquely to this film. I certainly feel like when I see a movie like BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, that’s an entertaining movie in almost every way but there’s no question that there are certain things expected of you when you watch that movie. The down side to a movie like that is that I’m not sure that, if there are 100 people and 51% are clearly supporting and maintaining the status quo on gun laws, that movie is not going to change the mind of anyone in the 51%.
JH: Because it’s preaching to the choir.
AJ: Yeah. It becomes a rallying point for the right thinking people but it doesn’t do the actual work of conversion. Now here I thought the mission, if there was a mission, was to take this enormously complex subject and allow it to be as complex as it was. And I also think this issue of guilt or innocence is overrated because there are so many interpretations and so many shadings to the story that really don’t have much to do with the whodunit aspect of it. To me, I’ve always seen this story as a classical tragedy. You have a tragic hero in Arnold Friedman who’s obviously a very good man in a lot of ways. He’s beloved. One of the things you’ll see on the dvds is a retirement party where a hundred of his students come back to Bayside High School to say goodbye to him. This is a year before he’s arrested. And it’s just heartbreaking. They absolutely love him. Of course a year later he’s going to be in a maximum security cell somewhere. So you have a very good man who clearly has a tragic flaw and maybe his tragic flaw isn’t his pedophilia, maybe his tragic flaw is his pride, the fact that he considers himself above the law. And ultimately he has his tragic error in judgment when he mails this piece of pornography to someone who turns out to be a postal inspector, which leads to the destruction of his family and also, the destruction of his youngest son. These issues, our responsibility to the people we bring into the world. I’m a father. I have two
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boys. What’s my obligation to them? We used to joke during the making of film that Arnold’s position was “I am being accused of the wrong felony” and yet what he does outside of all of the issues of what may or may not have happened to the kids in his class, what he does as the patriarch of a family is he commits a felony. And he knows it. He knows what he is doing by sending the pornography, that it is illegal. The role of Elaine as the mother of the family, did she protect her children appropriately? I can’t sit in judgment of Elaine Friedman. I can’t say that was a mistake.
JH: So how does it feel today, knowing you and Peter Jackson got similar news this morning?
AJ: (LAUGHS) Yeah, it’s a little different but I guess we spent similar amounts of time on our films.
JH: A lot of people have been talking about this film’s Oscar chances for a long time. Did you let the hype stress you out as this day approached?
AJ: I’m thinking as I mature here that I’m trying to not stress out over things I can’t control particularly because it’s a documentary and it has a real family at its center and real stakes. It’s gratifying because this is the kind of thing that can make a difference in getting Jesse’s case re-examined. Jesse’s motion is a classic kind of motion that the justices will overlook. With the film getting addition attention this way, it makes it harder for them to ignore the motion. Jesse is also always in this state where he can be sent back to prison anytime. He’s often right on the verge of that so this I think creates a little bit more of a safety zone for him which is good.
JH: Have you talked to Jesse today?
AJ: Yeah I called Jesse this morning when I found out. He’s very happy but you always have to keep in mind with him that he lives in such a different world than the one we live in. He has had to wear a monitoring device around his ankle and has to be in by 7pm at night. He’s got these incredible parole restrictions. He can’t go to the Oscars because he cant leave Manhattan. For Jesse it’s not so much about, “what are you going to wear on the big night” and more of, “are you going to end up back in a prison uniform?”
CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS is out on DVD.
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