Capturing the Friedmans.....

[Dookus]

Just watched it last night with my bf.

For those who don't know, it's about a Long Island family, who in the late 80's, were destroyed by a child sex abuse scandal. The father, admittedly a pedophile, was charged with dozens of counts of horribly raping young boys who took computer classes from him. His 18 year old son, Jesse, was also charged.

A really, really sad story. The documentary itself leaves things very ambiguous, but the DVD special features show that a) the father, while definitely a pedophile, probably never committed the crimes he was charged with and b) his son had nothing whatsoever to do with the alleged crimes. The father died in prison, and the son served 13 years. But it was the decade of the sexual-abuse mass hysteria craze that swept this country.

Anybody else seen the movie and the DVD?

[BigMcLargehuge]

1. no, but I'll look around for the DVD

did you read the NYT magazine story last week about human trafficing and sexual slavery? Scary stuff.

[cosmicaug]

2. I've never seen it.

Dookus wrote:

Anybody else seen the movie and the DVD?

I've never seen it but I read a review of it once that was highly critical of the documentary's ambiguity. Here it is, I found it. It can be found at http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/friedmans/

[Dookus]

3. thanks for that review...

I just read it, and I agree with every word of it.

My whole perception of the story was very different from what I'd actually seen in the movie and it's additional material.

A VERY different movie could've been made - showing how the mass hysteria of the 80's contributed to the destruction of multiple lives. Instead, they (the filmmakers) really left you guessing as to the actual guilt of the people involved. And it turns out they probably weren't guilty at all.

What confuses the issue is that the father really WAS a pedophile. But he was almost surely innocent of the charges brought against him, and his son was almost definitely innocent. They both plead guilty in the hopes of getting a reduced sentence.

[girl gone mad]

4. Was nominated for an Oscar.

Documentary.

[carrowsboy]

5. bought it last night...

And plan on watching it today.

Dookus, have you also seen the HBO film from a few years back about the McMartin preschool?

[Dookus]

6. No, I didn't

but I'd like to. That's one of the biggest travesties in our history.

[RobinA]

7. I Watched It Last Night

but not the additional material, because I didn't have time. What's in there that convinced you?

I came away from the movie very up in the air. Clearly, the guy was a pedophile and it seems unlikely that he would have molested boys at the summer home, gotten aroused by the kid in the prison visiting room, but never touched the computer students. On the other hand, there was NO physical evidence he did anything with the students, the few that remembered anything seemed very unsure of what had happened (I'm not a big fan of recovered memory), and the tales they told (leapfrog) seemed ludicrous.

One thing I either missed or can't remember is, how did the police make the leap from child porn to molestation? What made them start questioning kids?

The feeling I got was that somebody somewhere was lying big time, but I didn't know who.

I also felt that the animosity the sons felt for the mother was interesting. Would not surprise me if they were Dad's victims as well.

[Dookus]

8. There's a lot of material on the second disc

that shows the police were really quite overzealous. Two of Jesse's friends were also arrested in this case, in an attempt to create a "sex ring" that was so popular in the public's mind at the time. There's also a section where a mother had recorded the police interviewing her son, and the cops were clearly leading him to the answers they wanted.

There's also more interviews with the "recovered memory" guy, and he comes across as just plain insane.

It's worth checking out. There's also DVD rom material I haven't looked at yet.