The Sins of the Father

tieman64

"Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so?" - William Blake.

Documentaries differ from films in that they engage with the world as the world exists in reality. Bill Nichols, an American historian and theoretician of documentary film, says that they do this in three ways. Firstly, they offer a depiction of the world as it actually exists or existed in real life. Secondly, they stand for or represent the interests of others. Thirdly, documentaries represent the world in the same way that a lawyer represents a client. They put forth a case based on facts, details and evidence.

That, according to Jean-Luc Godard, is all crap. According to Godard, when making a documentary you inevitably always end up making fiction. It is impossible for the director to avoid colouring the film with his or her own ideas and impressions. Likewise, when you work with fiction, it is inevitable that the film becomes part documentary, as events and actions from the world find their way into the film. Thus spake Godard.

"Capturing the Friedmans" is a documentary comprised of home video footage taken during a famous child abuse case in the 1980s. It records events dryly, but has been edited as a work of fiction would, omitting facts and revealing key details at specific points, all with the intent of manipulating its audience.

The plot: Arnold Friedman is a retired Professor who lives in the suburban town of Great Neck with his wife (Elaine) and 3 boys (Seth, David, Jessie). Arnold orders child pornography from a supplier in Denmark. The FBI intercept his mail and raid his home. They find stacks of child pornography hidden in his basement. Arnold's wife comes home and is shocked to find the police everywhere. "It's okay," Arnold tells his wife, "it's just a misunderstanding."

A police investigation begins, and pretty soon the town is in a state of hysteria. It turns out Arnold teaches an after-school computer class in his basement. Over 40 children are members, including Arnold's youngest son, Jesse.

The FBI begin to question the student's in Arnold's class. They force testimonies out of the kids and untruthfully paint Arnold as a child molester who sodomised each and every one of them. Arnold is convicted of abusing these children, though to this day there is no evidence to suggest that he did.

Looking through the extras on the DVD, it is clear that the filmmakers had enough material to make a stronger case for Arnold's innocence. The guy was railroaded. He didn't sodomise any of the kids. In the final film, however, the director chooses to maintain an air of ambiguity.

When people get together in large groups, facts are always stretched thin between them. Too many minds trying to figure out a common picture results in a distortion. Vague ideas get taken for granted as truth. A kind of herd instinct kicks in, where everyone follows everyone else. In Great Neck, this occurred. Arnold was a paedophile, so suddenly he just HAD to have abused all the children in his class. Pretty soon he was being tried for over 250 cases of abuse, and every family in the town was pushing their sons or daughters to confess to being molested. It was insane.

But the films works better as an intimate character piece than as a broad portrait of a community. We see, up close, Arnold's guilt ridden face. We watch as his sons, completely in denial, protectively stand by his side. And we observe his wife, bullied by her boys for siding against their father. It's all very sad.

What's even more sad are the details about Arnold's past. As a child Arnold lived with his mother and his brother in a small one room apartment. The family shared a bed and were very intimate. Arnold's mother would bring men over and have sex in front of her sons. When Arnold reached sexual maturity he was apparently confused and dysfunctional. He claims to have experimented sexually on his brother, but his brother denies this. There are also rumours that Arnold himself was molested by his father before the divorce of his parents. Without a father figure, and with this tortured past, both brothers seem to have grown up with a warped sense of sexuality. Arnold is sexually attracted to children, while his brother, as the documentary reveals at the end, is a homosexual.

These dysfunctions have now been passed on for a third generation. Arnold admits to molesting Jesse, though Jesse, like Arnold's brother, denies this. Arnold's son David is unmarried and is now a clown working in New York. He performs for children.

Nobody knows the causes of paedophilia. It's either due to genetic or psychosocial factors. Some think it's a kind of arrested emotional development. The paedophile is attracted to children because he has never matured psychologically. Others see it as a natural, genetic glitch, while some regard paedophilia as the result of a need to dominate a sexual partner. Since children are smaller and usually weaker than adults, they may be regarded as nonthreatening potential partners. This drive for domination is sometimes thought to explain why most paedophiles are males. But nobody knows. Yet.

9/10- Worth one viewing. Seeing Arnold's children in denial, and his wife struggling to cope with truths we sense she always knew, is all very heartbreaking. See my review of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" for a list of great documentaries.

score /10

tieman64 15 May 2008

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1874639/