For my Documentary Studies: True Lies contextual study I had to watch ‘Capturing the Friedman’s’ for a Presentation on Friday. This film is about a children sexual abuse case in the 1970’s of Arnold Friedman and his son on apparent children in his computer class. Both were convicted guilty but there was never any hard evidence but memory. My goodness, what a disturbing and questioning film to ever have watched.

One point that really has effected my opinion on the whole situation is that the documentary is based a lot around human memory e.g. the memory of the apparent abused victims, memory of the Friedman family and the memory of the police. This film has really got me in two minds. We have children stating they were abused AFTER the police had questioned Arnold for a shipment of a child pornography magazine being shipped. Arnold admits to being sexual aroused by 2 children BUT THEN there is also children from the computer class that said they saw nothing going on and this was complete nonsense. There is so many different equilibrium and disequilibriums it confuses me and leaves me so many questions.

The police say one thing about what happened, but the Friedman children and mother say another- I really like how this expository documentary doesn’t choose a side of who is and isn’t guilty but just states the history of what actually happened. I highly recommend anybody to watch this.