When Andrew Jarecki’s Oscar-nominated documentary Capturing the Friedmans was released a decade ago, it was applauded for its evenhandedness, for the ambiguity of Jarecki’s approach, which seemed willing to leave open questions about the guilt of its primary subject, Great Neck computer teacher and convicted child molester Arnold Friedman. “The film is an instructive lesson about the elusiveness of facts,” wrote Roger Ebert. “Jarecki calls into question the behavior of the police, news media and the Great Neck community; yet he by no means flinches from spelling out that something sinister, decayed or worse was taking place in the Friedman household,” noted USA Today’s Mike Clark. But the film’s critics accused Jarecki of adopting that perspective as a pose, when his belief in his subject’s innocence was more cut and dried. Any questions about what the filmmaker thinks have been laid to rest in the years since Capturing the Friedmans’s release, as Jarecki and his team have worked to overturn the conviction of Jesse Friedman; they presented some of the evidence they’ve assembled on his behalf in New York City last night. … Read More