{"id":5297,"date":"2012-07-24T13:03:56","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T17:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/?page_id=5297"},"modified":"2013-07-09T12:36:19","modified_gmt":"2013-07-09T16:36:19","slug":"eisen","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/journal\/past-issues\/issue-4\/eisen\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do I Look? Questioning the Control of Representation in Capturing the Friedmans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Eisen<\/a><\/h2>\n

(WR 100, Paper 3)
\nRead the instructor’s introduction<\/a>
\nDownload this essay<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the years, documentary film has grown from its early authoritative voice-of-God style to more complex and propagandistic forms such as direct address. While modern documentaries still contain directorial bias, the use of new styles and technologies has distributed power among more participants within the film and complicated viewers\u2019 perceptions of the subjects. In the notable documentary Capturing the Friedmans<\/em> (2003), director Andrew Jarecki combines intimate home video, news footage, and various interviews to share the story of a family\u2019s dissolution during and after an investigation of the father and youngest son for child molestation. Although the Friedmans allowed Jarecki to publicize their story and use their home video, critic Kenneth Turan questioned, \u201cEven if the Friedmans approved of their own exploitation, does that mean they were less taken advantage of?\u201d In addition to challenging Jarecki\u2019s ethics, Turan indirectly questions who was responsible for the way the Friedmans are represented in the film. While not yet collaborative, the relationship between director and subject initially seems somewhat cooperative in Capturing the Friedmans<\/em> due to its reliance on home video and interviews. However, while these documentary techniques offer the Friedmans limited power, the control is primarily illusory, and Jarecki assumes the majority of the responsibility for their representation. Despite the Friedmans\u2019 restricted control and Jarecki\u2019s ultimate manipulation of the family, the Friedmans still relay a more balanced, complex, and humanized view of themselves to the public through the home videos and interviews. Ultimately, though, the viewer is responsible for understanding the role the subjects play in their own representation in order to recognize their humanity and to fairly interpret them.<\/p>\n

In order to grasp the complexity of representation in Capturing the Friedmans<\/em>, the viewer must understand the background of home video and appreciate the camera operator\u2019s influence on the video. Beginning in the 1980s, the emergence of new technologies and ever-increasing access to video cameras led to extensive documentation of the nuclear family. According to Marsha and Devin Orgeron, \u201cThe nuclear family\u2019s most important recreation was itself. Home movies conscripted \u2018togetherness,\u2019 family harmony, children, and travel into a performance of familialism\u201d (49). Home videos promoted exhibitionism within families and complicated relationships by offering a \u201cmore critical way of capturing the family\u201d (50). With a video camera, family members could corroborate their claims and opinions of other members with visual evidence. As people obsessively filmed daily life, they developed \u201ca kind of neuroses\u201d and looked to documentation for more than mere diversion. Susan Sontag contends more shrewdly that filming has become \u201ca social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power\u201d (8). When people capture with a camera, they \u201ctake possession of space in which they are insecure\u201d (9) and often \u201c[encourage] whatever is going on to keep on happening\u201d (12). In this light, home video does not offer an idyllic image of domesticity, but instead promotes the preferred visions of the camera operator, revealing some of his or her personality traits and biases.<\/p>\n

Within Capturing the Friedmans<\/em>, home video reflects how David Friedman subjectively represents his family and struggles to resolve his inner turmoil. Around the time of his father\u2019s and brother\u2019s arrest, David bought a video camera and began to document his family\u2019s disintegration in the wake of the accusations, recording uncomfortably intimate and confrontational scenes in the home. As Marsha and Devin Orgeron claim,<\/p>\n

David\u2019s video acts effectively disturb the various parts of the familial unit, factionalizing the group and, perhaps as a consequence, the audience as well . . . Aggressive, confrontational, and propagandistic at the microscopic level, David\u2019s videography teases out familial chaos in search of an affirmation of his own beliefs. (53)<\/p>\n

In much of the home video, David portrays his mother as a disloyal traitor for not affirming her husband\u2019s innocence. In one notable scene, David sets up his camera from an over-the-shoulder angle and documents a family dinner in which David and Jesse argue with their mother, while their father sits passively and weakly attempts to calm his clan. Elaine is presented as an overdramatic martyr, crying, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you try once to be supportive of me?\u201d The boys wryly try to explain themselves, but Elaine persistently interrupts. In another home video, David argues that the police erred in the situation with Jesse and Arnold and blames his mother, declaring, \u201cShe\u2019s brainwashing [Arnold] into thinking it\u2019s [his] fault and it\u2019s not [his] fault.\u201d Through the video camera, David blames others for the accusations and further idealizes his father. In addition, David detaches himself from the horrific situation by altering his role from son to director, allowing him to impose his own theories through visual proof. Simultaneously, though, David instigates and preserves the troublesome memories by recording them, illustrating his conflicted coping strategy in the midst of the scandal. On the way to his younger brother\u2019s court date, David asks from behind the camera, \u201cYou never touched a kid?\u201d Jesse denies it, saying what David wants to hear. In response, David mutters satisfactorily, \u201cGood,\u201d convincing himself of his brother\u2019s innocence through the camera.<\/p>\n

Although David\u2019s dualistic role in the home video\u2014acting as both subject and director\u2014usually entails representing others, he becomes deeply vulnerable and undisguised in his bedroom video testimonials. Early in Capturing the Friedmans<\/em>, David sets a video camera on top of his dresser and records himself. He waves to the camera as if greeting an audience, but claims that the footage is \u201cprivate\u201d and is between \u201cme now and me of the future.\u201d David\u2019s expectation of an audience contradicts his declaration of privacy and makes his testimonial seem like direct address rather than self-address. Additionally, Jarecki needed David\u2019s consent to include this footage, further illustrating David\u2019s disingenuousness (Orgeron 52). Yet, in this light, his bedroom testimonials become a form of therapy for David, a way for him to divulge his anxieties to an unbiased listener. The camera provides him with the space for secure catharsis and seemingly empowers David by giving him complete control over his representation in these testimonials. Like much of his family, David is incredibly dramatic and cares about others\u2019 acceptance and understanding above all else, and seems to know that he will be humanized to future viewers through these video diaries. David cries in front of the camera and describes being \u201cso scared,\u201d inviting future viewers\u2019 sympathies, but also adds, \u201cmy mother could go to fucking hell.\u201d Thus, while not entirely sympathetic, David is humanized through his bedroom testimonials as a vulnerable victim of the scandal.<\/p>\n

Further complicating the picture of the Friedmans is Jarecki\u2019s use of interviews, which have traditionally allowed subjects to feel some control over their representation. According to Bill Nichols, the string-of-interviews approach arose as \u201ca strategic response to the recognition that neither can events speak for themselves nor can a single voice speak with ultimate authority.\u201d Unlike earlier forms of documentary, including voice-of-God propaganda and cin\u00e9ma v\u00e9rit\u00e9, \u201c[i]nterviews diffuse authority,\u201d in that they distribute power among various perspectives and let viewers come to their own conclusions of the ultimate truth (Pryluck 265). In addition, interviews give subjects the opportunity to speak about a past event, usually long after the event occurred. With this time, subjects can reflect on how they want to appear to audiences, a factor one must consider when weighing subjects\u2019 testimonials.<\/p>\n

Unlike the home videos manipulated by David Friedman\u2019s biased agenda, interviews in Capturing the Friedmans<\/em> offer a more balanced view of the subjects, as they are conducted over time, giving various historical perspectives of the events. While in home videos Elaine is depicted as an irritating self-victimizer, in interviews she comes across as a mother alienated by her male-dominated family merely attempting to find the truth behind the accusations. Though some viewers still perceive her as a nag in interviews and she remains a polarizing presence within the film, Elaine is at least humanized through interviews. Alex Gerbaz describes this process of humanization through interviews as a potential \u201cethical experience\u201d (19) in which viewers come to \u201crespect the conscious life of others\u201d (26). Interviews force viewers to confront the humanity before them and call for an understanding of the subject\u2019s depth, if not empathy for the subject\u2019s experiences. As her sons blame her for not supporting their father, Elaine claims to understand their experience, explaining that her sons\u2019 \u201cvisions [of their father were] distorted\u201d in this confusing situation and that she had experienced similar emotions as a child when her parents divorced. Whereas Elaine appears magnanimous in her interviews, David further pushes his single-minded belief in his, pronouncing, \u201cI never felt angry with my dad. My dad had nothing to do with this.\u201d Meanwhile, interviews allow Jesse to contest his lawyer\u2019s claim that Jesse admitted that his father molested him. To the Friedmans, interviews give them some control over how audiences see them, offering them a sense of justice, even if the viewers do not ultimately believe their version of the story. In this way, although interviews may inspire uncertainty, they allow subjects to demonstrate their humanity and depth to audiences.<\/p>\n

Yet it was Jarecki who was ultimately in control of the subjects\u2019 representation, inspiring charges of \u201cexploitation\u201d like Turan\u2019s. <\/strong>To remedy ethical questions and ensure no manipulation occurs during a documentary\u2019s production, Calvin Pryluck asserts that the filmmaking should be \u201ccollaborative\u201d between the filmmaker and subjects (26). Capturing the Friedmans<\/em>, however, was not collaborative, since the Friedmans were not consulted during the editing process. Jarecki organized their story subjectively, even as many critics deemed the resulting film impartial. Interviews gave the Friedmans the opportunity to represent themselves in a positive light, but the complexity of the documentary as a whole, with its agenda-driven home video, television news footage, and interviews of outside perspectives limited their power in favor of an open-ended story (the tagline for the film\u2014\u201cWho do you believe?\u201d\u2014promoted this inconclusiveness). While the Friedmans felt they were collaborating on the film and as much as they appreciated sharing their individual perspectives, Jarecki ultimately assumed the majority of the responsibility for how the Friedmans were represented.<\/p>\n

With this responsibility in Jarecki\u2019s hands, we must then question whether the Friedmans\u2019 consent was ethically granted, considering how unstable they were and how the documentary affected their lives. Prior to the making of Capturing the Friedmans<\/em>, public perception of the family was tarnished by the media\u2019s initial portrayal of the scandal. Arnold and Jesse were pigeonholed as child molesters, while the rest of the family was forever associated with the scandal. Thus, when Jarecki demonstrated significant interest in telling the family\u2019s story, the Friedmans believed they had a chance to change the way the rest of the world looked at them. Their belief that they could control public perception must have been an appealing reason to consent to participate. However, Pryluck argues that \u201cconsent is stacked in the filmmaker\u2019s favor\u201d, as the camera\u2019s presence is \u201csubtly coercive\u201d (22). These ideas of control and the camera\u2019s intimidation, coupled with the Friedmans\u2019 already performative roots (Arnold was a pianist, while David is a birthday clown) and familial self-obsession, made acquiring consent relatively easy. Once consent had been obtained, David Friedman recognized how the documentary could inevitably change his life when he said, \u201cJust the intimation of something like that [being a part of a family accused of molestation] can ruin someone\u2019s career.\u201d Middle brother Seth probably recognized the film\u2019s potential effects, since he excused himself from being interviewed in the film at all. Despite David\u2019s awareness of how the film would affect his life, he still allowed Jarecki to publicize his family\u2019s story. In Kenneth Turan\u2019s eyes, Jarecki was unethical for exploiting such a dysfunctional family, even if they gave him consent. Therefore, the grounds on which Jarecki obtained consent are a bit morally questionable and seem to validate Turan\u2019s claim that the Friedmans were manipulated.<\/p>\n

In spite of these ethical considerations, Capturing the Friedmans<\/em> still offered the Friedmans an opportunity to represent themselves and humanized the family, even if public perception wasn\u2019t necessarily drastically changed. Despite their limited control in telling their story, the Friedmans still manage to express a more complex understanding of their ordeal and how it affected each family member. Turan was probably correct to claim the family was taken advantage of, but he failed to recognize how important it was for them to share their story and demonstrate their humanity to the general public. Subjects like the Friedmans deserve the audience\u2019s awareness of the complexity of representation in documentaries. Ultimately, only by recognizing the layers of representation in documentaries can audiences formulate a fair and complete understanding of the situation and people projected on the screen.<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/h2>\n

Capturing the Friedmans<\/em>. Dir. Andrew Jarecki. Magnolia Pictures, 2003. DVD.<\/p>\n

Gerbaz, Alex. \u201cDirect Address, Ethical Imagination, and Errol Morris\u2019s Interrotron.\u201d Film-Philosophy<\/em> 12.2 (September 2008): 17\u201329. Web. 21 Oct. 2011.<\/p>\n

Nichols, Bill. \u201cThe Voice of Documentary.\u201d Movies and Methods II<\/em>. Ed. Bill Nichols. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1985. 260\u201366. Print.<\/p>\n

Orgeron, Marsha and Devin Orgeron. \u201cFamilial Pursuits, Editorial Acts: Documentaries after the Age of Home Video.\u201d The Velvet Light Trap<\/em>, Number 60 (2007): 47\u201353. Project Muse<\/em>. Web. 30 Nov. 2011.<\/p>\n

Pryluck, Calvin. \u201cUltimately We Are All Outsiders: The Ethics of Documentary Filming.\u201d Journal of the University Film Association<\/em> 28.1 (Winter 1976): 21\u201329. JSTOR<\/em>. Web. 26 Oct. 2011.<\/p>\n

Sontag, Susan. On Photography<\/em>. 1977. New York: Anchor, 1990. 8\u201317. Print.<\/p>\n

Turan, Kenneth. \u201cCameras on, judgments off\u201d LATimes.com. Los Angeles Times<\/em>, 13 June 2003: n.pag. Web. 13 Aug. 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Eisen (WR 100, Paper 3) Read the instructor’s introduction Download this essay Over the years, documentary film has grown from its early authoritative voice-of-God style to more complex and propagandistic forms such as direct address. While modern documentaries still contain directorial bias, the use of new styles and technologies has distributed power among more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4801,"featured_media":0,"parent":5258,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5297"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4801"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5297"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5645,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5297\/revisions\/5645"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}