Capturing the Friedmans

1 of my all-time favs. i would say i've thought a lot abt why it's particularly so compelling and yeah, the ambiguity, combined with so much damn footage of everything are really important imo.

the 1 minute of david's "video diary" near the very beginning is SO FUCKING AMAZING

i think in the commentary or somewhere jarecki talks abt the dinner footage i think from the night before the father is taking the plea being a 2 hr unbroken tape and that it basically was dramatic enough to be releaseable as a film itself

that dinner footage was off the chain.

I was on the edge of my seat for this entire movie. Even though it is just a clip show.

Finally saw this since the Sup Doc podcast got around to it on today's episode (haven't heard it yet, obv.) Boy that was a watch, to put it glibly. I found myself thinking more about how it reads in an era where the police are more suspect than ever, while new hysterias rise in turn, while still noting that central awfulness in the family's experiences themselves. I gather there were attempts by Jesse to clear his name up through 2015 but maybe nothing more since. (And Seth's -- I suppose continued? -- silence has a certain...I don't know if 'dignity' is a good word or not, it seems very wrong to say that.) But also I thought about how some of those lines about their intrafamily dynamics in general remind me of things I've heard from people I know well about their own upbringings, an experience I'm glad I don't have.

I haven't seen this in years, but what Madchen said above resonated with me-- I resented the film, resented everything about the experience, tbh. I remember chain-smoking a lot after I finished watching it.