Film, An Analysis Of Film Ambiguity

I truly believe that the filmmaker ambiguity was intentional because the filmmaker wanted his audience to come to their own conclusion that if Arnold and Jesse were guilty as charged. But the filmmaker made did it clear that Arnold was guilty to sexual abuse weather it was on the original charges or based of what Arnold had done in the past. The way he portrayed the Great Neck community as a wealthy community, united and that no crime ever happened there, of course, it would make you think that the Friedmans were a disgrace to their community because now they were outcast of what their community was about. The film left me frustrated because it was based on all hearsay and not on actual facts and also it did not show more information of

what actually happened in court. As a matter of fact, if they would of showed more of the court hearings it would of help me made more rational decision of what the police presented as evidence and how did the defense attorney defended his client. We as the audience only saw in the film the focus on the family discussions and less on factual facts. As a result, the frustration that the film left had me feeling bad for Jesse, because in my opinion I think he was innocent. But, he did created fear in the Great Neck community by filming who the Friedmans really were in the private of their home and outside. The filmmaker left a lot of unanswered questions to the audience. In addition, I think the title “Capturing the Friedmans” has nothing to do with what the film is really about in the film. The title states the Friedmans and in reality are only Jesse and Arnold and not the whole family. They did not capture them; the police made the people in the community think they really sexually abuse those children. Instead, the title should have been “How Jesse and Arnold Friedman were framed by police.”