"capturing the friedmans" is a documentary about memory. it's about a perfectly normal neighborhood, great neck, long island, new york, where a seemingly normal family lives. it is the father, arnold friedman, whose misery, guilt, secrets, and pain will purge into the heart of the friedmans and tear them apart forever. this all occurred from 1980 to 1988, roughly, though tendencies and phantoms go back years earlier before there was elaine, jesse, david, or seth. arnold is a pedophile. together, him and his son jesse, then 19, would plead guilty to over 200 counts of sexual abuse and assault on children. unfortunately, because of the shaky and loose memories of a angst-fueled community, eager to pin the blame on a nebbish retired teacher, detectives, police, authorities, and the children, the victims themselves that only half of these charges may actually be true. but such a powerful documentary begs the question, what is true? what is true about the friedmans, and the character of their individual natures? So much of the circumstances surrounding the downfall of the friedman family rely on memory. I highly recommend this documentary.