Capturing the Friedmans and Michelle Citron

One quote the struck me from Michelle Citron's work is when she states "We film Christmas dinner with family and friends, not the meal eaten alone; birthday parties, not the emergency room visits; baby's first step, not fighting with the adolescent; Vacation, not work; wedding parties, not divorce proceedings; births, not funerals. Through our selective filming, the 'sunny side of life' is preserved and the dark side of life is cast out. We record the noteworthy, the celebrated, the remarkable, and the extraordinary." (Page 19) All I could think about while reading this passage was the Friedman home movies. There were home movies shown in the beginning of the documentary that were typical home movies, birthdays and other happy times, the family clowning in front of the camera, the husband and wife happily posing together for posterity. These are the sorts of things people expect to see depicted in home movies, because why preserve the bad times? its the good times you want to remember. Thats why its so shocking when later in the documentary that familiar grainy film shows up and we see hysterical fighting, hatred, and sadness preserved for history. Instead of seeing a happy film of a family enjoying some good times as we expect, we see a family being torn apart at the seams



my first question upon seeing those Friedman films was, why would anyone film this? It seems like that year would be the one that the family would most like to forget. Its just the coincidence of a brothers fascination with recording video and a family tragedy coinciding. It creates a strange experience for the viewer. Already watching a home video of another family is strange, it almost feels intrusive, since home videos are usually made for the viewing of that particular family only, and they have a very specific meaning for that family, one that would not translate for a outside viewer. Also, an outsider watching these home videos, I think, changes the nature of the films from something personal and private to public. So on top of watching a medium that was never meant for your eyes, you are seeing an incredibly intimate family moment.
Michelle Citron talks about capturing happy moments, moments that people want to remember, birthdays, weddings, christmas, and here we have arguments, crying, agony. This provides a more intimate view of The Friedmans than if an outsider was filming them, or they were filmed with the intention of making them public. But since these home videos were films of family, by family, for their viewing we get a more intimate and open view of the family than we would otherwise.



The film really touched me, and I have to say i got a little emotional. When the more typical, innocent home movies were shown at the beginning of the film, they were incredibly similar to super 8 films of my own family. The Friedmans were a middle class Jewish family starting up during the 50s, and the father was a performer in The Catskills, playing in all the bungalow colonies and hotels in the area. My mothers jewish parents grew up in New York City, moving to Yonkers when they were first married, and then to Ellenville in the Catskills during the 50s. My mother was best friends with a girl who's father was a popular comedian in the area and she had different friends in the winter and in the summer due to the families who would stay in the bungalow colonies every summer. So seeing these family films that look so similar to my old family films, of a family with a similar background to my family, I felt like we could be related, or old family friends, or acquaintances that we would see at all the Bar Mitzvahs.



This is the trick of home films. All home films capture the same events, the same family antics, and so they all seem so RELATABLE. And that is why the later home films had such a strong effect, you already feel connected to the family and because of that, watching the family be torn apart in such a brutal way just feels like a punch in the gut.