Zapruder film

Frame 150 from the Zapruder Film

The Zapruder film is a silent 8 mm color home movie of the presidential motorcade of John F. Kennedy through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, shot by a private citizen named Abraham Zapruder. The film is the most complete visual recording of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Background

Zapruder filmed the Presidential motorcade while being steadied by his receptionist, Marilyn Sitzman, standing on top of the most western of the two concrete pedestals that extend from the John Neely Bryan north pergola concrete structure overlooking Elm Street in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas at 12:30 pm Central Standard Time, November 22, 1963. The film depicts the assassination from the time that the presidential limousine had rounded the corner from Houston Street until it passed out of view under a railway overpass. Of greatest notoriety is the film's depiction of a fatal shot to President Kennedy's head when his limousine was almost exactly in front of and slightly below Zapruder's position.

Zapruder filmed the scene with a Model 414 PD Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series Camera that operated via a spring-wound mechanism. The FBI later tested Zapruder's camera and found that it filmed an average of 18.3 frames per second. The entire film sequence depicting events in Dealey Plaza consists of 486 frames, or 26.6 seconds. The presidential limousine can be seen in 343 of the frames, or 18.7 seconds. The film is recorded on Kodak Kodachrome II 8 mm movie safety film (double 8mm, 16mm width).

The film has been examined by the Warren Commission and all subsequent investigations into the assassination. The Zapruder frames used by the Warren Commission were published in black and white as Commission Exhibit 885 in volume XVIII of the Hearings and Exhibits. Frames of the film have also been published in several magazines, and the film was featured in several movies. Copies of the complete film are available on the Internet.

In 1994, the Zapruder film footage was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for permanent preservation in the National Film Registry.

Other films of the assassination

Zapruder's film is the most complete movie of the assassination, as it depicts a relatively clear view of the motorcade from a somewhat elevated position. No extant film shows clearly the critical portion of the infamous "grassy knoll" from which many claim shots were fired, and none depict better detail of the presidential limousine than the Zapruder film. However, it is not the only film depicting the presidential limousine on Elm Street. There are films and still photographs taken by at least 32 photographers in Dealey Plaza at or around the time of the shooting, including: F. Mark Bell, Charles Bronson (not the actor with the same name), Malcolm Couch, Elsie Dorman, Robert J. E. Hughes, John Martin, Charles Mentesana, Marie Muchmore, Orville Nix, Patsy Paschall, and Tina Towner, along with an unidentified "Babushka lady." The films by Orville Nix, Marie Muchmore, and Charles Bronson depict the fatal head shot seen in the Zapruder film, and the films of Bronson and Hughes show the open sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository.

On February 19, 2007, a film shot by George Jefferies was released. This color 8mm film, taken on Main Street in Dallas approximately 90 seconds before the shooting, has the best view of Jackie Kennedy in the motorcade and the positions of the Secret Service agents before the shooting, and also clearly shows that President Kennedy's suit coat was bunched up around the neckline. This fact would seem to repudiate theories identifying the mismatch between the wound in the President's back and the holes in his suit and shirt as evidence that more than three shots were fired.

History

Three copies of the Zapruder film were made on the afternoon of November 22. Zapruder retained the original and one copy, and gave the other two copies to the Dallas office of the Secret Service for their investigation. Within three days, Life magazine (owned by Time Inc.) purchased the original film and all rights to it for $150,000 (equivalent to $916,000 in 2006), payable in six annual payments of $25,000. Zapruder donated the initial payment of $25,000 to the widow and children of murdered Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit.

The November 29, 1963 issue of Life published about 30 frames of the Zapruder film in black and white. Frames were also published in color in the December 7, 1963 special "John F. Kennedy Memorial Edition", and in issues dated October 2, 1964 (a special article on the film and the Warren Commission report), November 25, 1966, and November 24, 1967.

In October 1964, the U.S. Government Printing Office released 26 volumes of testimony and evidence compiled by the Warren Commission. Volume 18 of the Commission's Hearings reproduced 158 frames of the Zapruder film in black and white. However, frames 208–211 were missing, and a splice was visible in frames 207 and 212. In early 1967, Life released a statement that four frames of the camera original had been accidentally destroyed, and the adjacent frames damaged, by Life photo lab technicians. Life released the missing frames from the first-generation copy it had received from Zapruder with the original. (Frames 155–157 and 341 were also damaged in the camera original, but are present in the first-generation copies.)

In 1966, Josiah Thompson, while working for Life, tried to negotiate with Life for the rights to print important individual frames in his book, Six Seconds in Dallas. Life refused to approve the use of any of the frames, even after Thompson offered to give all profits from the book sales to Life. When Thompson's book was published in 1967, it included very detailed charcoal drawings of important individual frames, plus photo reproductions of the four missing frames. Time Inc. filed a lawsuit against Thompson and his publishing company for copyright infringement. A U.S. District Court ruled in 1968 that the Time Inc. copyright of the Zapruder film had not been violated by invoking the doctrine of fair use. The court held that "there is a public interest in having the fullest information available on the murder of President Kennedy. Thompson did serious work on the subject and has a theory entitled to public consideration … [I]t has been found that the copying by defendants was fair and reasonable."

In 1968, Life magazine hired a New Jersey film lab, Technical Animations, to make a 35mm film copy of the original Zapruder film. The lab made several copies, giving the best to Life and retaining the rejects. Over the next six years, Technical Animations employee Robert Groden used one copy and an optical printer to make versions of the Zapruder film using close-ups and minimizing the camera's shakiness.

Prior to the 1969 trial of New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw for conspiracy in connection with the assassination, a copy of the film was subpoenaed from Time Inc. by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison for use during the trial. The courtroom showings were the first time it had been shown in public as a film. Unauthorized copies of the film were made from the copy lent for the trial, and were soon being further copied and shown throughout the United States and the rest of the world.

In March 1975, on the ABC late-night television show Good Night America (hosted by Geraldo Rivera), assassination researchers Robert Groden and Dick Gregory presented the first-ever network television showing of the Zapruder home movie. The public's response and outrage to that first television showing quickly led to the forming of the Hart-Schweiker investigation, contributed to the Church Committee Investigation on Intelligence Activities by the United States, and resulted in the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation.

In April 1975, in settlement of a royalties suit between Time Inc. and Zapruder's heirs that arose from the ABC showing, Time Inc. sold the original film and its copyright back to the Zapruder family for the token sum of $1. Time Inc. wanted to donate the film to the U.S. government. The Zapruder family initially refused to consent, but in 1978 the family transferred the film to the National Archives and Records Administration for appropriate preservation and safe-keeping, while still retaining ownership of the film and its copyright. Director Oliver Stone paid approximately $85,000 to the Zapruder family for use of the Zapruder film in his motion picture JFK (1991).

On October 26, 1992, President Bush signed into law the John F. Kennedy Records Collection Act of 1992 (the "JFK Act"), which sought to preserve for historical and governmental purposes all records related to the assassination of President Kennedy. The Act created the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection at the National Archives. The Zapruder film was automatically designated an "assassination record" and therefore became official property of the United States government. When the Zapruder family demanded the return of the original film in 1993 and 1994, National Archives officials refused to comply.

On April 24, 1997, the Assassination Records Review Board, which was created by the JFK Act, announced a "Statement of Policy and Intent with Regard to the Zapruder Film". The ARRB re-affirmed that the Zapruder Film is an "assassination record" within the meaning of the JFK Act and directed it to be transferred on August 1, 1998 from its present location in NARA's film collection to the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection maintained by NARA. As required by law for such a seizure under eminent domain, payment to Zapruder's heirs was attempted. Because the film is unique, the film's value was difficult to ascertain; eventually, following arbitration with the Zapruder heirs, the government purchased the film in 1999 for $16,000,000.

The Zapruder family retained copyright to the film, which was not seized. In 1997, the film was digitally replicated and restored under license of the Zapruder family. The 1998 documentary Image of an Assassination: A New Look at the Zapruder Film shows the history of the film, as well as various versions of the restored film.

In December 1999, the Zapruder family donated the film's copyright to The Sixth Floor Museum, located in the Texas School Book Depository building at Dealey Plaza, along with one of the first-generation copies made on November 22, 1963, and other copies of the film and frame enlargements once held by Life magazine, which had been since returned. The Zapruder family retains no rights of any kind to the film, which rights are now administered by the Museum.

The relevant history of the film is covered in a book by David Wrone called The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (2003). Wrone is a professor of history who tracks the "chain of evidence" for the film.

Authenticity

Zapruder testified before the Warren Commission that the frames published in Commission Exhibit 885 were from the film that he took.

Three other films of part of the assassination (the Orville Nix, Marie Muchmore and Charles Bronson films), together with numerous still photographs, are consistent with the Zapruder film, suggesting that they are either all authentic, or all inauthentic.

In 1998, Roland Zavada, a product engineer from Kodak who led the team that invented Kodakchrome II, studied the film at the behest of the National Archives and concluded that the film was an “in camera original” and that any alleged alterations were not feasible. Any attempt to create a false "in camera original" by copying Zapruder's film would leave visible artifacts of "image structure constraints of grain; [and] contrast and modulation transfer function losses.…It has no evidence of optical effects or matte work including granularity, edge effects or fringing, [or] contrast buildup."

Abraham Zapruder's Bell & Howell Zoomatic movie camera, in the collection of the US National Archives

Does the film provide a complete record?

The Zapruder film has often been seen as a "complete record of the Kennedy assassination". This view is, however, challenged by Max Holland, author of The Kennedy Assassination Tapes, and the professional photographer Johann Rush in a joint editorial piece published by The New York Times on November 22, 2007. Holland and Rush point out that Zapruder temporarily stopped filming at frame 132, when only police motorcycles were visible. When he resumed filming, frame 133 already shows the presidential motorcade in view. This pause could have great significance for the interpretation of the assassination, Holland and Rush suggest. One of the sources of controversy with the Warren Report has been its difficulty in satisfactorily accounting for the sequencing of the assassination. A specific mystery concerns what happened to the one of Oswald's three shots that missed (and how he came to miss at what was assumed to be close range). Holland and Rush argue that the break in the Zapruder film might conceal a first shot earlier than analysts have hitherto assumed, and point out that in this case a horizontal traffic mast would temporarily have obstructed Oswald's view of his target. In the authors' words, "The film, we realize, does not depict an assassination about to commence. It shows one that had already started."

Cultural effect

The film's 1975 broadcast on Good Night America ignited widespread public distrust in the findings of the Warren Commission. Perhaps the most controversial effect was the suggestion that an assassin or assassins other than Oswald was involved.

The film has been featured in films or other media, such as the Oliver Stone film JFK, which used the clearest copy of the film available to the public prior to the late 1990s. For example, after the final shot, Jacqueline Kennedy can be seen mouthing what appears to be the words, "Oh, my God!" A closeup from the portion of the film showing the fatal shot to Kennedy's head is also shown in the Clint Eastwood film In the Line of Fire. Other references to the film include the name of Andrew Denton's production company (Zapruder's Other Films Pty Ltd.), a line in the film Enemy of the State in which Will Smith's character jokes that he owns a copy of the film.

Some critics have stated that the violence and shock of this home movie led to a new way of representing violence in 1970s American cinema, in mainstream, in particular indie and underground horror movies.

Marilyn Manson has referenced the film and Kennedy in his songs, such as "President Dead" and "Posthuman", the latter of which begins with the lyrics "She’s got eyes like Zapruder".

External links

• The Zapruder film
• The Zapruder film with image stabilization
• The Zapruder Camera Bell & Howell 414PD Director Series - Overview and User's Manual.
• Computer Reconstruction of JFK Assassination
• The History of the Zapruder Film
• Dan Rather's narration of the censored Zapruder film
• Resources and Controversies on Zapruder film
• Charles Leslie Bronson Charles Bronson's camera - Keystone Olympic K35 Turrret - Overview.
• Zapruder Film of Kennedy Assassination (1963) at IMDb
• Zapruder Film Symposium, May 2003. Symposium website.
• Assassinated Science. Online website critical of The Great Zapruder Film Hoax.
• Roland Zavada's comments. Answers by Zavada to questions posed about the final chapter of The Great Zapruder Film Hoax.