Zapruder film
The Zapruder film is a silent 8mm color motion picture sequence shot by Abraham Zapruder with a Bell & Howell home-movie camera, as United States president John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. It unexpectedly captured the president's assassination.
Although it is not the only film of the shooting, the Zapruder film has been described as being the most complete, giving a relatively clear view from a somewhat elevated position on the side from which the president's fatal head wound is visible. It was an important piece of evidence before the Warren Commission hearings, and all subsequent investigations of the assassination. It is one of the most studied pieces of film in history, particularly footage of the final shot which helped spawn theories of whether Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin.
In 1994, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Creation
Abraham Zapruder stood on a concrete pedestal along Elm Street in Dealey Plaza holding a Model 414 PD Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series Camera. He filmed from the time the presidential limousine turned onto Elm Street for a total of 26.6 seconds, exposing 486 frames of standard 8 mm Kodachrome II safety film, running at an average of 18.3 frames/second.Image:Clinthill limo.png|thumb|upright=1.25|right|Frame 371 showing Jacqueline Kennedy reaching for pieces of Kennedy's skull across the back of the presidential limousine as Secret Service agent Clint Hill climbs aboard.
After Secret Service agent Forrest Sorrels promised Zapruder that the film would be used only for an official investigation, the two men sought to develop the footage as soon as possible. As television station WFAA's equipment was incompatible with the format, Eastman Kodak's Dallas film processing facility developed the film and Jamieson Film Company produced three copies. Zapruder gave two of the copies to Sorrels and they were sent to Washington. The original film was retained by Zapruder, in addition to one of the copies.
On the morning of November 23, 1963, CBS lost the bidding for the footage to Life magazine's $150,000 offer. CBS News correspondent Dan Rather was the first to report on the footage on national television after seeing it. The inaccuracies in his description contributed to many conspiracy theories about the assassination. In his 2001 book Tell Me a Story, CBS producer Don Hewitt said that he told Rather to go to Zapruder's home to "sock him in the jaw", take the film, copy it, then return it and let the network's lawyers deal with the consequences. According to Hewitt, he realized his mistake after ending their telephone conversation and immediately called Rather back to countermand the order, disappointing the reporter. In a 2015 interview on Opie with Jim Norton, Rather stated that the story was a myth.
Frame 313 of the film captures the fatal shot to the President's head. After claiming to have a nightmare in which he saw a sign in Times Square, New York City, with the phrase "See the President's head explode!", Zapruder insisted that frame 313 be excluded from publication. 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 6, 1963 special "John F. Kennedy Memorial Edition", and in issues dated October 2, 1964, November 25, 1966, and November 24, 1967.
Zapruder was one of at least 32 people in Dealey Plaza known to have made film or still photographs at or around the time of the shooting.
Subsequent history
The Zapruder film frames that were used by the Warren Commission were published in black and white as Commission Exhibit 885 in volume XVIII of the Hearings and Exhibits. Copies of the complete film are available on the Internet.One of the first-generation Secret Service copies was loaned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, D.C., which made a second-generation copy. After studies of that copy were made in January 1964, the Warren Commission judged the quality to be inadequate, and requested the original film. Life brought the original to Washington in February for the commission's viewing, and made color 35mm slide enlargements from the relevant frames of the original film for the FBI. From those slides, the FBI made a series of black-and-white prints, which were given to the commission for its use.
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 from the Zapruder film in black and white. Frames 208–211 were missing, a splice was visible in frames 207 and 212, frames 314 and 315 were switched around, and frame 284 was a repeat of 283. In response to an inquiry, then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover wrote in 1965 that frames 314 and 315 had been swapped due to a printing error, and that that error did not exist in the original Warren Commission exhibits.
In early 1967, Life released a statement saying that four frames of the original were accidentally destroyed, and the adjacent frames damaged, by a Life photo lab technician on November 23, 1963. Life released those missing frames from the first-generation copy it had received from the film's original version. The Zapruder frames outside the section used in the commission's exhibits, frames 155–157 and 341, were also damaged and were spliced out of the original rendition of the film, but are present in the first-generation copies.
In 1966, assassination researcher Josiah Thompson, while working for Life, was brought in to examine a first-generation copy of the film and a set of color 35mm slides made from the original. He tried negotiating 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. Following its publishing in 1967, Thompson's book featured some very detailed charcoal drawings of important individual frames, plus photo reproductions of the four missing ones. 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 was not 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, saying that Thompson "did serious work on the subject and has a theory entitled to public consideration" and that "the copying by defendants was fair and reasonable."
In 1967, Life hired New Jersey film lab Manhattan Effects to make a 16 mm film copy of the Zapruder film's original version. Pleased with the results, they asked for a 35 mm internegative to be made. Mo Weitzman made several internegatives in 1968, giving the best to Life and retaining the test copies. Weitzman set up his own optical house and motion-picture postproduction facility later that year. Hired in 1969, employee and assassination buff Robert Groden used one of Weitzman's copies and an optical printer to make versions of the Zapruder film with close-ups and minimize the shakiness of Zapruder's camera.
Before the 1969 trial of Clay Shaw, a businessman from New Orleans, for conspiracy in connection with the assassination, a copy of the film made several generations from the original was subpoenaed from Time Inc. in 1967 by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison for use at Shaw's grand jury hearing. Garrison unsuccessfully subpoenaed the original film in 1968. The courtroom showings of Garrison's copy in 1969 were the first time it had been shown in public as a film. Garrison allowed copies of the film to be made and these low quality copies began circulating among assassination researchers and were known to many journalists as well. Zapruder's film was aired as part of a Los Angeles area television newscast on February 14, 1969.
The first broadcast of the Zapruder film was on the late-night television show Underground News with Chuck Collins, originating on WSNS-TV, Ch 44, Chicago in 1970. It was given to director Howie Samuelsohn by Penn Jones and later aired in syndication to Philadelphia, Detroit, Kansas City, and St. Louis.
On March 6, 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 US network television showing of the Zapruder film. The public's response and outrage to that television showing quickly led to the forming of the Hart-Schweiker investigation, which 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 film's initial rendition 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 originally refused to consent. 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 over $85,000 to the Zapruder family for use of the Zapruder film in his motion picture JFK.
On October 26, 1992, then-U.S. President George H. W. Bush signed into law the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, which sought to preserve for historical and governmental purposes all records related to President Kennedy's assassination. The Act created the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection at the National Archives. The physical Zapruder film was automatically designated an "assassination record" and therefore became the official property of the United States government. The copyright in the film remained with Zapruder.
On April 24, 1997, the Assassination Records Review Board, which the JFK Act created, announced a "Statement of Policy and Intent with Regard to the Zapruder Film". The ARRB re-affirmed that the Zapruder film was an "assassination record" within the JFK Act's meaning and directed it to be transferred on August 1, 1998, from its present-day location in NARA's film collection to the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection maintained by NARA. As required by the US federal law for such a seizure under eminent domain, payment to Zapruder's heirs was attempted. Because the film is unique, its value was difficult to ascertain. Eventually, following arbitration with the Zapruder heirs, the government provided compensation $16 million in 1999 for the film.
In December 1999, the Zapruder family donated the film's copyright to the Sixth Floor Museum, 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 since been returned.
The film's relevant history is covered in a 2003 David R. Wrone book entitled The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination. Wrone is a history professor who tracks the chain of evidence for the film.