Zapruder film
The Zapruder film is a 26-second, 8-mm, silent, color film shot by Abraham Zapruder that shows the assassination of U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963. It is the only known film to capture the entirety of the shooting and has been the subject of intense scrutiny since the assassination. It was initially cited by the Warren Commission as evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy. However, frame-by-frame analysis has also been used to suggest that Oswald was not the lone gunman. Zapruder’s film has been called the most famous home movie of all time.
Abraham Zapruder was a Russian-born fabric patternmaker who moved to Dallas in 1941 and went on to found a women’s clothing company located across the street from the Texas School Book Depository, from where Oswald allegedly would fire three shots—from behind the motorcade—to kill Kennedy and wound Texas Gov. John B. Connally, Jr.
Filming history
On November 22, 1963, Zapruder, who was a supporter of the president, took his 8-mm Bell & Howell Zoomatic camera to Dealey Plaza in hopes of capturing Kennedy’s motorcade. Zapruder, age 58, climbed atop a concrete wall to get a clearer view. He began filming as the motorcade pulled onto Elm Street, capturing 486 frames over 26.6 seconds. Frame 313 shows the fatal rifle shot hitting the president’s head.
After witnessing the event through his camera’s viewfinder, a dazed Zapruder wandered around Dealey Plaza before encountering The Dallas Morning News reporter Harry McCormick, who brought the tape to the attention of the Secret Service agent Forrest Sorrels. Zapruder’s undeveloped film was taken to a nearby Eastman Kodak plant, where three copies were made, two of which were sent to Washington, D.C., as evidence.
Zapruder sold the rights to the film to Life magazine for $150,000, asking that frame 313 be withheld from publication. A week after the president’s assassination, Life published about 30 frames from the film, in black and white, honoring Zapruder’s request not to show the fatal shot.
What does it prove?
The Zapruder film was a key piece of evidence for the Warren Commission, which was appointed by U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson on November 29 to investigate the assassination. The commission repeatedly cited it in their report concluding that Oswald had acted alone. But access to the film itself had been very limited until a poor quality copy of the film was used in the 1969 trial of Clay Shaw, who was charged with participating in a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. Louisiana prosecutor Jim Garrison argued in the trial that a conspiracy led to Kennedy’s assassination. Ultimately, Shaw was acquitted of all charges.
During testimony before the Warren Commission, Abraham Zapruder broke down in tears. He testified that after seeing the shots hit Kennedy, he screamed, “They killed him, they killed him.”
However, it was not until Geraldo Rivera aired the film on his Good Night America talk show in 1975 that much of the country saw the assassination play out in their living rooms. The screening spawned outrage, renewed horror, and a wave of conspiracy theories, many of which centered on the apparent backward movement of the president’s head in frame 313 and whether that was consistent with the Warren Commission’s conclusion that the shot came from behind the motorcade.
The renewed public interest prompted the Senate to create what became known as the Church Committee (named for the committee’s chair, Sen. Frank Church of Idaho) to look into U.S. intelligence agencies’ handling of the assassination. The committee concluded that the CIA, FBI, and NSA had withheld crucial information from the Warren Commission.
The film itself has been the subject of conspiracy theories, with highly detailed analyses intending to prove its authenticity or to prove it a hoax. While several frames of the film were damaged by Life photo editors in 1963, claims that the film was faked, spliced, or otherwise altered have largely been discounted.
The JFK impact
The film gained even greater notoriety for its use in the 1991 movie JFK, directed by Oliver Stone. JFK used some of the Zapruder film, including frame 313, along with recreated scenes. (Stone paid the Zapruder family $85,000 for the use of the footage; Abraham Zapruder died in 1970.) The movie was a cinematic success, winning two Academy Awards. It stars Kevin Costner as Garrison as he tries to prove Kennedy’s death was the result of a conspiracy. But the film also received widespread criticism for sensationalizing and fictionalizing a traumatic event in U.S. history. Shortly before the film’s release, Stone told The New York Times, “It is not a true story per se.... It explores all the possible scenarios of why Kennedy was killed, who killed him and why.”
In 1992 Congress passed the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, which ordered that all materials associated with the president’s assassination be kept in one collection by the National Archives. The Zapruder family initially fought back against the original film’s inclusion but accepted a $16 million payment from the federal government in 1999. The family retained the copyright, however, which they donated to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. The museum, located in the former Texas School Book Depository building, continues to hold all rights to the video. In 1997 the Zapruder film was digitized with authorization from the family, allowing new generations of viewers to see the footage.
The film continues to be the single most compelling visual record of JFK’s assassination. Its inability to answer the larger questions raised by the killing has only made it more controversial.