Decades after the Kennedy Assassination had been put to rest, Geraldo Rivera’s late-night ABC-TV talk show aired the Zapruder assassination film for the first time.
Photo: Frame 150 from the Zapruder film. Kennedy’s limousine has just turned onto Elm Street, moments before the first shot, and the President is apparently waving.
29 June 2023 | James Porteous | Clipper Media News
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 captured the assassination of the President.
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.
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”. (Wikipedia)
At noted elsewhere, this film is not the only one taken that day. There is at least some footage available leading up to the Plazey, but it is assumed that the US government seized all other network TV footage from the day. JP
Journalist and historian Max Holland discussed the Zapruder film in detail, delving into how it came to be, its exalted status as the dominant document of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and how it has helped – or hindered – our understanding of precisely what happened in November 1963. This presentation took place at the Central Library of the Kansas City Public Library on November 13, 2013.
