Zapruder film (1963)

Directed by

Abraham Zapruder

Genre

documentary film, silent film, amateur film

Country

United States

Runtime

26 min

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A home movie shot by Abraham Zapruder captures President John F. Kennedy's motorcade in Dallas. It inadvertently records the assassination of the president.

historicrawchaoticunsettlingsilentclinicalsoberingfast-paced

What happens

The Zapruder film is a silent 8mm color motion picture sequence shot by Abraham Zapruder with a Bell & Howell home-movie camera, as U.S. 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 the most complete, offering a relatively clear view from a somewhat elevated position on the side from which the president's fatal head wound is visible. Given the camera's 18.3 frames-per-second speed, the film served as a "clock" to construct a detailed timeline of the shots fired. Zapruder's home movie became an essential piece of evidence in the Warren Commission hearings, and in 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 U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• JFK: 24 Hours That Changed the World (2023)
• JFK: The Lost Bullet (2013)
• Four Days in November (1964)
• Report (1967)
• The Five Cities of June (1963)
• Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963)
• The Great Escape (1963)
• The Assassination of President Kennedy (2013)