Image of an Assassination: Zapruder Film [DVD] [1998] [US Import]

The documentary does provide a timeline for the original film's travel across the decades, beginning on the morning of November 22, 1963, when the meek and mild Abraham Zapruder was encouraged to go home and get his camera so that he could film the passing of the Presidential motorcade. You get a brief personal look at Zapruder himself, a most reluctant of celebrities, including footage of the interview he gave to TV station WFAA hours after the assassination. There are interviews with several individuals associated with Zapruder and Time Life, the company which bought the rights to the film in the days after the assassination. You will follow the trail of the original film to the possession of Time Life (oddly, there is no mention of the mysteriously reversed frames that were printed in Life magazine shortly after the assassination) and, in 1975, back to the Zapruder family (it was sold back for $1). Time Life was feeling a little heat from the public for supposedly suppressing the original film itself after an obviously second-generation copy was unveiled to the American television public by ABC on Geraldo Rivera's talk show Good Night America in March of that year. The Zapruder family asked the National Archives to take possession of the film so that it could be stored under optimal conditions, and that is where the original 26-second film remains.

At this point, we get into the recent project to make a digital copy of the original film, one that could be made available to researchers and the public at large. Every time the original film is taken out of cold storage and viewed, deterioration is possible, and indeed some problems have been caused by the copying of the film way back in 1963. It is an impressive, laborious, strictly controlled process of a highly technical, ruthlessly documented nature, but it is much more than that. The digitalization process allowed for the vast improvement of the original film's quality. Each frame was scanned at resolutions up to 1500 dpi so that the footage could be blown up larger, dust and scratches were removed (except for those around the splices, which were just too damaged), and the sequencing is well nigh perfectly done. Best of all, though, we can now view the each frame from one film edge to the other, including all of the sprocket holes. Thus, some details can now be seen for the very first time.

The video is only 45 minutes long, culminating in several normal speed and slow-motion versions of the new and improved Zapruder film. The detail and color is amazing, but is this ultimate version of the 26-second film worth the money to you? If you are a casual JFK assassination nut, perhaps not. If you are serious about your armchair JFK assassination sleuthing, however, Image of an Assassination is a bargain at any price. Hordes of researchers over the years would have given their right arms for a version of the film half as clear as this one. The Zapruder film is the most crucial piece of evidence we have from November 22, 1963; Image of an Assassination gives you access to the Holy Grail of JFK assassination evidence.