Customer Reviews

Image of an Assassination - A New Look at the Zapruder Film

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

It is important that you know exactly what Image of an Assassination is before you decide to spend your money on it. The entire focus of the DVD is Abraham Zapruder's 26-second, 8 mm film showing the assassination of John F. Kennedy from start to finish. This is not a "who shot JFK?" documentary - there's no place for conspiracy theories or defenses of the Warren Commission conclusions to be found here. This is a new and much improved look at the single most important piece of evidence in the assassination of President Kennedy, complemented by a look at the process behind the digitalization of the film. There is no real analysis of the film, and no allusion to the criticisms some have made about the integrity of the film. Any conclusions to be made are left up to the viewer, and this video gives the viewer the ultimate look at this most famous, most important home video ever made.

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.

Although the subject matter is horrific, this DVD is a great addition to my library. You get 4 different looks at the awful event itself, but the big difference in this DVD vs. the VHS copy is the bonus material! There's an excellent-quality segment on "the WFAA-TV interview" with Mr. Zapruder, made just hours after he filmed the assassination. I have several JFK videos, but I have never seen a lot of this material before! You even get to see about 2 minutes of the program that was interrupted before you get into the "live bulletin" news coverage. And the interview is shown in its entirety, and very clear. Quite chilling.

Other extras on the DVD are nice too, including the 1975 "Good Night America" program with Geraldo Rivera, where America first was shown Zapruder's famous film, to the horrified gasps of the live audience members. This "Good Night" segment is quite complete also, with most of the late-night broadcast shown on the DVD.

I'm not trying to minimize the actual Zapruder footage shown here (which is indeed quite crisp and clear, albeit with still a lot of dust and artifacts present that were obviously simply impossible to remove), but for me the prize in the package is the bonus material offered, and it makes this DVD a MUST for those like myself who collect about every Kennedy video out there. Because I guarantee you, you won't find lots of this footage anywhere else!

The DVD version of this product is something that should be in the library of every JFK assassination researcher.

The Zapruder film itself is presented in four different versions including a "widescreen" presentation never before seen.

The documentary section of the disc is excellent and using historical video and interviews tells the story of the Zapruder film from the chance filming up to the process used to make the digital transfer. Also included are the video sources the documentary draws from including the complete "Good Night America" segment in which the film was shown on national TV for the first time. It is interesting to see how dated the theories of Robert Groden and the other guests are when viewed today. Other segments include Richard Stolley of Life discussing the negotiations for rights to the film and a WFAA-TV interview with Zapruder taped shortly after the assassination.

If you are at all interested in the JFK assassination this DVD shold be in your collection. Be sure to get the DVD instead of the VHS version though-for a couple of bucks more it is really worth it.

The reviewer from Australia is incorrect in saying that the producers of this DVD (MPI Home Video) cannot be blamed for the three missing frames, as he claims that this loss of key frames was "reported" long ago. Allow me to clear this up his confusion: what the reviewer is referring to are the infamous six missing frames that LIFE Magazine says were "accidentally" destroyed in the 1960s. That is indeed a matter of historical record and acknowledged by both sides in the conspiracy debate (the dark splice is very visible in the four versions of the film on this DVD). But the MPI digital restoration team ALSO left out three more frames that are still in the original! MPI is aware of this and has informed researcher Robert Groden (seen interviewed in 1975 by Geraldo on the bonus features) that these frames will be included in future releases of this DVD. All three are located in the film after the headshot at frame #313. MPI got sloppy and screwed up--plain and simple! That's a shame considering the huge financial investment and meticulous attention to detail that went into producing this restoration.

I loved the producers' painstaking care in presenting the history of the most important movie ever made, and the four versions of the film shown in all their glorious, digitally restored splendor (yes, it is state of the art, unlike what one reviewer said). But there was one serious, glaring error that no one has pointed out. The original Zapruder film contains 486 frames (including the "damaged" frames before the road sign): 132 of the motorcycles entering Dealey Plaza, and 354 frames showing the assassination. However, the Z film shown on this DVD only has 483 frames. The restoration team screwed up, leaving out three frames in their 4"x5" transparency duplication process! The missing frames are all after frame #313 (the head shot). If they do another edition of this DVD, I certainly hope they do take the time to include those three frames!

Image of an Assassination is both spectacularly grusome and technically beautiful. The film at once facinates and repels. It is and will forever remain the closest thing to having stood on Elm Street in Dealey Plaza on that sparkling day in November 1963. While the somewhat blurred and colorless images of the copies the public has heretofore watched are disturbing enough, these digitally processed images from the original Zapruder negative are stunningly clear and in vibrant color. The new images are heartstopping. Nevertheless this video is appealing to historians, conspiracy theorists, and yes - the merely morbidly curious. The impact on the viewer is unnerving - a split-second that changed history forever, destroyed a President of the United States, ended a man's life and seared the most heinous horror imaginable upon his young wife. This video is unforgettable.

This 45 minute video certainly should be in the library of any JFK Assassination researcher. The newly digitally enhanced version of the Zapruder film shows the assassination in all it's colorful horror. The wide screen version is most interesting (the version shown with the information between the sprocket holes), and the close-up of JFK clearly shows the damage inflicted by the assassin(s). The documentary is most interesting (note Zapruder describing the sound of the last shot in the TV interview in Dallas, very interesting his observations. )

The digitally mastered copy of the Zapruder film, while still not as good as video, does provide reserchers with a much clearer copy to research with than ever before, and the addition of the frame numbers in certain sequences are helpful to pinpoint events.

(And as an added bonus, you'll also get to see Heraldo Rivera with much more hair ;-) )

This video is a must have for any JFK resercher, or any American who wants to see for themselves what really happened to our 36th President.

If you are interested in the Kennedy Assassination, then you must get this DVD. It is much clearer than any version I have seen on TV. The original film was transfered frame-by-frame to large format film, then digitized for the DVD. You can view it frame by frame too, using the pause command of your DVD player. It doesn't get any better than this. There's also a very nice history of the film included.

With the Zapruder film no longer publicly available, many will purchase this DVD as one of the few current sources to view 22 seconds of the 1960's September 11th. However, the added features of old television show interviews and the narration providing the background story to this singular home movie are moving to the point of tears. The quality of the film as preserved in this DVD is spectacular. This is an irreplacable companion to any serious assassination research or interest.

This film is for the true Kennedy assasination history buff. Told initially from Abraham Zapruder's perspective, the viewer gets a whole new angle on the assasination that's well told and quite informative in that much of this information (Zapruder's actions following his historic filming of the assasination) has rarely been seen/told before. We see the "trail of the tape" as it's gone from Zapruder's camera to it's current location in the National Archives, along with many interviews with key players along the way (...even one televised interview with Zapruder himself only hours after the assasination is shown). Then we follow along as the original film is painstaikingly re-photographed frame-by-frame by experts to allow it to be renovated using today's current computer technology...the result is an unbelievably clear and at the same time gruesome re-playing of that fateful day (this really makes one re-think the conspiracy theories when you see the "head-shot" as it seems almost impossible for that bullet to come from behind...). Four different presentations, some in slow motion, of the renovated film are shown along with a detailed discussion of how this was done supplement the historical "feel" of this tape to give the viewer a truly magnificent visit back to November 22, 1963 in a whole new context.