Because the President’s limousine passed almost exactly in front of Dallas clothing manufacturer Abraham Zapruder on Nov. 22, 1963, just as he was playing with his new film camera, and precisely at the moment that Lee Harvey Oswald fired his rifle from a nearby books depository, his silent, 26.6-second home movie has become the focal point of America’s collective memory on that weird day. For many of us, especially those who weren’t alive when it happened, we’re all watching that event through Zapruder’s lens.
Other footage from the scene turns up here and there, becomes fodder for documentaries (like this new one disproving the “second shooter” theory). But Zapruder’s film is still the canonical ur text of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the most complete and most chilling visual record. In many ways, it prefigured all sorts of American pastimes, from widespread paranoia about government to a loss of faith in photographic truth and the news media, from the acceptance of graphic violence to newer concerns about copyright. Don DeLillo once said that the little film “could probably fuel college courses in a dozen subjects from history to physics.” Without the 486 frames of Kodachrome II 8mm safety film, our understanding of JFK’s assassination would likely be an even greater carnival of conspiracy theories than it already is. Well, maybe.
- 60 Minutes
- ABC
- Abraham Zapruder
- Adam Begley
- America
- Assassination of John F. Kennedy
- Bell & Howell
- Bell & Howell Zoomatic
- Betty Grable
- Bill Bennett
- CBS News
- Central Intelligence Agency
- Clay Bertrand
- Clay Shaw
- Clinton
- computer software
- copyright law
- Dallas
- Dallas Police Department
- Dan Rather
- David Ferrie
- Dealey Plaza
- Declaration of Independence
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- description
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- Don DeLillo
- Don Hewitt
- Eastman Kodak
- Entertainment
- Errol Morris
- Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Films
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- George Holliday
- Geraldo Rivera
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- high-speed Internet
- high-speed Internet
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- Marilyn Sitzman
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- YouTube
- Zapruder
- Zapruder
- Zapruder
- Zapruder film
Why could a small start-up build Instagram, a photo app, and sell it for $1 billion while companies like Eastman Kodak, steeped in photography and the emotionalism of photography, could not? Culture got in the way.
- Business
- Clayton M. Christensen
- Disruptions
- Disruptive technology
- disruptive technology
- disruptive technology
- Eastman Kodak
- Eastman Kodak
- Edwin H. Land
- Edwin Land
- Farmville
- Film formats
- Harvard Business School
- Hasbro
- innovation
- innovators dilemma
- Instant camera
- Instant film
- internet
- iPhone
- Kodak
- Kodak
- Kodak
- Land Camera
- Massachusetts
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Media Lab
- Michael Hawley
- Mobile
- Nikon
- Olympus
- Optics
- photography
- Polarization
- Polaroid
- Polaroid
- San Francisco
- social
- start-up
- start-ups
- SX-70
- Yale School of Management
- 4
- Alan Ross
- and manufactured products
- Ansel Adams
- bankrupt
- Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara
- California
- Camera
- car photos
- chemicals
- Christmas
- Color photography
- Detroit
- Detroit Tigers
- Digital camera
- digital cameras
- Digital photography
- digital photography
- Eastman Kodak
- Eastman Kodak
- Entertainment
- ever-growing
- film
- film-related products
- Gary Camera
- Gary Cameron
- George Eastman
- George Eastman
- Hudson
- Instamatic
- Kodachrome
- Kodak
- Kodak
- Kodak
- New York
- New York
- Oldsmobile
- photography
- Photography
- Plymouth
- Pontiac
- print developer
- Rangefinder camera
- Reuters Photographers
- Rochester
- San Francisco State University
- Steve Crowley
- the New York Times
- the New York Times
- United States
- US Federal Reserve
- Washington Redskins
- World Series