TWENTY-SIX SECONDS A Personal History of the Zapruder Film ALEXANDRA ZAPRUDER
MY RATING ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️▫️ PUBLISHER Twelve/Hachette Audio PUBLISHED November 16, 2016
SUMMARY “They killed him. They killed him.” Abraham Zapruder, cried. He was the first to know of John F. Kennedy’s death. He saw it through the zoom lens of his double 8mm video camera on that bright, sunny day at Dealey Plaza. The motorcade passed right in front of him, then he heard the gunfire. It was the most horrific thing he had ever seen. Everyone around him was stunned. The news reports said that Kennedy was taken to Parkland Hospital. But Abe knew he was already dead.
Abe immediately determined that he had to get a copy of his film to the Secret Service. News reporters were hounding him for a copy. The afternoon of the assassination, Zapruder along with the Secret Service went to the Eastman Kodak processing facility near Love Field to develop the double 8mm color film. Later that day he and others took the developed film and had three copies made at the Jamieson Film Company. He delivered two of the three duplicate copies to the Secret Service that night. Abe kept the original film and the third copy of the duplicate. And the long story of the film begins.
Alexandra Zapruder, Abe’s grandaughter, tells us her grandfather’s story of that horrendous day that he filmed President Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. This book is the untold family story behind what happened to the twenty-six seconds of original film footage of Kennedy’s assassination. Alexandra uses personal family records, records from Life magazine who possessed the film for twelve years, other previously sealed archival sources, and interviews with family members and others who had contact with the film. She traces the films complex journey through history and most importantly, details the many controversies the family had to endure, with the media, the Federal government and the arts community.
This book is part biography, part family history, and part historical record. It shows how this historic film changed a family and raised some of the most important social, cultural, and moral questions of our time. The film was notably the most graphically violent of it’s time. Add to that, it was the death of a beloved president. It fueled debates about privacy, copyrights, access, and ownership.
REVIEW Sometimes you read a book that makes your heart pound in your chest. A book that you can’t stop thinking about or talking about. This is one of those books. Of course it’s encompasses an monumental event in US history. But the book is not about the assassination. It’s only about the twenty-six second film of the assassination. The book was very educational, enlightening, and informative. I thought I knew all I needed to know about the Kennedy assassination. But I didn’t know this story.
I am ever so thankful to Alexandra Zapruder for meticulously pouring over pages and pages of documentation, conducting interviews and bringing the history of the film to light. The result is a comprehensive narrative that has shaped much of today’s thinking about access to such things in the future. The family faced a tremendous amount of controversy over the film. Owning such a thing, as shown in this book carries a tremendous amount of responsibility. Alexandra Zupruder clearly testifies to how her grandfather and her father carried out this responsibility.
Alexandra portrays her grandfather as an honorable man, whose only hope, in this horrific situation was to not cause any additional emotional harm to the Kennedy family by the exploitation of this film.
It is a well-written and thought-provoking book. But the book is long. Twenty-six Seconds is 480 pages and the audio is over 14 hours. So it’s quite a commitment. I would have enjoyed it more had it been somewhat more concise, but cannot imagine what she could have possibly cut.