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(Mary Ann Moorman Krahmer)
Being here today just brings back all the memories.
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Really mixed emotions – more so than the
last few times that I’ve been here.
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I saw a man killed right in front of my eyes.
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(Hari Sreenivasan - Narrator)
When Mary Ann Moorman was 31 years old,
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she learned that the presidential motorcade
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would drive through downtown Dallas.
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She was a fan of the first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy,
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so Mary Ann and a friend, Jean Hill, headed
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to Dealey Plaza to watch the procession.
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(Moorman) My son was in school and I had told him,
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‘you can’t be out of school,
but I’ll take a picture for you,’
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never dreaming that that picture would be part of history.
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(Narrator) Moorman, shown here in a still frame
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of the home movie famously shot by Abraham Zapruder –
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took just one photograph of the President that day —
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(camera shutter)
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a grainy Polaroid snapped right as the
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presidential limousine was passing by.
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(Moorman) As the car got closer to us,
I stepped closer to the curb here,
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and Jean was yelling ‘Mr. President, look this way!”
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And when I put the camera up to my face,
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I wanted to make sure it was as close as
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I could get to him, and I snapped the picture,
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looking through the viewfinder, of course.
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(Narrator)
When the photo was developed, it became clear
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Moorman had pressed the shutter just as the
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46-year-old President was hit and fatally wounded
by a rifle’s bullet.
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It's the only known photograph of the moment the President
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was struck that also captures the “grassy knoll…”
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an image studied endlessly over the years to
determine if another shooter was there.
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(Alan Govenar)
When the motorcade started to pass,
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she realized that she hadn’t taken
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the one photograph that she promised her son.
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(Narrator)
Alan Govenar is the writer and filmmaker behind
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The Silent Witness Speaks, which documents
Moorman’s story.
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(Govenar) And when I asked her, ‘What did you see
when you looked through the viewfinder?’
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She said she thought there was a gust of wind,
because his hair ‘lifted up.’
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She had no idea that what she was photographing was
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the assassination of the President of the United States.
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Jackie hollered, ‘My God, he’s been shot.”
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We heard that so plain.
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And then just seconds later, he had slumped over
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on Jackie and she started to climb out of the car.
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-Moorman: Well, by that time...
-Narrator: This interview with Moorman was filmed earlier
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(Narrator) this year at Dealey Plaza where the 81-year-old
originally took the iconic picture.
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The film is now being displayed at an exhibit at the
International Center of Photography in New York City.
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It’s called: “JFK: A Bystander’s View of History.”
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(Brian Wallis)
To me, photography was a way to manage
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that grief and that trauma—a way to try
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to get a handle on what really happened.
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(Narrator) Brian Wallis, chief curator, pored over thousands
of photographs for the exhibit.
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(Wallis) One of the things that immediately struck me
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about these photographs– was that sort of up close
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and personal intimacy of these snapshots.
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I was surprised to find that– people were allowed
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tremendous access to the president.
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In fact, the motorcade through Dallas in
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November 1963 was just for that purpose,
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so large crowds could get close to the president.
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The most extraordinary by far is the Polaroid
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taken by Mary Ann Moorman– at the exact instant
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that the President was struck by the first bullet.
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And it all happened in such - just seconds,
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moments really. And it was over with.
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(cars passing by)