Mailer's book about Gary Gilmore shows how the media attention around the execution becomes more important than the event itself. Personally, I'm convinced that television and the continual repetition of murder that is shown there has a direct connection with the arrival of the serial killer. Technology and violence are interdependent. In this case history occurs in the form of a person who steps out of history. This can be called postmodernism or postindividualism.
Film plays an incredibly important role in the American understanding of history.
The Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination has been shown on T.V. only once and that was in the 70s. The murder of Oswald has been shown many times and people are sick to death of it, like a Warhol film. Their deaths followed a social distinction. An interview was done for the Book of the Month club on July 24, 1997. It's now posted on a Borders website.