Film
The Killing Fields
The Killing Fields is a 1984 British feature film, directed by Roland Joffé, about journalists Dith Pran and Sydney Schanberg under the Khmer Rouge.[1][2] It won three Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Haing S. Ngor as Dith Pran.[3]
Synopsis
The film is a biographical drama. In 1973, Sydney Schanberg of The New York Times arrives in Phnom Penh to cover the Cambodian civil war, working with photographer Al Rockoff and Cambodian journalist and interpreter Dith Pran.[1] The film opens with Pran telling Schanberg of an American bombing of a Cambodian village, and the two men enter the village even as American and Cambodian officials try to keep them out.[4] They become close friends.[3]
In 1975 the Khmer Rouge overthrow the Lon Nol government and march on Phnom Penh, and the American Embassy is evacuated.[3][4] Schanberg arranges for Pran's family to leave, but Pran stays to help cover the story.[2] Khmer Rouge forces capture Schanberg and the other Western journalists, and Pran saves them from execution and gets them to the French Embassy.[4] The Khmer Rouge then order every Cambodian out of the embassy, and the journalists fail to save Pran with forged foreign papers.[4]
Pran is sent to a re-education camp under the Khmer Rouge's "Year Zero" policy, where he is tortured and forced to work as a farm laborer.[1][3] The long camp and escape sequences have little dialogue.[5] Meanwhile, in 1976, Schanberg receives an award for his reporting on Cambodia and says that half of it belongs to Pran.[1] Pran escapes, comes upon one of the killing fields and at last reaches a Red Cross refugee camp near the Thai border, where the two men meet again.[1]
Production and credits
The film is based on Schanberg's account The Death and Life of Dith Pran, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1980, and the screenplay also drew on interviews with Schanberg, Pran and Cambodian refugees and on Schanberg's private diary.[2][5][4] It was Joffé's first feature film.[3] Bruce Robinson wrote the screenplay, and David Puttnam and Iain Smith produced the film for Goldcrest, International Film Investors and Enigma Productions.[2] Chris Menges was the cinematographer and Jim Clark the editor.[2] Mike Oldfield composed the score, orchestrated by David Bedford.[1] Judy Moorcroft designed the costumes, and Roger Murray-Leach and Steve Spence handled the art direction.[1][4] The budget was $14.4 million.[1]
Sam Waterston plays Schanberg, Haing S. Ngor plays Pran and John Malkovich plays Al Rockoff.[2] The cast also includes Julian Sands as Jon Swain, Craig T. Nelson as Major Reeves, Spalding Gray as the U.S. consul, Bill Paterson as Dr. MacEntire, Athol Fugard as Dr. Sundesval and Monirak Sisowath as Phat.[1] Ngor had never acted before. He was himself a survivor of the Khmer Rouge years, who had lived through three terms in prison camps before he escaped.[1]
The dialogue is in English, French and Khmer.[2] Joffé left the Cambodian and other non-English dialogue without subtitles; he said he wanted the world of the film to feel incomprehensible and arbitrary to viewers.[4] He saw the story as a love story between Pran and Schanberg more than a war story.[4]
Release and reception
The film was released in the United Kingdom on November 2, 1984, and runs 141 minutes.[2] Warner Bros. distributed it in the United States, and Columbia-EMI-Warner in the United Kingdom.[2] It earned $34.7 million at the box office.[1]
At the 57th Academy Awards, the film received seven nominations, including Best Picture.[1] It won three: Best Supporting Actor for Ngor, Best Cinematography for Menges and Best Film Editing for Clark.[3][4] At the 38th British Academy Film Awards it won eight BAFTAs, among them Best Film, Best Actor in a Leading Role for Ngor and Best Adapted Screenplay for Robinson.[1] Ngor also won a Golden Globe for his performance.[4] In 1999 the British Film Institute placed the film 100th on its list of the greatest British films of the 20th century.[1] Britannica credits the film with bringing the suffering of the Khmer Rouge's victims to worldwide attention.[6] The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus calls it artfully composed and powerfully acted.[7]
At the Cambodia Town Film Festival
The film is one of the films shown at the Cambodia Town Film Festival in Long Beach, California.
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 Wikipedia, The Killing Fields (film) (2004-11-28)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 Cambodia Town Film Festival, CTFF 2015 OFFICIAL SELECTION: The Killing Fields (1984) (archived)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Cambodia Town Film Festival, CTFF 2025 Special Presentation: The Killing Fields (archived)
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 TCM, The Killing Fields
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Variety, The Killing Fields (review)
- ↑ Encyclopedia Britannica, The Killing Fields (2025-08-23)
- ↑ Rotten Tomatoes, The Killing Fields