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The Killing Fields (2-Nov-1984)
Director: Roland Joffé Writer: Bruce Robinson Original Music Composed by: Mike Oldfield Producer: David Puttnam Keywords: Drama, Cambodia
CAST | Sam Waterston | ... Sydney Schanberg | | Haing S. Ngor | ... Dith Pran | | | John Malkovich | ... Al Rockoff | | Julian Sands | ... Jon Swain | | Craig T. Nelson | ... Military Attaché | | Spalding Gray | ... U.S. Consul | | Bill Paterson | ... Dr. MacEntire | | Athol Fugard | ... Dr. Sundesval | | Graham Kennedy | ... Dougal | | Katherine Krapum Chey | ... Ser Moeum (Pran's Wife) | | Oliver Pierpaoli | ... Titony (Pran's Son) | | Edward Entero Chey | ... Sarun | | Tom Bird | ... U.S. Military Advisor | | Monirak Sisowath | ... Phat (K.R. Leader 2nd Village) | | Lambool Dtangpaibool | ... Phat's Son | | Ira Wheeler | ... Ambassador Wade | | David Henry | ... France | | Patrick Malahide | ... Morgan | | Nell Campbell | ... Beth | | Joan Harris | ... TV Interviewer | | Joanna Merlin | ... Schanberg's Sister | | Jay Barney | ... Schanberg's Father | | Mark Long | ... Noaks | | Sayo Inaba | ... Mrs. Noaks | | Mow Leng | ... Sirik Matah | | Chinsaure Sar | ... Arresting Officer | | Hout Ming Tran | ... K.R. Cadre -- First Village | | Thach Suon | ... Sahn | | Neevy Pal | ... Rosa |
REVIEWS Review by Walter Frith (posted on 7-Jun-2007) On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia. The
Khmer Rouge thought that they could free their people from the conflict
in Vietnam which was quickly beginning to reach into their country. The
leader of this regime, Pol Pot, had Cambodian citizens evacuated from
the cities and put into the countryside, supposedly for their own
safety. Shutting off their borders to the rest of the world, it would
take four years for the rest of the world to discover that in a country
of seven million people, one and a half million would be killed by
their own leaders. Warner Bros. brought this story to the screen in
1984 and entitled it 'The Killing Fields'. Bringing in untested writer
Bruce Robinson, he churned out a screenplay of large anti-American
military and government sentiment but was sure to include positive
American characterizations in the form of New York Times reporter
Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) and photographer Al Rockoff (John
Malkovich). Despite these two fine performances, the film's main
character is Dith Pran (Dr. Haing S. Ngor). Pran was an interpreter for
Schanberg and an eventual prisoner for the Khmer Rouge during the
country's holocaust. The film begins in 1973 where we are introduced to
the film's main characters. Documentary director Roland Joffé was given
his first chance at directing a feature film and did so with stunning
competence. His vision of a country in disarray is both truthful and
gut wrenching without crossing the line and while Joffé did not push
the envelope like many other directors would, his work here is of the
highest order because he leaves many nightmare scenarios to the
imaginations and sometimes what we don't see but imagine can be equally
devastating or more so compared with what we do see. The entire film is
captured on film by cinematographer Chris Menges who would get an Oscar
for his bleak, stark and heart pounding photography. Plunging his
camera into the heart of all this, Menges uses bouncing rotations,
sometimes going as far as to shape them with 360 degree turns.
Silhouettes against sunsets, depressing facial expressions during
blistering rainstorms and jungle stillness are some of his best moments
and the film's photography is probably its greatest technical aspect.
Schanberg is constantly hitting brick walls in his quest for a
journalistic piece that will sabotage the American government's
campaign in southeast Asia and expose it. He is detained by government
armies, stonewalled by American military officers who won't talk to him
and is trying to stay alive at the same time through all of this.
Schanberg has Dith Pran's family evacuated when it soon becomes clear
that Cambodians may at some point, be slaughtered by their own people.
Pran stays behind to assist Schanberg, a mistake that would soon lead
to his surrender and transport to the Cambodian death camps. As the
film enters its second half, it is a quiet, more sedated journey. The
film becomes an escape thriller as Pran plots his departure from the
killing fields. It is a slave infested violation of the most basic
human rights where the people have been told that God is dead and that
it is the year "zero". Indoctrinated and brain washed, the most heart
breaking passages are those involving children as we see them
throughout the film with rifles in their hands, later taking part in
the death camp tortures and suffering from the abject poverty that
reduces many of them to orphans and outcasts. When I first saw 'The
Killing Fields' twenty years ago in 1984, it struck a nerve in me that
hasn't healed since. The only other highly charged political
drama/thriller that had any lasting impact on me was 'The China
Syndrome', made five years before that. That film was fiction turned
into semi-reality but 'The Killing Fields' was pure fact. Witnessing a
chapter in world history that went largely unnoticed at the time it was
being carried out was a great thing to see. Haing S. Ngor won the best
supporting Oscar for his work and thanked Warner Bros. and others
involved for letting the world know what happened in his country. Many
felt that his role in the film was a leading performance. After all, he
won the British academy award and the Boston society of film critics
award for best actor but he was relegated to the best supporting actor
category at the Oscars because he was unknown to audiences and his
peers alike who never had a chance to truly appreciate just what an
impact his acting had on everyone. He acts better when not speaking.
His expressions through all of the devastation are award winning stuff
alone. Sam Waterston's work on this film is also a marvel. Nominated
for the best actor Oscar, he only had a few weeks to prepare for the
role and met briefly with the real Sydney Schanberg who later admitted
that "real pieces" of him are on the screen through Waterston's
portrayal of him. Most of us know Waterston from his work on
television's 'Law and Order' and he is a superb actor of dramatic flare
whose efforts are unflinching. To date, three Emmy nominations have
failed to bring Waterston recognition for 'Law and Order' but he did
win and Emmy in the category of Outstanding Informational Series for
1995's 'Lost Civilizations', which took audiences on a 7,000 year look
at world history. Director Roland Joffé has never been able to match
the power or quality of his work here but the most interesting thing
about Joffé's work on 'The Killing Fields' is the DVD release of the
film which has a thorough running audio commentary by Joffé as he takes
us frame by frame through the devastation the film showcases. Joffé
guided 'The Killing Fields' to seven Oscar nominations including best
picture, director for himself, actor (Waterston), supporting actor WIN
(Ngor), screenplay (Bruce Robinson, cinematography WIN (Chris Menges)
and film editing WIN (Jim Clark) who pieces the film together steadily
and whose cuts aren't noticed as individually impressive but rather as
a whole masterpiece of dissecting and threading together film as the
art form that it is. The film concludes on October 9th, 1979 as John
Lennon's 'Imagine' is played near the end and over the film's closing
credits. Ironically, October 9th is also John Lennon's birthday. Sadly,
on February 25, 1996, Haing S. Ngor was murdered in the parking garage
of his home. The motive, according to authorities, was robbery.
Apparently, he would not give up a piece of jewelry containing a
picture of his spouse whom the Khmer Rouge allowed to die in childbirth
in 1975. At first, it was thought by Ngor's family that Khmer Rouge
forces may have sent agents to kill him for his opposition to them
after settling in America but a police investigation found that an
Asian street gang killed him in an attempt to get money to buy rock
cocaine. [Visit Film Follow-Up by Walter Frith]
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