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 Cambodia to report on the war, working with photographer Al Rockoff and Cambodian journalist and interpreter Dith Pran.[4][5] 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.[6] 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][6] 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.[6] The Khmer Rouge then order every Cambodian out of the embassy, and the journalists fail to save Pran with forged foreign papers.[6]

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.[4] Back in the United States, Schanberg receives awards for his reporting while his thoughts remain with Pran.[5] Pran escapes and at last reaches a refugee camp across the Thai border, where the two men meet again.[7][5]

Production and credits

Silhouettes of three men on a wooden watchtower against a purple evening sky, with a flag at the left.
Figures on a watchtower at dusk, a still from The Killing Fields.

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][4][6] 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.[4] Judy Moorcroft designed the costumes, and Roger Murray-Leach and Steve Spence handled the art direction.[1][6] The Numbers puts the production budget at $16 million.[8]

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 the military attaché, Spalding Gray as the U.S. consul, Bill Paterson as Dr. MacEntire and Athol Fugard as Dr. Sundesval.[9][7] Ngor had never acted before. He had survived the Khmer Rouge years himself: he was sentenced to prison, then escaped to Thailand and reached the United States in 1980.[10]

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.[6] He saw the story as a love story between Pran and Schanberg more than a war story.[6]

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 about $34.6 million in North America.[8]

At the 57th Academy Awards, the film received seven nominations, including Best Picture.[11] It won three: Best Supporting Actor for Ngor, Best Cinematography for Menges and Best Film Editing for Clark.[3][6] It won eight British Academy Film Awards.[12] Ngor also won a Golden Globe for his performance.[6] In a 1999 British Film Institute poll of industry figures, it placed 100th on a list of 100 British films of the 20th century.[13] Britannica credits the film with bringing the suffering of the Khmer Rouge's victims to worldwide attention.[14] The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus calls it artfully composed and powerfully acted.[15]

At the Cambodia Town Film Festival

The film is one of the films shown at the Cambodia Town Film Festival in Long Beach, California.

  • 2015: official selection.[2]
  • 2025: special screening.[3]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Wikipedia, The Killing Fields (film) (2004-11-28)
  2. ↑ 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. ↑ 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. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Variety Staff, The Killing Fields (review, 1984)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 DVD Talk, Ryan Keefer, The Killing Fields (December 29, 2013)
  6. ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 TCM, The Killing Fields
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 RogerEbert.com, Roger Ebert, The Killing Fields (1984)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 The Numbers, The Killing Fields (1984)
  9. ↑ AFI Catalog of Feature Films, The Killing Fields (1984)
  10. ↑ The Spokesman-Review, from the Los Angeles Times (February 27, 1996)
  11. ↑ Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, The 57th Academy Awards (1985)
  12. ↑ Guinness World Records, Most BAFTA film awards won (one film)
  13. ↑ BBC News, Best 100 British films: full list (September 23, 1999)
  14. ↑ Encyclopedia Britannica, The Killing Fields (2025-08-23)
  15. ↑ Rotten Tomatoes, The Killing Fields

Sources

Retrieved from "https://khmerconnection.com/w/index.php?title=The_Killing_Fields&oldid=13109"
This page was last edited on 9 October 2026, at 06:07.