TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES
From our Correspondent |
The Killing Fields
Roland Joffé
1984 - United Kingdom - 2h21
New York Times journalist Sidney Schanberg is one of the few reporters to remain in Cambodia after the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge. The intervention of his translator Dith Pran saved his life, but while Schanberg managed to return to the United States in extremis, Pran was sent to a labour camp like so many of his compatriots.
Initiated by producer David Puttnam, following the success of Midnight Express, The Killing Fields is based on a series of articles that won the Pulitzer Prize for journalist Sidney Schanberg. To direct the film, he met Costa-Gavras and Louis Malle, but he finally turned to Franco-British TV director Roland Joffé. The film opens at a time when the American-Vietnamese conflict is spilling over into Cambodia. It also documents the mutual assistance between international journalists in extreme cases before raising awareness of the horrors of the Pol Pot dictatorship, marked by the recruitment of children from an early age and the extermination of a people forced to live in the countryside.
CAST AND CREW
Cast : Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, Julian Sands, Craig T. Nelson, Spalding Gray, Bill Paterson
Screenplay : Bruce Robinson
Cinematography : Chris Menges
Sound : Clive Winter
Editing : Jim Clark
Music : Mike Oldfield
Production : Goldcrest Films International, International Film Investors, Enigma Productions
French distributor : Warner Bros