‘The Killing Fields,’ a harrowing film about journalists and the Cambodian genocide, turns 40

Roland Joffe's 1984 film was the story of a Cambodian journalist and his American counterpart.

The Killing Fields is, at once, a war movie, a journalism movie, and the story of the friendship between an American journalist, Sydney Schanberg, and his Cambodian counterpart, Dith Pran. It tells their stories together and separately- focusing both on the American’s guilt over leaving his friend behind in Cambodia, and the way his Cambodian friend survived the Khmer Rouge’s genocide.  

Released in November of 1984 — 40 years ago this month — The Killing Fields was directed by Roland Joffe in his directorial debut and written by Bruce Robinson. It was adapted from the book by Shanberg called The Death and Life of Dith Pran, although Pran didn’t die until many years after the release of the movie or book. 

Set over several years in the 1970s, The Killing Fields begins with Schanberg (Sam Waterston) in Cambodia, in 1973, covering the early part of that country’s civil war, with the help of photojournalist Dith Pran (Dr. Haing S. Ngor, the Cambodian actor who won an Oscar for his first movie role.) Once the Khmer Rouge takes power and foreign journalists are evacuated, Schanberg returns to the U.S., wins a Pulitzer for his work, and makes efforts to get his friend out of the country. 

We’re also shown Pran’s time under the totalitarian regime and his ultimate survival, which is the sort of story that’s often been told in cinematic Holocaust narratives.  

If one peruses the Letterboxd reviews of this film, you’ll see some people describe it as a “white savior” narrative, since it’s Schanberg, who is white, trying to rescue his friend, who is not. But this type of thinking tends to be limited, for quite a few reasons.