The Killing Fields

The Killing Fields
by Roland Joff?

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DVD details

Actor: Craig T. Nelson, Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, Julian Sands, Sam Waterston
Director: Roland Joff?
Brand: WATERSTON,SAM
Cinematographer: Chris Menges
Editor: Jim Clark
Producer: David Puttnam
Producer: Iain Smith
Writer: Bruce Robinson
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, HiFi Sound, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 141 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-03-27
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video

DVD Reviews of The Killing Fields

DVD Review: A movie all should see
Summary: 5 Stars

A very sad but good movie that we all SHOULD see...maybe we would have fewer wars...

DVD Review: Killing Fields
Summary: 4 Stars

In this film, the great Sam Waterson plays no-nonsense New York Times reporter Sid Shonberg, who is reporting on the Cambodian genocide of the early 1970s. In one early scene, he confronts an armed gaurd, pops him in the shoulder with his passport, and says "I am walking out of here, what are you going to do, blow my f---ing head off?" This after, from behind barbed wire, demanding to take a piss and obtain a pack of ciggarettes. All the man wants is to get back to work, nothing else matters.

Such risks are typical of this reporter, who usually works with Dith Prhan, native of and Shonberg's guide through war-ravaged Cambodia. Where Sydney will almost get in the face of anyone, or any gun barrel, Prhan is gentle and kind, making his way through danger using persistant persuasion and friendliness.

Shonberg has a habit early in the film of treating his counterpart as somewhat of a subordanent. When Prhan asks him if he is going to leave the country as the war evolves into mass murder, Shonberg replies "that's none of your bussiness," even though Dith's fate-and his work-is inextricably linked to his American friend.

When the war grows worse and the Kamar Rouge show their true brutallity, Shoneberg realizes confrontation won't always guarentee that the soldiers won't blow his f--king head off. He starts to rely more on his friend to guide him through a country decending into butchery and chaos. Syd also works to get Dith out of Cambodia, as his love for him becomes increasingly apparent as the maddness grows. At one point Shonberg gives Dith a brotherly tap on the leg and a reassuring smile, which would have been incoceivable earlier. But the American fails get Prhan out of Cambodia, and while he returns to New York, Dith is inducted into forced labor and brainwashing

The first hour of the film is extremelely intense, while the second hour is poinent. You really see the evoluntion--or the braking down--of Waterson's character, as his vaneer of toughness turns to hearbreak and regret. This is what the film, in many ways, is really about, dispite the political backdrop. The contrast between the two journalists is what really makes The Killing Fields into so much more than a war movie.

The perfomances are excellent to the point where you watch over and over. Waterson's ability to slowly, painfully let his character's gaurd down is amazing--something that we may yearn to see Jack McCoy do, but that will probably never happen. Still this film probably got Sam his job on Law and Order.

Well deserved.

DVD Review: THE KILLING FIELDS
Summary: 5 Stars

THIS IS WHAT TRUE ATROCITIES SEEN BY REAL EYES HAS INTRODUCE WHAT CAN NOT MAKE ONE NOT FEEL WHAT HAS TRULY BEEN SEEN BY ANOTHER EYES

DVD Review: COMMUNISM: AN IDEOLOGY OF MURDER
Summary: 4 Stars

In 1984 Sam Waterston starred as New York Times reporter Sidney Scheinberg in "The Killing Fields". Clint Eastwood was offered the role, but turned it down. He said it was because he is a "Western WASP," not an East Coast Jew, but he probably ran from it because he is a Republican and knew that Scheinberg had been a biased Vietnam reporter and did not want to promote that. Scheinberg filed numerous reports advocating the message that the U.S. was not doing the right thing in Vietnam. The early part of the film promotes the liberal myth that it was U.S. bombs and U.S. aggression that created the situation in Cambodia. The perfidy of such a concept is mind-boggling. The U.S. did create the situation in Cambodia, because it was U.S. Democrats, led by Chappaquiddick Teddy, who de-funded the South Vietnamese until they collapsed. Then they have the bluster to tell the world, using their powerful friends in the film industry, that the Cambodian holocaust was not because they disarmed the forces of freedom, but because the Communists were incensed at American crimes, therefore justifying their rampages of mass murder against innocent civilians. Is there some alternate Universe in which this can be true. Answer: No.
However, like a fair number of films that liberals make, "The Killing Fields" ends up promoting a semi-conservative message when it gets into truthful events that cannot be portrayed any other way. Pol Pot's murder of Cambodia is undeniable. In putting it on film, it simply speaks for itself. There is little to conclude in walking out of the theatres that showed "The Killing Fields" beyond the simple conclusion that, "Communists killed millions of people," which is a fact that does not allow for much leeway. Leftists still try to find that leeway, however.

HORSE MANURE

DVD Review: 3.5 stars out of 4
Summary: 5 Stars

The Bottom Line:

An intelligent look at the atrocities that occurred in Cambodia and their effects, The Killing Fields is consistently interesting for 140+ minutes (no small feat), features great performances by Ngor and Malkovich, and ends in a wonderful catharis (though one marred slightly by the inappropriate use of John Lennon's Imagine); trounced by Amadeus at the Oscars, The Killing Fields is probably the better film.

Description of The Killing Fields

Waterston stars as New York Times reporter Schanberg, a journalist who covered the war in Cambodia. Ngor stars as Dith, the translator and aide, who is exiled to Cambodian labor camps where millions of others have died.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 13-MAR-2001
Media Type: DVD

This harrowing but rewarding 1984 drama concerns the real-life relationship between New York Times reporter Sidney Schanberg and his Cambodian assistant Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor), the latter left at the mercy of the Khmer Rouge after Schanberg--who chose to stay after American evacuation but was booted out--failed to get him safe passage. Filmmaker Roland Joff?, previously a documentarist, made his feature debut with this account of Dith's rocky survival in the ensuing madness of the Khmer Rouge's genocidal campaign. The script spends some time with Schanberg's feelings of guilt after the fact, but most of the movie is a shattering re-creation of hell on Earth. The late Haing S. Ngor--a real-life doctor who had never acted before and who lived through the events depicted by Joff?--is outstanding, and he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Oscars also went to cinematographer Chris Menges and editor Jim Clark. --Tom Keogh

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