This was originally posted on blogger.

I truly enjoyed our first day of “Hacks of the Silver Screen”, a course with Mark Danner. The theme is journalists in film – how films have shown journalists as heroes, scoundrels, or something in-between throughout the years of American cinema.

 

Today, we watched The Killing Fields. It’s a story about an American journalist and his Cambodian “fixie” documenting the “secret bombings in Cambodia” that led up to (and arguably caused) the Cambodian genocide. I didn’t know much about the Cambodian genocide before – or even that the Americans were involved (not that I was surprised). The film gave a gruesome and real depiction of the devastation caused by American military decisions seemingly without regard for the Cambodian people.

 

Sam Waterson plays Sydney Schanberg, the New York Times journalist who was trying to convey the situation to the American public. Haing S. Ngor is a fantastic Cambodian actor who plays Dith Pran, the “fixie” (interpreter, translator, assistant, etc.) who saves Schanberg’s life many times over… but Pran isn’t able to be evacuated, and is held captive by the dictatorial Khmer Rouge (the Maoist Communist Party that conducted a military coup) until he escapes. To me, Pran is the hero of the story – there’s no way he could be paid enough for what he did. With all his negotiation and smooth-talking he did the hard work that got put under Schanberg’s name at the awards (the film is by the way based on a real story – Pran and Schanberg both were reporters at the New York Times when the film came out). Of course, he is only able to use his extraordinary talents because of the connections that Schanberg had to the New York Times, to diplomats, etc. Ultimately, the vast majority of Cambodians faced extreme oppression and violence during this genocide and revolution. The “love story” that Schanberg wrote dedicated to Pran falsely focuses on one man rather than the millions that were affected by the “secret bombings” of the country. I imagine Schanberg wrote about Pran as a way of atonement for unspeakable violence that his country brought upon a formerly neutral nation.

 

There’s a moment in the film where Nixon is on TV speaking confidently about the Viet Nam / Cambodian wars and the success of the “Nixon Doctrine”. His method of supposedly pursuing peace through the “development of allies and friends” is juxtaposed with the brutal, senseless killings of civilians in Cambodia. Schanberg asks again and again, “how many dead? How many injured?” but there is no answer readily available. Nixon’s method of expanding the Vietnam War to Cambodia gave the Khmer Rouge the chance to gain power – and under their rule, more than one million people were killed and buried in the sites in Cambodia known as the Killing Fields.

 

Many such coups have been backed by the American military in South East Asia and South America. It’s hard to say that America and Americans are not responsible for this. As our Professor mentioned in class, the War on Terror in the Middle East have destabilized even more countries leaving them vulnerable to undemocratic leadership. This has happened just in my lifetime – I watched in heartbreak and powerlessness as the US withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban overtook the country once again. And so watching movies like the Killing Field carries a particular weight since the US remains a barbaric, hegemonic power that threatens countries around the globe.

 

Maybe it’s this gut-wrenching sense of obligation that took Sydney Schanberg to risk his life and document the bombing of Cambodia. Mixed in with his desire for fame and fortune is Schanberg’s urge to find the truth; and to speak that truth to those who will listen; and to make right the injustice his country has brought on others. May we find that urge in ourselves as we think about foreign policy.

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