Life, a full circle for Dith Pran
Theres no way I can remotely hope to recount the effect of watching “The Killing Fields”, no amount of words can effectively portray the heart wrenching effect the movie had on me and millions who saw it. Regardless of ‘when’ you watch it, it still resonates within you, the emotional aspect of the story as much as the craft of narrating this true story visually.
This comment on IMDB says it all,
“Based on the Khmer Rouge revolution in Cambodia, this is an excellent tale of hardship and friendship. Basically director Roland Joffe` did an wonderful job in exposing the detailed facts so simply in the film that you believe that you are in that time in person. The two actors, Sam Waterson and Haing Ngor both displayed godlike pieces of acting. It’s unfortunate Waterson couldn’t join Ngor in Academy Awards. In addition, the director’s credit is to highlight both the characters’ points of view. That’s why the movie became so interesting to watch. John Malkovich brought out a fine performance as a photographer.
In the course of the story of adventures of the two men, the film also has vivid descriptions of the public life during the war. Several detailed scenes of war violence are presented here so indifferently that you are bound to be convinced about its historical accuracy. Here we find the magical cinematography of Chris Menges. Again, during the time of Dith Pran’s suffering, it never seemed that the director is showing too much.
One of the most important, and my favorite, aspects of the film is its ending. You cannot imagine of a better alternative of this happiest ending possible in a war drama. And with the fantastic use of Lennon’s “imagine”, it has got to an enormous height of perfection”
Dith Pran died today aged 65, a remarkable 33 year added on to his life after being captured by the Khmer Rouge in 1975. NY Times in its tribute says
“Mr. Dith saw his country descend into a living hell as he scraped and scrambled to survive the barbarous revolutionary regime of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979, when as many as two million Cambodians — a third of the population — were killed, experts estimate. Mr. Dith survived through nimbleness, guile and sheer desperation.
He had been a journalistic partner of Mr. Schanberg, a Times correspondent assigned to Southeast Asia. He translated, took notes and pictures, and helped Mr. Schanberg maneuver in a fast-changing milieu. With the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975, Mr. Schanberg was forced from the country, and Mr. Dith became a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian Communists.”
For years there was no news of Mr. Dith, except for a false rumor that he had been fed to alligators. His brother had been. After more than four years of beatings, backbreaking labor and a diet of a tablespoon of rice a day, Mr. Dith, on Oct. 3, 1979, escaped over the Thai border. Mr. Schanberg flew to greet him.”
A remarkable life this.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
I never met Dith Pran, even though he came to campus occasionally to shoot photos for the Times. However, I would have liked to meet him if he hadn’t passed away so suddenly.
Here’s a nice piece the Newark Star Ledger did on him a week before he died, when he was very ill. It mentions how he drank water that may have been poisoned by bombs when he was trying to survive in the Cambodian fields, and so perhaps that’s why he had cancer now.
It’s in three parts, so the better information is on pages 2 and 3.
Here
thanks evelyn
some photos too