Customer Reviews

The Death and Life of Dith Pran

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are two parts of this story, told in the film "The Killing Fields." The story of Dith Pran, who was working as a locally-hired photographer for NY Times reporter Sydney Schanberg at the time of the fall of Phnom Penh to Khmer Rouge troops in 1975, is of a man who manages to survive the horrors of a genocide which was directed by Cambodians toward Cambodians, and resulted in the death of (estimates vary) 1/4 to 1/3 of the country's population in less than four years. Schanberg's story of his own guilt and fear about what had happened to his friend is powerful and disturbing in its own way. This book is essentially the publication in book form of a long article in the New York Times Sunday magazine. You cannot help but be drawn into the story, which is clearly written and, while compassionate, manages to be dispassionate and matter-of-fact, in a way that good journalism can be.

Based on a magazine article for the New York Times, this book is disappointingly sketchy and shows that great journalists are not always great writers. It also gives you a clear notion of how much imagination went into the script for The Killing Fields, which was based very loosely on this book. Roland Joffe took this bare-bones story, crudely laid out with only the faintest details, and created a powerful story of adventure and emotion. But Schanberg could easily have done much more with this story, could have drawn the true story out of Pran more completely, and he should have. Even Dith Pran himself could have done a better job! What we have here is dinner-table conversation, a casual anecdote meant to entertain for half an hour before getting back to our lives.