Differences from The Death and Life of Dith Pran

Differences from The New York Times

As we analyzed the differences between Sydney Schanberg's The Death and Life of Dith Pran (published by the New York Times on Jan 20, 1980) and Roland Joffé's 1984 drama The Killing Fields, there were a few major alterations that stood out. Although The Killing Fields did follow The Death and Life of Dith Pran fairly closely and accurately, we found some important discrepancies between the two. 

The number one major difference was that of the overall portrayal of Dith Pran. In Schanberg's book, The Death and Life of Dith Pran, the purpose of the writing is to tell the world Pran's story and everything he experienced and went through (as narrated by Schanberg). Although written from Schanberg's point of view, the book is accurately titled as being "The Death and Life of Dith Pran" due to the focus being solely and entirely on Pran himself. The film, The Killing Fields, focuses mainly on Schanberg and pushes Pran out of the spotlight and onto the back burner into somewhat of a supporting role.

The Killing Fields also portrays Sydney Schanberg as being extremely dominative within his relationship with Dith Pran, and although this is true at times, the film fails to acknowledge the instance in the original writing that Pran stands his ground against Sydney. The film shows Pran to always be very subjective and reliant upon Sydney, but there is an instance in which Dith Pran refuses to tell Sydney Schanberg the entire translation and only tells him "80 percent" (p.70) of it, keeping the other 20 percent for himself despite Sydney pushing Dith to tell the full translation. This part in The Death and Life of Dith Pran shows Pran's strength in his personal independence. 

There is a period of time during which Dith Pran reigned as the mayor over Siem Reap for a five month span. As said in Schanberg (2010) "The Vietnamese "liberators," having seized the main towns, set up a client Cambodian government in Phnom Penh and were looking for administrators to help them fovern throughout the country. In Siem reap, local villagers who knew Pran's skills asked for him as their administrative chief, and the two Vietnamese governors of the province agreed. He became, in effect, the mayor of Siem Reap township, which held about ten thousand people."(p. 99) The film completely eliminates this part of history, detracting from Dith Pran's leadership abilities and the great respect the people had for him. In reference to Pran and his job, Schanberg (2010) "The two Vietnamese governors, Nhien and Linh, praised him often and showed him considerable respect." (p. 99) Although not an entirely detrimental omission, choosing to leave this part out of the film does not help the way in which Pran should accurately be portrayed and in our opinion should not have been left out at all. 

In one of the very first scenes in the film, Rockoff and Sydney are sitting together eating at a cafe and bombs are dropped. This high intensity dramatic scene in the film doesn't even take place at all in the book. 

In the book, there are several references to the very young boys who are soldiers in the Khmer Rouge regime, one reference according to Schanberg (2010) "Ten year old orphans in uniforms, carrying rifles almost as tall as themselves" (p.64). In another section Pran talks about, as written in Schanberg (2010) "Being most afraid of those Khmer Rouge soldiers who were between twelve and fifteen years old" and said "they took them very young and taught them nothing but discipline. Just take orders, no need for a reason." (p. 95). The movie generally portrayed many of the Khmer Rouge soldiers as being older, and we would have liked to see more of the young boy soldiers Schanberg and Pran specifically talk about.

At the end of the film in the very emotional scene when Schanberg and Pran embrace and reunite, the movie audience is entirely aware of the strong friendship between the two men. But, we believe that the film could have done a better job showing the friendship between Schanberg and Pran as it grew and became stronger overtime. Although doing the story of their friendship justice in only a few hours would be a difficult feat and impossible to accurately display, there is still a strong discrepancy between the friendship in book and film. The film could have done a better in acknowledging the progression and advancement of Schanberg and Pran's friendship. 

In the film, there are moments when the language is in either Khmer or French and there are no subtitles. For example, the scene in which Dith Pran is talking to his crying wife in Khmer, it can be assumed to those who know the story line that he is telling her he isn't going to leave with them. But, since it is in Khmer he audience has no idea what exactly he is saying and isn't as informed in that moment as they could be if there were simply subtitles during this scene. 

After Dith has reached the border and is planning his escape to Thailand, as said by Schanberg (2010) "He waited for seventeen days just a few hundred yards on the Cambodian side in no-man's land where he was reasonably safe - watching for the right moment to get across and into the sanctuary of a Cambodian refugee camp fifteen miles away." (p. 100) The film somewhat gave the viewer the idea that Dith had somehow managed to get across the border by happenstance when in reality his escape was extremely well planned-out and articulated. 

The movie does not show the final scene in which dith pran reunites with his family. The director decided to end the film with Pran and Schanberg's reunion and instead have subtitles explaining the events that followed instead of showing them as part of the film. We don't necessarily agree with this omission since Pran's family was such a huge part of his life and purpose and the audience shouldn't have to miss out on such an important meangingful scene.