Cultivation: In the first scenes of the movie, the setting is very dirty, and the people look very poor. Throughout American cinema, this has been a common theme in Malaysian-set films. The same images appear in movies that show Vietnam. This further adds to the cultivation that Americans who see these movies imagine Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and other countries as very dirty and poor. In an interview with Sydney Schanberg, he describes pre-battlefield Cambodia as a very beautiful place, with people who had plenty enough food to take care of themselves. Only after the United States' involvement with bombing, and then the eventual takeover of the Khmer Rouge with "work" camps, did the scene in Cambodia become more dismal.
Gatekeeping: In the beginning scenes of the movie, when Phnom Penh is getting bombed by American aircraft, nobody in the embassy will give Sydney a straight answer as to why it's happening. At first, they try telling people that they just got the wrong coordinates, but then Sydney tries to ask his personal contact at the embassy, and he just says that he isn't allowed to tell him much. Limiting the amount of information that gets out to the public, (especially to Sydney, who's whole job is to report to the public) affects how they perceive the situation; this then constructs a totally different reality. In this specific example, the military gate-keeping their course of action makes it seem as though there wasn't a direct intent to bomb there, even though there really was behind the scenes.
Selective Perception: The movie is essentially told from a white American male's perspective. This limits the amount of information given in the story-line. Sydney's perspective was more detached because his family was safe and sound in America, but for Dith, and for many more Cambodians, this was their whole life...their country, their family, their health, their goals, all being torn from them. As Sydney's character in the movie progressed, however, it seemed as though he started to see things through the Cambodians' eyes. At first, he was just concerned on getting the story for people back home. As the film went on, he started to be concerned about the people and their livelihood.
Framing: In the book, Syndey and Dith frequently smoke weed together. Whether it's as a coping mechanism, or an old habit, the film makers chose to leave this out. This could either be because they didn't see it as a crucial part of the story, or that they want to frame and glorify the men as characters to be more admirable and heroic to American viewers.
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