It is difficult to term a movie about the Cambodian genocide as a personal favorite or to recommend it highly, it is after all, a movie about a harrowing subject. But I believe this one should be seen in every high school history class. The “Killing Fields ” (1984) tells the true story of deep friendship between a NYT journalist Sydney Schanberg and a Cambodian photojournalist, both determined to bring to the world the turmoil engulfing Cambodia as Phnom Penh fell in 1975. As the murderous, ideology- blinded Khmer Rouge regime gained control of Cambodia, the photojournalist is taken to the infamous re-education camps while the American journalist is forced to abandon his friend. The movie presents a chilling portrait of the genocide through the suffering of the photojournalist and his fellow Cambodians as well as a moving tribute to the enduring friendship between the two men, partners in the same worthy cause.

The real-life Cambodian photojournalist of “The Killing Fields,” Dith Pran, passed away last week. You can read his obituary here.

Here is an excerpt from the original article (Jan 20, 1980) that Sydney Schanberg of the NYT wrote about Pran and their time in Cambodia:

After a breakfast of Pepsi-Cola at a restaurant whose French proprietor is glad for company but who has no other food, we walk back to the hotel and decide it is still safe to move around. So we drive to the biggest civilian hospital — Preah Keth Mealea — to get some idea of casualties. People are bleeding to death on the corridor floors. . . .

We can stand to look at these scenes no longer, so we depart. But as we get into our car and start to leave the compound, some heavily armed Khmer Rouge soldiers charge in through the main gate. Shouting and angry, they wave us out of the car, put guns to our heads and stomachs and order us to put our hands over our heads. . . .

They take everything — our car, cameras, typewriters, radio, knapsacks — and push us into an armored personnel carrier, a kind of light tank that carries troops in its belly that they have captured from the Government army.

We all get in — three journalists and our driver, Sarun — except for Pran. We hear him continuing his entreaties in Khmer outside. . . . Finally, he climbs in and the armored car starts to rumble forward. After a few minutes of chilled silence, Sarun turns to me and in French asks me if I know what Pran was doing outside the vehicle. I say no, since the talk was in Khmer. Sarun tells me that Pran, far from trying to get away, was doing the opposite — trying to talk his way into the armored car. The Khmer Rouge had told him to leave, they didn’t want him, only the Americans and “the big people.” He knew we had no chance without him, so he argued not to be separated from us, offering, in effect, to forfeit his own life on the chance that he might save ours.  As the armored car moves through the city, it becomes an oven. Sweat starts pouring off us as we stare at one another’s frightened countenances. . . .

Meanwhile, Pran is keeping up his pleading with the driver of the armored car, telling him that we are not soldiers or politicians or anyone hostile to the Khmer Rouge. No one here is American, he insists, they are all French, they are only newsmen. Whatever meager words we exchange among ourselves are in French. . . .

Suddenly, after a 40-minute ride, the vehicle stops and the rear door clangs open. We are ordered to get out. As we move, crouching through the door, we see two Khmer Rouge soldiers, their rifles on their hips pointing directly at us. Behind them is a sandy riverbank that slopes down to the Tonie Sap River. Rockoff and I exchange the briefest of fear-struck glances. We are thinking the same thing — they’re going to do it here and roll us down the bank into the river.

But we climb out, like zombies. No shots are fired. Pran resumes his pleas, searching out a soldier who looks like an officer. For a solid hour he keeps appealing, cajoling, begging for our lives. The officer sends a courier on a motor-bike to some headquarters in the center of the city. We wait, still frozen but trying to hope, as Pran continues talking. Finally, the courier returns, more talk — and then, miraculously, the rifles are lowered. We are permitted to have a drink of water. I look at Pran and he allows himself a cautious smile. He’s done it, I think, he’s pulled it off