![]() ![]() It was declared “Year Zero,” and the numbering of succeeding years would follow accordingly. To the regime, 1975 was no longer 1975 in Cambodia. Pol Pot’s killing machine produced the “ killing fields” for which the film was later named. They savaged an essentially defenseless population already weary of war. The “evils” the Khmer Rouge aspired to destroy included all vestiges of the former governments of Cambodia, city life, private enterprise, the family unit, religion, money, modern medicine and industry, private property, and anything that smacked of foreign influence. His model was the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Their leader, Pol Pot, embraced the most radical versions of class warfare, egalitarianism, and state control. In spite of the country’s continued suffering on a grand scale, I knew it was a playground compared to the three and a half years that Ngor and Pran miraculously survived.ĭuring that time, crazed but battle-hardened and jungle-toughened revolutionaries who had seized power in 1975 set about to remake Cambodian society. Experiencing Cambodia with Ngor and Pran so soon after the genocide left me with vivid impressions and lasting memories.īut Cambodia in 1989 was still a universe away from the Cambodia of 1979. So were Diane Sawyer and a crew from ABC’s Prime Time Live. Dith Pran, the photographer Ngor portrayed in the movie, was among the small number in our entourage. When he decided to visit Cambodia in August 1989 for the first time since his escape 10 years before, he asked me to go with him. ![]() We became instant friends and stayed in frequent contact. Perhaps no one loves liberty more than one who has been denied it at gunpoint. When I met Ngor at a conference in Dallas a few months after he won, I was struck by the intensity of his passion. Ngor’s Oscar-winning performance told the world about the mass murder by Cambodia communists. His Oscar-winning performance in The Killing Fields gave him the platform to tell the world about the mass murder that occurred between 19 in Cambodia at the hands of the Khmer Rouge communists. Ngor witnessed unspeakable cruelty and endured torture before escaping and finding his way to America barely five years earlier. To the stage, bearing the widest grin of his life, bounced a man few Americans had heard of, a man who had only ever acted in one motion picture. Then came the announcement for best supporting actor. Murray Abraham won best actor Sally Field, best actress. On the night of the 57th Oscars in 1985, Amadeus claimed best picture F. Wherever I am and whatever I’m doing while the show is on, however, my thoughts turn to a friend who won an Oscar more than 30 years ago. The program is always too long and often celebrates movies I didn’t like, while ignoring some of the ones I did. Every year when Hollywood’s Academy Awards are presented, I seem to find something else to do that night. I won’t be joining the social justice warriors in boycotting the 2016 Oscars, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be watching the show, either.
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