Time Stamps

For the most part, we found that the movie was true, with minor deviations and added details. Our main source for truthiness analysis was Sydney Schanberg's book, The Death and Life of Dith Pran, along with several articles and texts. The following are several scenes we analyzed that were either true, truthy, or false.

TRUTHINESS
00:01:15

Voice of America news coverage is on President Nixon's upcoming address on the Watergate scandal.

At the beginning of the movie, Schanberg states that he both went to Cambodia and met Dith Pran in 1973. However, we found information in both Schanberg's "The Death and Life of Dith Pran," and in this article by Schanberg that proves that he was actually in Cambodia with Pran in 1972. The following quote is taken from Schanberg's book: "I met Pran for the first time in 1972 . . . I went to Cambodia that year."

According to the radio announcement during this clip in the movie, President Nixon would address the public within "the next few days" of the date we hear the announcement, August 7, 1973. President Nixon did address the nation on August 15, 1973. The text and audio of this address can be seen here.

FALSE
00:01:15-00:05:00 


First scene is misconstrued, the book verifies that they met at the airport and had never met before. In the movie, Pran left the airport before Schanberg arrived, and Schanberg had to take a cab to this hotel and then arrange to meet Pran for the first time. However, according to the book, Pran was waiting for Schanberg at the airport when he arrived: "When my plane touched down at Pochentong Airport on that September day, Pran had received my cable and was there to meet me." We believe that this detail may have been changed so that the scene where they met at a cafe and witnessed the motorcycle bomb could be included.


TRUTH
00:07:12 

The cafe shown in the movie is a real cafe in Phnom Phen.


TRUTH
00:14:06

Boat scene verified by book. To get the Neak Luong after the bombing in the movie, Pran arranged for Schanberg and himself to ride a Cambodian military boat down the river to the city. This is confirmed by the book, when Schanberg states, "Pran, his competitiveness boiling as keenly as mine, managed, through bribes and cajoling, to sneak us aboard a patrol boat."


TRUTH
00:14:51

The scene of the explosion verified by Schanberg's article written for the NYTimes. Many details of Schanberg and Pran's visit to Neak Luong after the bombing are the same in both the movie and history. This article describes the scene of the bombing very similarly to the movie, such as the destroyed concrete buildings and rubble scattered everywhere. Both the article and the book confirmed the cause of the bombing: an error in the U.S. homing system.  It is also verified by the book that they had to take a boat back to Phnom Phen, although there was no mention of the U.S. military coming in to interfere, so that may have been false.

TRUTHINESS
00:20:21

It is true that Pran and Schanberg were under house arrest for a night, although details of that scene were described differently in the book, such as the fact that there were several survivors of the bombing under house arrest with them in the book, whereas they were shown alone in the movie.



TRUTH
00:23:37


The scene skips to date stamp of March 10th, 1975. A few scenes later, showing time had passed, the Khmer Rouge took the city. In reality they took the city on April 17th 1975. The time shift fits with the historical date.

Schanberg and Pran were still in Cambodia during the time skip, although their actions were not addressed in the movie. We found proof of this from several articles (1) (2) (3) that he wrote during that time.


TRUTHINESS
00:26:20

The Coke factory shown in the movie was really a Pepsi Factory, verified by the book. Pepsi was given an offer to be in the movie but rejected it, making Coke a product placement.

TRUTHINESS & FALSE
00:41:00

The family evacuation was verified by the book. The reason this segment is "truthy" is because the helicopters shown were really rented air crafts spray painted with the "Marines" logo, not American. The American government was not used as a resource on this film since it depicted them in a negative light. Pran's family was also evacuated on trucks, according to the book, although there were many helicopter evacuations as well.

President Ford who made a cameo, seen in the motorcade, in the film was never actually in Cambodia. President President Obama was the first  to visit Cambodia.

The scene was also filmed in San Diego, California.

























TRUTHINESS
00:46:00



This scene depicts a a confusing scene in history where the group rolling through the streets were believed to be the Khmer Rouge when in reality the were a group of students. This was verified by the book. The only differences are in the scene the students were dressed in guerrilla uniforms, in real life they were in "black pajamas" (book). However, the book verifies that there were white flags hung all over and being waved by many.


TRUTH
00:46:32

The hospital scene before the journalists were taken by the Khmer Rouge is verified by the book, when Schanberg states, "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." A detail of the scene specifically verified by the book was the mopping up of blood. Schanberg said, "A few yards away, hospital aides are trying to mop some of the blood off the floor. They mop carefully around three stiffening corpses."










TRUTHINESS
00:50:00

The Khmer Rouge city takeover and following kidnapping of the journalists was verified by the book. The book mentions that they were taken after leaving the hospital mentioned above, which happened in the movie. Their stuff was taken from them in the movie as in the book, and the movie accurately portrayed Dith Pran having to beg to be allowed into the armored car with the non-native journalists. However, the reason why was not clearly explained in the movie - Pran knew that without him to translate for them and to plead with the Khmer Rouge, the foreign journalists would have little chance of living. One aspect of this scene that was drastically different in the movie than real life was that in the movie they spoke English, but in the book they spoke only French, because they did not want to Khmer Rouge to know that any of them were American.


TRUTH
00:52:45

The silk flower that Sydney holds in the tank, although not explained in the movie, was an actual event that occurred in the book. It was given to him by his 5-year-old daughter two weeks earlier, and he kept it with him as a kind of good-luck amulet. He even held it in his right hand in the movie, which was mentioned in the book.











TRUTHINESS
00:57:10


In this scene one of the Khmer Rouge members plays around with the kidnapped journalists using Coke, product placement. In the book it was orange soda, and they were all eventually allowed to drink it, rather than the soldiers refusing to let them have any.





TRUTHINESS
59:00:12

In this scene the journalists are released onto the streets as the Khmer Rouge continue to overtake Phnom Phen. In reality they were released to their hotel where the journalists gathered supplies. The book verified the act of pushing a Red Cross vehicle through the streets to protect themselves and to carry their things.


TRUTH
01:00:10

The safety the journalists took in the French Embassy was verified by the book. Many details of the scene are mentioned in the books as well, such as the refugees pushing their things and each other over the gates of the embassy, and the segregation of the Cambodians being forced to stay in the grass outside the embassy, while the journalists and other foreign figures are allowed inside.

FALSE
01:08:00

The process of faking Pran's passport was false. Rockoff used an old photo and attached it to a British passport, but there was no dramatic developing scene. The reason the fake passport didn't work was because the pasted-on photo was so obviously fake, not because it faded. Both Sydney and Pran worked with the film to assure its accuracy in general, but Rockoff refused to help because of the addition of the false scene in which the photo was developed.   



TRUTHINESS
01:20:00

When Pran left the French Embassy he did leave willingly - but with a group of 20 people, not by himself. This was verified by the book. 



TRUTH
01:22:08
After Schanberg was evacuated, he did write letters and send photos of Pran everywhere. This was verified by the book and the film documentary.


TRUTH
01:23:11

Sydney flies to San Francisco to visit Pran's wife and children. The date was verified: he returned in mid-July (according to book) and saw her as the movie displayed as mid-October. One part the scene does not convey was that Pran's wife thought Schanberg was returning with Pran to see her, and was disappointed because he was not. The movie also did not include the other times that Schanberg communicated with Pran's wife, but since it doesn't say that it didn't happen, the scene is not made false because of it.

TRUTH
01:26:30

This scene shows Sydney watching a recording of Nixon's presentation on the situation in Cambodia. This was a real broadcast in 1970, verified by the news. President Nixon's speech in this scene can be verified by this document, with depicts the date and text of his speech.


TRUTHINESS
01:28:15

The film shows a depiction of authentic work camps as seen in the documentary. The film skipped the fact that Pran was so malnourished he couldn't walk without a cane, verified by the book. In the movie, he was shown as clearly unhealthy and malnourished, but it was not shown clearly that he could not walk unaided.

TRUTHINESS
01:37:30

When Pran was apprehended for stealing it was actually for stealing rice, according. The movie depicted him being caught after sucking the blood of a buffalo - which he did have to do to survive - but that was not the cause of his arrest. He was also let go after a night tied up, like the movie shows, and the book explains that an officer had taken a liking to him and managed to convince the others to spare him. However, it does not mention anything about the soldier who said "Mercedes Number One." 

FALSE
01:43:15 - 01:54:15 (Pran's storyline)


Pran never sneaked away from the rice fields in a trek across Cambodia to work for in the house of a Khmer Rouge officer. He was relocated there, as verified by the book.


TRUTHINESS
01:45:00

The scene implied to be the actual "killing fields" had bones strewn about it, as is historically correct. However, the decaying bodies should have turned the deserted fields into lush green grass, not a wasteland. Although this specific scene did not happen in the book, there was a point when Pran walked through some "killing fields," and he described them by saying, "you could always tell the killing grounds because the grass grew taller and greener where the bodies were buried." The immense number of bodies shown in the movie is accurate, however.


TRUTHINESS
01:47:12

The AIFPC award that Sydney won in 1976 was really the Pulitzer prize for international reporting. We verified here that Schanberg won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976. However, we found nothing on an AIFPC award, and could not even find if such a thing exists.

TRUTH
01:54:30

Pran did take care of the commune chief's child, as verified by the book. He performed many tasks for him, as depicted in the movie. Also depicted in the movie and verified by the book was the man's distaste for the Khmer Rouge. In the movie this was shown by him helping Pran, but the only aspect mentioned in the book was that he "had no love for the Khmer Rouge."


TRUTHINESS
02:01:32

The planes used in this scene were Thai planes spray painted to look Vietnamese.


FALSE
02:02:40

Pran never took the child after the attack or obtained the map from his father. He also left on his own this time. He returned for his hometown and found most of his family was dead. The Vietnamese government had taken over his town at the time and made him a chief under thier rule. They also believed he was uneducated. When they found out he was educated they made him resign. This was all described in the book, and skipped by the movie.


TRUTHINESS
02:06:30

After he was discovered he did make his push for freedom and left with a group of 11 people. Slightly referenced earlier, this basically consolidated the two events described in the book into Pran's one last escape attempt shown in the movie. The bomb that killed a man on this journey also happened in the book, although in the book two people killed were walking ahead of him, not behind.

TRUTHINESS
02:12:30


Pran cross into Thailand and was reasonably safe, as verified by the book. However, the place of safety was called a "Cambodian refugee camp," in the book, which did not mention anything about the Red Cross. Furthermore, the movie did not mention that Pran arrived at the Thai border with man members of this original party, but that he crossed alone much after them because they had contacts there that ensured their safety, and he did not.

TRUTH!!!
02:15:00

The EPIC HUG is verified by the New York Times documentary and the book.  Schanberg met Pran at the refugee camp, and Pran jumped on him and hugged him just as he did in the movie - with his arms around him and his legs around Schanberg's waist.