Four Hours in My Lai
| Four Hours in My Lai | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Kevin Sim |
| Narrated by | Mark Hallile |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Original channel | ITV |
| Release date |
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Four Hours in My Lai is a 1989 television documentary made by Yorkshire Television concerning the 1968 My Lai Massacre by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. The film includes interviews with soldiers at the massacre, and the later trials of those involved. The programme first broadcast on ITV as part of Yorkshire Television's First Tuesday documentaries.[1] Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim, who created the film, based their book of the same name off of the documentary; after release, the book was met with mixed reception.
Description
The documentary and book tell the story of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, from their training through deployment in South Vietnam. It interviews both former U.S. servicemen and massacre survivors. Both describe the background of the area where the village of My Lai lay, and explain its nickname, "Pinkville", due to its reputation for housing Communist sympathisers. The documentary also shows photographs of U.S. servicemen torturing civilians before the massacre and tells of U.S. servicemen raping South Vietnamese women and children prior to the massacre. After the massacre, the trials of the soldiers at My Lai are examined. The documentary is narrated by Mark Halliley. It also aired on the PBS series Frontline as "Remember My Lai".[2]
Reception
In 1989, the film won an International Emmy Award for Best Documentary.[3] Upon release, Bilton and Sim's book Four Hours in My Lai was met with mixed reception. In a review for Chicago Tribune, Marc Leepson criticised the book for avoiding "the common tactics of the Viet Cong", and describing their activities "in euphemistically positive terms." Leepson went on to say the book "paints a distorted picture of the Vietnam war".[4] Writing for The Boston Globe, Gail Caldwell said the book was written with a "staccato, cinematographic style", and praised it for providing "broad context, from the horrific losses Charlie Company had endured [...] to the cover-up and subsequent acquittal of several chief Army officers".[5] Murray Polner of Washington Monthly credited the two for "[laying]out the complete story, from the raid to the coverup, in straightforward and often agonizing detail."[6]
References
- ↑ "First Tuesday: Four Hours in My Lai". British Film Institute. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
- ↑ "Remember My Lai". PBS. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
- ↑ "Michael Bilton". International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
- ↑ Leepson, Marc. "An Atrocity Revisited: Two British Journalists Probe The My Lai Massacre". Chicago Tribune (Tribune Company). pp. 1–2.
- ↑ Caldwell, Gail (29 March 1992). "A horror that never ends: Almost 25 years later, the My Lai massacre still has the immediacy of yesterday's news, with the grainy unreality of film or fiction..". The Boston Globe (Affiliated Publications). (subscription required)
- ↑ Polner, Murray (1 May 1992). "Four Hours in My Lai". Washington Monthly. (subscription required)
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