Swimming to Cambodia
8 /10 1 Votes
3/4 Roger Ebert 100% Rotten Tomatoes Genre Comedy, Drama Duration Language English | 7.8/10 IMDb 68% Metacritic Music director Laurie Anderson | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Release date 1987 Initial release March 13, 1987 (New York City) Film series Swimming to Cambodia Film Series Similar movies Related Jonathan Demme movies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Spalding gray segment from swimming to cambodia 1987
Swimming to Cambodia, also known as Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia, is a 1987 American film written by and starring Spalding Gray, and directed by Jonathan Demme. The performance film is of Gray's play and monologue, which centered on such themes as his trip to Southeast Asia to create the role of the U.S. Ambassador's aide in the film The Killing Fields, the Cold War, Cambodia Year Zero, and his search for his "perfect moment". The film grossed slightly over $US1 million.
Contents
Gray published his monologue in book form in 1985.
Background
Over a period of two years, Gray originally developed Swimming to Cambodia as a theatre performance piece. The original running time of the performance was a total of four hours long, and it was presented over two nights. Gray won an Obie award for this work.
In 2001, Gray revived Swimming to Cambodia, performing it on stage in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Albany, New York.
Content
The opening shots of the film show Gray walking toward The Performing Garage in New York City. He goes in and, after walking past the audience, he takes a seat behind a table. On the table is a glass of water, a microphone, and a notebook, the latter brought by Gray. Behind him are two pull-down maps. One is a map of Southeast Asia and the other is a diagram of the bombing of Cambodia, Operation Menu, which Gray tells the audience was called "Operation Breakfast". There is also a back-lit projection screen showing a photograph of a beach.
Gray performs a monologue in which he discusses his experiences filming a small role in the movie The Killing Fields. He also expounds on the recent history of Cambodia up through the rise to power of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Genocide. Three scenes from The Killing Fields that feature Gray are shown at various points in the film.
Production
The soundtrack for this film was composed and performed by Laurie Anderson, who would also score Gray's follow-up film, Monster in a Box. Gray returned the favor by providing the voice of a TV interviewer for her 1986 short film, What You Mean We?. No soundtrack album was released; Anderson later reused music from the film for a series of "Personal Service Announcements" which she produced in 1989 to promote her album, Strange Angels.
While Sam Waterston and Ira Wheeler are credited as cast in this film; they appear only in clips used from The Killing Fields.
Home Media
Shout! Factory announced plans for a DVD release of Swimming to Cambodia on May 28, 2013.
Swimming to Cambodia was released in the UK on region 2 on the 16th March 2015 by Simply Media
References
Swimming to Cambodia WikipediaSwimming to Cambodia IMDbSwimming to Cambodia Roger EbertSwimming to Cambodia MetacriticSwimming to Cambodia Rotten TomatoesSwimming to Cambodia themoviedb.org