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Register for the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee's webinar on the 53d anniversary of the My Lai Massacre on March 16, 2021. Speakers include filmmaker Connie Field, composer Jonathan Berger, Kronos Quartet's David Harrington, music performer Van-Anh Vo, actor and singer Rinde Eckert, Vietnam helicopter pilot Lawrence Wilkerson, professor / author Howard Jones, and moderator John McAuliff.

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The Whistleblower of My Lai tackles the concept of heroism, the definition of morality in wartime, and guilt both personal and national. The film follows the Kronos Quartet’s production of Jonathan Berger and Harriet Chessman’s opera My Lai, which takes at its heart the actions and life of the whistleblower who revealed the 1968 massacre by U.S. troops in Vietnam.

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The Creative Team
About Hugh Thompson
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How To Write About A Massacre
Harriet Scott Chessman grapples with the story of My Lai

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Thinking about featuring the film in an upcoming festival, event, or community gathering? Email us at info@clarityfilms.org to request more information.

BROADCAST ON KPBS

The massacre of over 500 innocent civilians by American soldiers in the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968 was one of the darkest moments of the Vietnam War. The events of that day may well have gone unnoticed save for the actions of a young army helicopter pilot who, by happenstance, witnessed the killing in the course of a routine reconnaissance flight. Appalled by what he saw, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson attempted to intercede. Aghast at his inability to stop the slaughter he reported the massacre to military high command thus putting the incident firmly in army records. In November 1969 Seymour Hersh broke the story in his Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé, which shook the national conscience. Thompson’s refusal to remain silent about the massacre forced the military to conduct an inquiry and trial.

Among the generation that came of age during the 1960’s were four artists—David Harrington of the Grammy Award-winning Kronos Quartet, composer Jonathan Berger, novelist Harriet Scott Chessman, and singer Rinde Eckert—on whose lives the Vietnam War and its controversy left an indelible mark. Out of this concern they created a new music opera, with musician Vân-Ánh Võ, that explores the tragedy of My Lai through the perspective of Thompson’s naïve, heroically idealistic, ethical decision to act, and its consequences. The creativity of this artistic collaboration brings a whole new dimension of understanding of the Vietnam War and of Hugh Thompson that one cannot get from a traditional historical documentary. The intensity of the libretto, the power of the unique music, the focus of a haiku encapsulation of a specific story captures the essence of the tragedy of that war.

"My Lai, the opera, has a richly evocative score by Berger which alternates between bursts of dense, frenzied activity and slow, hymn-like harmonies of aching sweetness. The story portrays Thompson in his final days, dying of cancer and desperately trying to make some sense of the events of 40 years earlier. Tenor Rinde Eckert makes Thompson a vivid and poignant character. Each episode is itself neatly framed, with Thompson’s present-day reminiscences fading into the events of 1968. In between are taped snippets of interrogation, in which Thompson’s shameful treatment at the hands of congressional investigators is transformed into a TV game show. The music, written for the Kronos Quartet and the Vietnamese instrumental virtuoso Van-Anh Vo, underscores the drama with unerring clarity. The combined effect is hauntingly beautiful.” 

- Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle music critic