In Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5, an American sports broadcasting crew finds itself thrust into covering the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Germany dubbed them the “Happy Games.”
The Munich Olympics of 1972 were the first Games on German soil since Hitler’s 1936 showcase of Nazi propaganda, were intended to be a window on a new, transformed, liberal Germany.
There were no armed police in the Olympic village. Athletes limbered up in the sunshine.
For the first time ever the Olympic Games were broadcast live on TV.
On the ninth day of the Munich Olympic Games members of the Palestinian Black September easily infiltrated the Israeli quarters at the Olympic Village and took hostage 11 coaches and athletes.
A siege and escape attempt followed left 17 people dead.
It was the first time a terrorist act was captured live on television for a global audience.
Olympic chairman Avery Brundidge insisted the Games continue in light of the hostage situation, as if terrorism was an annoying sideline rather than the headline.
That is history 52 years ago. It’s still relevant, given the events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1200 people and took more than 250 Israelis hostage.
Fehlbaum’s original plan was to film the Munich events from several points of view – police, politicians, athletes and so on.
Instead he focussed the story in one room with American reporters. The audience would see what they saw.
The subject has been covered in previous movies. So what makes this film different from 10 others?
For one, at just 95 minutes, it is taut.
Secondly, the story unfolds from the point of view of the American ABC-TV control room where consequential decisions are made in real time.
Thirdly, cinematographer Marcus Förderer hand-held the camera, but this doesn’t result in upsy-downsy “I think I’m going to be sick” screen imagery.
Camera movement is minimal, allowing the audience to participate in the film and feel the tension generated in the control room.
Roone Artledge (Peter Sarsgaard) heads the reporting team of the American ABC network.
Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro, who in 2005 was an extra in Steven Spielberg’s Munich), a relatively inexperienced sports producer, expects to cover all the minutiae of the Games and its athletes, but he hears what sounds like gunshots coming from the athletes’ village and realises he has breaking news.
Broadcast supervisor Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin) faces the challenge of how to cover it.
What he decides becomes both technical and ethical. “If they shoot someone on live television, whose story is that? Is it our story or theirs?”
When terrorists struck, ABC’s bosses wanted their political reporters to take over from the sports reporters, but Artledge refused.
No one was taking away his team’s story. The network had two bulky cameras. Artledge decreed one be set up outside the Israeli’s apartment balcony.
Information, like who was in that apartment, had to be verified. Broadcasting uncertified information is extremely dangerous.
German translator Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch) abandons her coffee making “job” to take a crucial position as the intensity of the live broadcast evolves.
She’s a translator. After all, German television, all news communication, is in German. None of the American sports commentators understand, much less speak, the language.
The film showcases the intense and emotional experience of live broadcasting as a global tragedy unfolds.
Nominated for one Oscar, Best Original Screenplay, this is worth a trip to the cinema.
Take along the high school aged teens. They could stand to learn a little history.
