September 5 Adds New Witnesses to Tragedy

As a point of pride subscribed to and championed by many nations, the Olympics are meant to be a safe haven of peace and sportsmanship. It’s damaging when tenuous international relations spill over. Ideological clashes are one thing, but violence is another, and it has no place at the altars of athletic competition. Yet, on September 5, 1972, halfway into the Games of the XX Olympiad, no one expected a massacre– not the athletes and coaches, not the local authorities, and not the observing public watching on television.

For those that need a historical primer for September 5, a little after 4:00am Tuesday morning local time, eight masked members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) group “Black September” in carrying duffel bags of weaponry climbed a chainlink fence into the lightly guarded Olympic village. They entered a two-story residential building targeting the Israeli Olympic team and, by force, killed two people and took hostage another nine. Black September’s demands consisted of the release of over 300 Palestinian and non-Arab prisoners held in Israel. After Israel’s hardline refusal to negotiate, the disorganized and overmatched Bavarian State Police took over the matter, leading ultimately to further tragedy.

There, a few hundred yards away from the athlete’s complex–close enough to hear the gunshots that rang out– was the broadcast facility being used by the ABC television network and the sports department supervised by President Roone Arledge (the eclectic Peter Sarsgaard). The situation escalated at a shift change when Head of Operations Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin, in his first feature since The Dig) passed the production studio to untested greenhorn producer Geoffrey Mason (Past Lives and First Cow star John Magaro). This is where September 5 chooses its unique observational point-of-view and locks audiences into a captivating single setting.

Scrambling before the police cordoned off the area during a deluge of displaced athletes and a suspended Games, the triumvirate of Mason, Arledge, and Bader dispatched their teams of professionals and enlisted local help to get camera placements and vantage points for live worldwide television coverage, made possible by first-time satellite capability. Bolstered by the presence of experienced Middle East foreign correspondent (and future flagship anchor) Peter Jennings (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’s Benjamin Walker), Arledge’s ABC Sports, with beloved Wide World of Sports host Jim McKay and broadcaster Howard Cosell thrust into center positions, find themselves in the both fortunate and unfortunate position of stepping up in a crisis when the news department is too far away to help. With a then-record 900+ million people eventually watching, they were the only eyes and ears on the ground.

Through increasing cups of coffee and era-appropriate cigarette smoke, September 5 presents a group of skilled individuals in their given fields doing their absolute best in a moment when only their best would be enough. What’s more, and rising within a room of dominant men, was the indispensable assistance of local German crew member Marianne Gebhardt (The Teacher’s Lounge breakout Leonie Benesch) playing the translator and savvy local guide. Leave it to the kinetic creativity and improvisational flexibility of sports journalists to, not only put themselves in the right place at the right time, but work professionally as a team and deliver timely quality content. 

Pacing the action in this bottle movie written by virtual newcomers Moritz Binder, Alex David, and director Tim Fehlbaum (The Colony) is the aura of recreating the frenzied workplace machinations of pre-digital television production. After all, this is 1972 in September 5, where they still chemically develop film reels, cut and edit tape, use walkie-talkies, solder telephone receiver wires into live studio audio feeds in a pinch, and squeeze tape hubs by hand to create the illusion of slow-motion footage. The functional prop, set decoration, and production design efforts in the film are flawless and deserve awards consideration, in addition to the impeccable cinematography from Markus Förderer to soak it all in and hang on nail-biting developments. As a shrewd extra anchor of reality opposite using an actor for Peter Jennings, all scenes of Jim McKay use the actual archival footage spliced into the rest of the affair. Thoroughly, there’s something about the forced patience and necessary precision of this analog technology that is utterly fascinating to remember and behold. 

At a crucial early tipping point in the exceptional behind-the-scenes drama, Geoffrey and Marvin are faced with difficult ethical decisions as journalists in an unpredictable and dangerous scenario. Roone Arledge’s brusque and composed answers to his staff: “It’s not about the politics. It’s about the emotions.” His charge was to “follow the story wherever it takes us,” even if that led to fatal results. The sensitivity for the victims being Israeli Jews in an advertised new-and-improved Germany 27 years after World War II and knowing their families were likely watching this trauma on TV were not lost on them. This ordeal birthed the first televised used of the charged term “terrorist,” which became a slippery slope all its own. The implications of responsibility for fact confirmation, minimized mistakes, and reactionary decision-making were paramount and framed impactfully by September 5.

Nevertheless, what ABC captured became indelible, and September 5 matched that magnitude with one of the finest journalism movies you will ever see and one of 2024’s best films. Building to its climax through exemplary editing by Hansjörg Weißbrich, this 95-minute voyeuristic thriller morphs into a solemn drama right on cue for a powerful viewing experience, granting moments for the cast to shine and react with the historical swerve occurring before them. By shedding up close and personal light on these secondary, yet distinctive witnesses, Fehlbaum’s film adds a strong, confident, and respectful new cornerstone to the critical legacy of what happened in Munich 52 years ago which still echoes today.