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dweemeister · 5 months ago

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NOTE: This was the final film I saw at the Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana, California before its closure on Sunday, January 26. My thanks to all those who joined me there over this last decade at what became my favorite movie theater. My best to all of the staff of the theater for their friendliness and conversations, too. Thank you for the memories.

September 5 (2024)

The world’s major sporting events are as much an aspirational image fans wish to see of themselves as well as a mirror to the present. Only two such events capture the truest reflections of a host nation and its many globe-spanning guests at a certain time: the men’s World Cup and the modern Summer Olympics. The latter, founded by Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin believing that sport mixed with a healthy nationalism could invigorate modern men (and in his view, only men) and promote world peace. At the risk of understatement, Coubertin was overly optimistic about humanity’s nature. In the years since the modern Olympics’ revival in 1896, the world witnessed countless wars (two World Wars suspended the Games) and human tragedies – sometimes in the very host nations of the Games. The post-World War II Olympics advertised themselves on themes of revival and reintroduction. London 1948 were Games of renewal; Tokyo 1964 was Japan’s reintroduction to the world after its bloody Imperial past.

Taking a page from Tokyo, Munich 1972 was to be “Heitere Spiele” (“The Cheerful Games”) – an Olympics to erase the shame of the Nazi-defined Games of Berlin 1936. Though Munich was the site of swimmer American Mark Spitz’s seven world records for seven golds and the Soviet Union’s controversial gold medal win over the United States in men’s basketball, these Games are best-known for the Munich Massacre. In Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5, we experience how the crew of ABC Sports (who were then-rights holders to Olympic coverage in the U.S.) pivoted to breaking news coverage as the massacre unfolded. From Paramount and with an original screenplay by Fehlbaum, Moritz Binder, and Alex David, September 5 is primarily a reflection of journalistic ethics, as well as the practices of American journalism before the advent of cable news, and the end for West Germany’s hopes for a joyous Olympics.

In the early morning of September 5, 1972, one day after Spitz’s seventh gold medal, almost all of the ABC Sports team goes back to their hotel rooms following the live primetime broadcast for American audiences. For the few remaining ABC Sports staffers lingering at the broadcast center, they hear the sound of nearby gunshots coming from the direction of the Olympic Village. Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro), head of ABC’s television control room, is among those still awake, as is translator Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch). Through observation and listening to German police and news radio, they learn that the Palestinian group Black September have broken into the Olympic Village and are hold hostage many of the Israeli Olympic team’s athletes and coaches. Mason urges all staffers back to the control room and, in consultation with then-ABC Sports President Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) decide to pivot coverage away from the Olympic competitions to the unfolding situation. This comes despite the skepticism of ABC executives in New York City and those at ABC News who claim that the Sports division is in over their hands on how to handle such coverage. As the long day unfolds with Olympic competition suspended, the sheer stress of covering the hostage situation begins to show on the faces of those in the ABC Sports control room – a mixture of inexperience covering news, lack of knowledge about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and faint hopes for a peaceful resolution.

Also appearing in September 5 are Ben Chaplin as Marvin Bader (Vice President of ABC’s Olympic Operations), Zinedine Soualem, and Benjamin Walker as ABC News’ Peter Jennings. Sportscaster Jim McKay and Jennings both appear in archival footage.

September 5 made its debut at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival at an inauspicious and unfortunate time. As of the publication of this piece, the Gaza War, fought between Israel and Hamas and begun after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 surprise attack, remains active despite a recent ceasefire. Online, one can find numerous accusations about the film’s timing; its purported bias towards one side of the Arab-Israeli conflict (something I believe to be reading past the film’s purpose, which I will explain later); and for failing to provide any context about that conflict. It is worth reiterating that this is a dramatization of how the Munich Massacre unfolded solely through the eyes of journalists attempting to report the news. This is not a documentary, and no one appearing in this film has the luxury (or self-satisfaction) of retrospect.

Tim Fehlbaum and his fellow co-screenwriters are instead concerned about the decision-making of ABC Sports staffers about how to report the situation despite their lack of geopolitical experience. Additionally, September 5 demonstrates how human fallibility, ignorance, and sympathies can lead to compelling news coverage or premature speculation that is reported as fact. Take the scene as ABC Sports’ control room staffers huddle around a telephone with Peter Jennings (who seems to be the only ABC News journalist on-location) on the other end of the line.

At this point in the film, German police have confirmed that the hostage takers are from Black September. Here, the staffers and Jennings – who is on the opposite balcony of the Israeli team’s rooms trying to remain hidden while observing the movement across the way – are debating on whether or not to label the Palestinians as “terrorists”. Jennings, who in 1968 established ABC News’ Middle East bureau in Beirut, is perhaps the most sympathetic towards Arabs and Muslims among any of the figures here and, neutrally, presents arguments against using the descriptor of “terrorists” (the lack of screentime for Walker’s Peter Jennings could have injected the film with more context for Palestinians). Though they listen intently, the ABC Sports team overrules Jennings and will refer to the Munich Massacre early on as a terrorist attack. It is a semantic argument, but one that remains just as tense as the footage of Black September’s militants, their heads covered in a sack, peering over the balconies.

For younger viewers who do not know, ABC’s coverage of the Olympics came before the creation of cable television and cable news’ 24/7 news cycle. For decades, Americans had only the three major networks – ABC, CBS, and NBC – alongside their local PBS station (1970 and onward) and other smaller local channels. Outside of newspapers, newsmagazines, and the radio, the Big Three defined news coverage in the U.S. Due to the lack of commercialization and highly centralized nature of American television news at the time, there was little incentive for sensationalized, opinion-laced coverage and more emphasis on dry, in-depth, explanatory reporting. But uncertainty has a way of complicating journalistic objectivity, no matter the era of journalism.

The screenplay emphasizes the utter confusion of that day, with the ABC Sports staffers only able to report the story through Peter Jennings’ and Marianne’s (the latter being a composite character) observations, as well as important reports coming from German media. Overlapping conversations recall the early scenes in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) – a film that touches upon the failure of language to foster understanding. September 5’s lack of omniscience – almost all of the film takes place within ABC’s windowless offices and control room, with only brief glimpses outdoors – amplifies its thriller bona fides, and Hansjörg Weißbrich’s tight editing winds the tension with each major development. Fehlbaum’s film leans into its immediacy with handheld cinematography and a color grain reminiscent of 1970s filmmaking. The set – strewn with papers, binders, ashtrays, knobs, and buttons – makes one feel as if they are present in that control room. The television screens in the control room, in another film, might well contain footage spliced in by CGI artists after shooting. Instead, all of the footage on that wall beam in images from that day, with the ensemble cast having the actual visuals to inform their performances. As some of the most horrifying images come on-screen, we see in many faces a knowing helplessness.

All of this filmmaking supports September 5’s thesis that none of its figures could predict: the rise of a 24/7 news cycle where speculation overshadows reporting and the merging of news with entertainment. Compared to some of the more egregious examples in modern news media, ABC Sports’ coverage of the Munich Massacre was (and is) highly professional, despite a notable blunder near the end of the day’s reporting.

In interviews, Tim Fehlbaum maintains that he wished to exclude personal backstories as much as possible for the characters. The speed of the film ensures that there is little time for introspection, as emotions will only jeopardize the objectivity of the coverage. But some personal beliefs and backgrounds sneak in anyways. As a composite character, Leonie Benesch’s Marianne is the embodiment of German aspirations for the Olympics; Zinedine Soualem’s Jacques Lesgards is of partial Algerian descent and takes offense at the most explicitly racist utterance in the film. September 5 argues, through these characters and its refusal to provide context, that even in the closing moments of the Munich Massacre, nothing could ever justify the events of that day.

September 5 was in post-production when the Gaza War broke out in October 2023; I suspect that the level of animosity online towards this movie would not have been present if it was released five years ago. To some, I can imagine that the very existence of September 5 is infuriating (and, by extension, my act of writing on the film is tantamount to propaganda). Yet the film is – by design – narrowly constructed. It rises and falls in certain areas of its filmmaking and storytelling because of that narrow construction. September 5 has no intentions on being a comprehensive document of the Munich Massacre, and it has no interest in voicing either or both Israeli or Palestinian political perspectives*. That is for another movie and another take on these events entirely. The only Israeli voice that appears is in archival footage, as the ABC Sports crew schedules an interview with an Israeli weightlifting coach who escaped in the first moments of the break-in. The coach plainly describes the situation as he saw and heard it, with no editorializing or exaggeration amidst his trauma. There is, however, an implicit befuddlement – not malice – towards the Palestinian perspective among the ABC Sports crew, which struck me as historically likely (if not period-accurate).

At the very least, September 5 portrays the Munich Massacre with the appropriate solemnity it deserves. The film’s meticulous detail to the operations of a news organization – albeit a sports journalism outfit that makes an immediate transition to hard news – makes it one of the most fascinating journalism narrative films in recent times.

My rating: 7.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

* The film does mention the Holocaust in one of the more politically loaded scenes, but I interpreted it as one more reflective of West Germany's desire to present an Olympics that did not remind the world of its Nazi past, rather than any Zionist ideology.