On the ground at Venice International Film Festival, Shane McKevitt takes a look at September 5.
It’s September 1972, and an ABC sports broadcasting crew stumbles into their Munich television studio. At 4am, the weary-eyed team prepares for another day’s coverage of the Summer Olympics. Before the sun rises, shots ring out from inside the Olympic Village, just hundreds of metres away. The Israeli team has been taken hostage by members of Black September, a Palestinian militant group. Suddenly, the crew’s focus shifts, and they find themselves covering a terrorist attack on live television for the first time in history.
September 5 is German-Swiss director Tim Fehlbaum’s first English-language feature, a dramatisation of the Munich massacre co-written alongside Moritz Binder. Experienced in producing horror and sci-fi, Fehlbaum’s latest outing is a significant departure: a tense, gripping drama that transports the audience to a very real time and place. Steven Spielberg tackled the subject in Munich (2005), which melded fact with fiction in a sprawling, globe-trotting thriller. Fehlbaum approaches it from a new perspective, telling the story wholly within a cramped television studio, and focusing squarely on what happened that day. Glimpses of what transpires outside only come from grainy television screens, walkie-talkie transmissions, and what the crew eventually puts to air.
In the studio, dim fluorescent lighting illuminates a thick haze of cigarette smoke. Desks are cluttered with half-drunk coffee cups, documents, and manila folders. It’s a lived-in, tangible environment elevated by the cinematography. As the tension builds, tight handheld shots convey a palpable intimacy, frantically shifting between characters. The chaos of the studio control room is evocative of the powerful air traffic control scenes from Paul Greengrass’ United 93 (2006), which chronicled the morning of the September 11th attacks with frenetic realism.
During the press conference before the film’s Venice premiere, director Fehlbaum emphasised the importance of this documentary-style approach, noting how the sets were designed to ensure he could get up close and personal with the actors. He also mentioned the exhaustive research the team undertook during preproduction. They talked to the real people involved, pored over hours of footage, and listened to police radio transmissions kept confidential until recently.
The film highlights sports media’s stature in the 1970s, their broadcasts often surpassing what we think of now as hard news. Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), the ABC executive overseeing Olympic coverage, is shown directing a swimming competition the day prior. The film cuts between Arledge and studio monitors displaying the actual video recordings from 1972. As Mark Spitz, an American-born Israeli, beats out a German to win the gold, Arledge insists the shot lingers on the German’s anguish before cutting back to Spitz. Arledge’s job isn’t only to report what happens, but to tell a story.
Attention is paid to the laborious process of early 70s television production. We watch as overlays are handmade in real-time and stacks of film reels are heaved in and out of the studio. At one point Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker) relays his report over the telephone with the receiver simply hooked up to a studio mic. Meanwhile, Marianne (Leonie Benesch), a German translator, listens in on local police frequencies. We also see the media’s corporate structure at play. Arledge must negotiate the switching of timeslots for helicopter coverage and, during an interview with an escaped hostage, they’re forced to turn their feed over to another station.
Benesch’s Marianne plays an intriguing role in the story. Early on, she and the operations manager Marvin (Ben Chaplin), have a tense exchange. She talks of Germany’s desire to use the Olympics as a symbol of change. Marvin responds by asking what her parents were up to thirty years prior. As Marianne’s colleagues start recognising her value to the broadcast, her stature in the control room grows. After a crew member flippantly asks her to grab him a cup of coffee, a German broadcast sounds over the radio; he sends away the only person who could have understood it.
The film manages to find moments of levity without undermining the heavy subject matter. Disguised as an athlete to gain access to the Olympic Village, a crewmember (Daniel Adeosun) is stopped by television reporters. His colleagues chuckle in delight as he nervously stammers through, trying not to blow his cover.
Fehlbaum poses compelling questions regarding media culpability and responsibility. The crew hesitates whether to cover it at all; if an athlete is killed, they know the victims’ families will see it live on television. Once the crew commences their coverage, another dilemma arises. Could airing the footage potentially help the terrorists, who are watching the CBS broadcast themselves? Geoff (John Magaro), a young sports media producer forced to take the reins, is forced into yet another impasse when an uncorroborated report of the hostages’ rescue trickles in. Does he instruct the anchor to announce it on-air, beating their competition to the punch, or does he wait for other sources, likely losing out on an early scoop?
The film’s most discerning message is that it doesn’t try to impose an ideology, taking an objective point of view as an observer, not a commentator. Each character’s way of interpreting the attack is considered. This allows for an objectivity that, in reality, is rarely seen in the media. September 5 gives a fresh perspective on not just the events that transpired, but how the entire world watched it unfold on screen. Fehlbaum examines a heartbreaking, landmark day in both the history of media and the world at large.
September 5 premiered at Venice International Film Festival.
