Illustration by Michael DiMilo
★★★★☆
The Agony of Defeat: Film Review of September 5
I remember, in my first week as high school sophomore, watching Mark Spitz swimmer dominate the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Spitz was a sensation, winning a total of seven gold medals that year. As always, the Olympics provided a variety of the familiar and the exotic, in both the competitors and the sports themselves. (How often do we get a chance to watch fencing, judo, or shooting?)
Then, on September 5th, about halfway through the games, the Palestinian terrorist group Black September entered the Olympic Village in the dead of night, attacked the Israeli team, initially killing two, and took nine more hostage. I, and hundreds of millions of others, watched in horror as the spectacle was unfolded live on ABC. I remember watching the black helicopters containing the hostages fly off into the night and was devastated to learn later that all the athletes had been massacred.
As a fourteen-year-old, I didn’t appreciate or question how the event had been covered. We’d been seeing live coverage of the Vietnam War on the news for years. We’d watched Neil Armstrong step on the moon in the comfortable blue glow of our Magnavox. TV news was part of the culture, and our window to the world.
The film September 5 allowed me to see the story I had witnessed (fifty some years ago) from the other side of the TV camera. It relates how ABC Sports, which for the first time in history was broadcasting the games live, suddenly switched gears and became a news outfit, transmitting footage of the terrorist attack to hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide. As a procedural journalistic film, September 5 excels. It examines step by step and agonizing decision by decision how the story was painstakingly reported, assembled, and brought its audience, but also poses difficult questions of how the press handles moral and social responsibility.
September 5 opens with Mark Spitz winning yet another gold medal. Roone Arledge (Peter Sarrsgard), president of ABC sports, directs the crew to cut to a shot of his competitor, a West German, and then decides to air a piece about the Holocaust during an interview with Spitz, who is Jewish, over the objections of programming head Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin). Arledge reminds Bader that this is first Olympics Germany has hosted since the time of Hitler. The people of Germany seem eager to use the event put the horrors of their relatively recent past behind them.
Early the next morning, control room chief Geoff Mason (John Magaro) and translator Marianne (Leonie Benesch) hear gunshots from the Olympic Village. Marianne goes to the village and sees dozens of police cars. After she returns, they learn from the police scanner that a Black September, a terrorist group has attacked the Israeli Olympic team, killing two and taking nine hostages, demanding the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for their safe return.
Mason, seeing the opportunity for a sensational story, quickly mobilizes his team. He sends Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker) into the village to report on events and directs him to hide when police attempt to clear the building. He directs the graphics designer to forge an ID so a cameraman can pose as an athlete and retrieve canisters of 16mm footage for the news team (this was obviously the pre-digital age) and positions cameras to obtain the best footage, resulting in the iconic shot of a masked terrorist peering over a balcony.
When cameras reveal police attempting a rescue, Mason realizes that the live broadcast is available to the terrorists. After the attempt fails, he realizes that the news coverage may have disrupted the attempt. As events cascade, Arledge faces pressure from the network to hand over the story to the news team. He refuses, stating—correctly—that his people are in the best position to cover the story.
As the story evolves, it becomes apparent to everyone that the terrorist attack has facilitated the groundbreaking concept of broadcasting events live, a method which raises all sorts of ethical questions. What if the ABC cameras would happen to broadcast the murder of a hostage while his family is watching? Would live coverage compromise the safety of the hostages as well as the police?
These questions are seamlessly incorporated into the fast-paced and thrilling narrative of September 5. As a journalistic procedural movie, this film differs from other classics of the genre like All the President’s Men, The Post, The Newsroom, Spotlight, and Good Night, Good Luck—as great as they all are—is in its intensity and breathless pacing. It is a depiction of live TV after all, but the ethics and the responsibilities of broadcasting or not broadcasting are issues inherent in the industry—and these films.
Whether to defy the Nixon White House and pursue the Watergate story or to publish The Pentagon Papers or to incur public wrath by going after the hallowed traditions of the Catholic Church were difficult decisions to make, but the press ultimately stood by the truth—which is part of what makes these stories so compelling.
In this narrative, the moral issues raise the stakes. In September 5, when Mason decided to broadcast the hostages were safe, the decision was at least partly based on scooping his competitors, as was Arledge’s initial decision to keep the story for his own division.
And like these other procedurals, September 5 is based on a shared reality. It happened. Some of us remember it happening. Watergate, McCarthyism, and the Vietnam War are also parts of our shared American heritage that we know about only because of the press. Screenwriter and director Tim Fehlbaum underlines this when he uses actual footage from the broadcast, including Jim McKay’s interviews and commentary. In fact, the audience only sees McKay through archival footage. A news feature about one of the Jewish athletes visiting a Holocaust memorial and voicing a hope that the Olympics might help to bring people together is also actual footage. Watching the technicians working with 16mm film and analog graphics also highlights the specific reality of that time.
A big part of these games was Germany’s hope for reconciliation with the rest of the world after the abominations of the Second World War. The German and Jewish tension was highlighted by Arledge at the beginning of the film, but the murder of Jews in Germany during these Olympics was a disaster for the Germans. After they learn the fate of the hostages, Marianne, the German translator, laments the fact that Germany cannot crawl out from under the shadow of Nazism.
September 5 is a tight, high-paced, and intense thriller. Although some viewers know what happened in Munich that day, the story of the struggles, triumphs, and agonies of the dedicated journalists reporting the story was unknown until now. And it is a very compelling story.
The cast is superb. While most of the actors are not household names (which is probably the point), they are excellent. Peter Sarsgaard is excellent as Arledge. John Magaro as the beleaguered Geoff Mason does a beautiful depiction of a man hitting his stride in an incredible crisis. As Marianne, Leonie Benesch steals absolutely every scene she’s in. She is relentlessly courageous and competent and infinitely patient with the sexist attitudes of the ABC crew. She is a German desperate to prove her country, her people, and herself should be forgiven.
September 5 is an outstanding film and should serve as a reminder to all of us, especially in these times when the media is under attack, that a free press is necessary for our democracy. What we don’t know can—and probably will—kill us.
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