“This is happening now, if you can believe it.”
September 5 is a tense, tightly-shot and intimate portrayal of the 1972 Black September incident where eight members of the Black September Organization terrorist group, consisting of Palestinian militants, kidnapped Israeli athletes during the ’72 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany as seen through the eyes and cameras of the ABC Sports team who were on location filming and producing the live broadcast of the games. September 5 is an elaborate and deep dive into the control room of ABC Sports, focusing on the men and women who were the pinnacle of sports reporting at a crucial point in history. The film captures the moment with incredible attention to detail, leaving only one solitary crack in the sense of authenticity. It is a taut thriller where the people who break the news are suddenly forced to frantically keep up with it.
September 5 is a 2024 Paramount Pictures production directed by Tim Fehlbaum from a story he wrote with Alex David and Moritz Binder. Peter Sarsgaard leads an ensemble cast alongside Ben Chaplin, Leonie Benesch, John Mason, and others in this unique perspective of one of history’s dark days.
“There are men with cameras right next to men with guns.”
It is the summer of 1972. The Olympics are going swimmingly for the crew of ABC Sports, who are capturing the games and broadcasting them to the world. The prickly president of the Sports division, Roone Arledge (Sarsgaard) runs a tight ship. He’s reluctant to hand over control to the inexperienced Geoff Magaro (Mason) until his unflappable VP of Olympic Production, Marvin Bader (Chaplin) vouches for the kid. The tightly choreographed team of operators spring into action at Geoff’s cues, activating cameras and editing feeds for instantaneous, worldwide transmission. Tape wheels spin up to record it all, immortalizing “the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat” for the various players competing for gold.
Seizing his moment, Magaro manages the transmission with aplomb, keeping his team’s cameras close in on the action of the events and the reaction of the participants, focusing on faces as hopes are dashed or dreams are made in triumph. He’s got the chops and Marvin is able to relax. Despite the scale of the summer games, it becomes a typical Tuesday morning for ABC Sports.
Then, during a short break, the German translator, Marianne (Benesch), and Jaques the engineer hear the sound of gunfire off in the distance. They report it and Geoff is able to get cameras trained on what they discover as a horrible hostage-taking in progress. They soon learn that fourteen Israeli athletes were seized by armed, masked hostiles and that some of the athletes are dead. One barely makes it out.
Suddenly the summer games transform from an international indulgence into an international incident. Though initially reluctant, the German government pauses the Olympics with intent to resolve the terrorist hostage-taking.
Only ABC Sports, with their lattice of cameras and fleet-footed crews, can get initial and immediate coverage of what has now become the biggest story in the world. Headquarters wants the News Division to take over, but Roone argues adamantly with the studio for Sports to keep control of the broadcast situation. He wants his team to get the credit for their hard work.
What unfolds next is chronicled in public records (and several other feature films), but Fehlbaum has created a distinctive, startling, edge-of-your-seat simulacrum of the events that follow. Please watch September 5 and see it for yourself.
“You want me to ask a Jew about the Holocaust on national TV?”
“Ask him what it’s like to win a gold medal in Hitler’s backyard.”
September 5 is very good at capturing the post-World War II political moment and the palpable tension before the precipitating incident. When not locked in on the hostage situation, Fehlbaum centers his attention on illustrating an excellent portrayal of a West Germany struggling to move beyond the horrors committed in the (relatively) recent past. This proves relevant to the plot as the German military is kept far from the domestic sturm and drang of the hostage situation. The West German government thought it was imperative to be seen as a different Germany, a kinder, gentler Germany, one where the military was kept on a tight leash.
September 5 is a story of lost innocence, A story where the ABC Sports people don’t even know what to call the hostage-taking terrorists because nothing like this had ever happened before at a sports event in front of 900 million people. It’s a story where the ABC team nimbly steps up, led by Roone and Geoff. Going beyond their purview and stepping outside their regular athletic envelope, the team’s extensive camera coverage captures the news better than the professional news people.
September 5’s innovative interpretation makes for a novel approach to the weighty subject matter and provides a film’s worth of insider information. For example, the German cops are so out of their depths they don’t realize the terrorists are watching the same ABC news feed that they are and at the same time. The terrorists know exactly what the police are planning because the police PR people are giving interviews and the initial movements of their tactical response teams are being televised for the terrorists to see. It falls upon Geoff and his team to alert the authorities to their incredibly dangerous oversight.
Fehlbaum has crafted a film with clingy, narrow, over-the-shoulder trailing shots and a clever, meticulous conversion from the 4:3 ratio in the archival footage (used by permission of ABC’s parent company, Disney) to widescreen when he depicts his stressed actors sweating in the confines of the cramped and claustrophobic control room. He uses this technique to great effect, providing a perfect environment for the cast to work in, blurring the boundary of set and setting.
The integration of the archival footage providing the wraparound in the movie is surprisingly smooth and notably seamless with some exceptions (Benjamin Walker’s Peter Jennings sounds nothing like the real Jenning’s very particular accent and enunciation which is heard from his reporting in the historical footage). Production designer Julian Wagner’s detailed recreation of the control room is a set that is a facsimile with functional switches, tape spools, phones, and other pieces of cutting-edge (1970s) technology, further immersing the viewer with the atmosphere of the past age.
Many elements of the era are well presented including the rank sexism that confronts Marianne, who, as the translator and the only one who speaks German, is possibly the most vital person present in the control room yet is sent on a coffee run with contemptuous ease. The only real crack in the near-immaculate verisimilitude is that there’s just not enough cigarette smoking. It’s 1972. You would think there would be overflowing ashtrays everywhere and a layer of smoke occluding the air three feet from the control room floor and rising. However, it’s an easily overlooked flaw. Fehlbaum has put together an engrossing, well-acted movie focusing on the brave men and women who kept cool and collected during their coverage of a white-knuckle, rapidly-escalating, volatile situation where it felt like for one, brief, horrible moment the whole world had its eyes on Munich. Worthy of award consideration, September 5 is not to be missed.
September 5 gets a limited release in theatres Dec. 13th and opens across the country on Jan. 17th.
Newsdesk 
Brian Isaacs - Executive Editor / Publisher