The 1972 Olympics were historic, largely for terrible reasons that are unforgettable for many, but unknown to others, and the fact-based drama September 5 aims to serve both audiences. The horror of the hostage crises at the Games, and the ensuing disastrous rescue attempt of the Israeli Olympic team that resulted in the murders of all but two who had escaped, have been portrayed on film before as fiction (Munich) and nonfiction (One Day In September). September 5 takes the distinctive approach of viewing the unfolding events through the eyes of ABC, specifically from ABC Sports, who were on the ground in the Olympic Village.
Prior to these Olympics, the sports side – for whom the biggest challenge during the first days in Munich may have been how to best highlight record-breaking swimmer Mark Spitz’s impressive medal count (7) – would have handed any non-sports coverage over to ABC News in the US, thousands of miles away. But led by Roone Arledge, then-president of ABC Sports, who produced the ’72 Olympics (and ultimately oversaw 10 Olympics for the network), they made a split decision (one of many such off-the-cuff calls over the course of the next 24 hours) to take over, a decision that was a turning point in how news, in particular tragedies, was presented and disseminated going forward. It would be the first time that a mass audience was watching the broadcast of a live, developing story as it was happening.
To give some context to all the ways the International Olympic Committee, the German government, police and others gravely mishandled and misjudged the attack and the mission to save the athletes and coaches, it’s important to note that four years earlier, in the days leading up to the Mexico Olympics, government forces opened fire on student protestors, killing hundreds. Organizers, the IOC and German authorities wanted to distance themselves from memories of that bloodshed, spending less than $2M on security and having personnel be unarmed. And 36 years after the Berlin games Hitler had orchestrated, Germany, a country that had yet to really reckon with its Holocaust past, wanted to almost literally put a happy face on the games, calling them Die Heiteren Spiele (The Cheerful Games). All of this allowed members of the Palestinian group Black September, disguised as athletes, to easily breach the fence in the Village in the early hours of the morning.
The responsibility of the press, as a no nonsense and arrogant Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) explains to the equally ambitious, new producer Geoff Mason (John Magaro), is to not offer commentary and be apolitical about what’s transpiring, only to objectively present it. Of course such an approach can only be short-lived when those putting on the news are incapable of separating themselves from the story. Working with the sports crew is a young, hopeful German translator, Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch) who asks what Germany can do but move on from the past, and mild-mannered Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin), the Jewish VP of Olympic operations, sarcastically snaps, “I bet your parents didn’t know anything either.” Her quiet but pointed reply: “I’m not my parents.” Marianne, the only woman among all these men, proves to be essential as the only person among them who speaks German, knows to listen to the police scanners and goes to the air base where the hostages are taken and later massacred.
Swiss Director Tim Fehlbaum (The Colony) and his long-time collaborator, Director of Photography Markus Gorderer, in tandem with Editor Hansjorg WeiBbrich, confine most of the action to the hot, crowded control room film, adding to an already claustrophobic atmosphere. He skillfully weaves in considerable actual footage from ABC (into cameras and monitors the actors were watching in the room), such as the still chilling shots when their cameras captured the kidnappers in ski masks on the balcony. Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker), who was one of the few reporters who remained on site after the police removed the press from the site, was also an integral part of the coverage.
Writers Moritz Binder, Fehlbaum and Alex David have built a taut, tightly-paced thriller while working in questions about the moral line of what they’re doing, such as the debate between Mason and Arledge about whether a killing should be shown on air if it happened, revolving around athlete and hostage David Berger (Rony Herman), a former US citizen, with parents watching at home in Ohio. That’s lightyears from the conversation Bader and Arledge had had mere hours before when Bader questioned whether it was appropriate to ask the Jewish Mark Spitz on camera about the Holocaust, with Dachau just miles from the grounds. There were also concerns about what the terrorists were watching (the athletes had televisions in their rooms that carried ABC) and whether ABC was providing them with information they shouldn’t have access to. At one point the German police broke into the control room with guns, demanding that they turn off the cameras, but Arledge dismissively kicked them out.
The cast is excellent. Journeyman actor Sarsgaard, who has been in everything from Dopesick to An Education, does a great turn as the cool, bloodless ringmaster. Magaro, who audiences might recognize as the put upon husband in last year’s Past Lives, adeptly navigates the role of an eager, somewhat cutthroat guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing and is constantly thinking and reacting on his feet, ultimately with gutting consequences. I was most invested in Benesch, both the actor and as the resourceful, wise beyond her years Marianne. I was sorry but not surprised to learn that she was a composite character, but a thoroughly enjoyable one to watch outwit the men.
Around 900 million people (nearly a quarter of the global population) – more than the number who watched the moon landing – witnessed this sea change on that grim day in September. Whether we are the better or worse for it or simply inevitable, I’ll leave up to the viewer to decide.
The Golden Globe-nominated September 5 is in theatres now and expands nationwide on January 17th
