September 5
How do you cover a tragedy?
What is the price of good media coverage?
At the 1972 Munich Olympics, ABC Sports is fighting for airtime. They’ve been preempted several times by other programming, they need to beg for the satellite. President of ABC Sports Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) pushes to add some drama and context into the event to generate interest. He wants to talk about the impact of the Holocaust on the games and how the Jewish competitors feel coming to Germany.
It’s a controversial decision. Arledge believes it brings interest to a rather dull Olympics and much-needed historical context. Head of Operations
Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin) thinks it might seem exploitative. The debate is put on hold when gunfire is heard at the Olympic Village.
Militant group Black September broke into the apartments of the Israeli Olympians and is holding them hostage. Relying upon their local translator, Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch), to relay intercepted police radio transmissions, the ABC Sports team begins to piece the story together.
ABC wants the sports team to step aside, sending in their experienced news crew to cover the story. But the situation is developing quickly, and only ABC Sports has the access and the camera positioning to get the real scoop. Young reporter Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker) even finds a way to hide with a camera crew in the Olympic Village so he can report on the action live.
It’s an exciting time for the producers and reporters at ABC Sports, a time to prove their relevance and abilities. But Bader begins to question if a ratings bonanza is really appropriate when there is a hostage situation and plenty of people are likely going to die.
What are ratings worth? What does it take to truly cover a story?
Most people likely know how the terrorist attack in Munich ended. It’s a testament to the power of storytelling and acting in September 5 that I was riveted every moment of the film. Director and co-writer Tim Fehlbaum shot the movie in a documentary style, as if the events were unfolding in real time and the viewer is a fly on the wall. The style adds a sense of urgency to the film, which bolsters the drama.
Nothing big happens on screen. There are no blockbuster explosions or bloody shootouts. Most of the sequences involve people talking on the phone, debating as they edit footage, and watching monitors. And yet…this movie is far more thrilling than anything offered up in Gladiator II. The tension and the stakes are very real, and it’s fascinating to see how reporters collected and distributed information to a global audience before the internet made it all possible to do from a phone.
The movie also poses an excellent moral debate. Is covering a tragedy sensationalist? How does one keep up with breaking news without exploiting it? These are questions our current 24/7 news cycle has made all the more prescient. The film itself doesn’t seem to have the answer, but it wants us all to consider how the news is told to us and what types of coverage we’re consuming. By using this moment in history as a keystone to examine how news coverage has evolved, Fehlbaum increases the impact of the story.
If you’re looking for genuinely riveting filmmaking about a historic tragedy, you’ll find nothing better out there currently. September 5 is a pulse-pounding 90 minutes of anxiety that will have you examining the media a little more carefully when you turn on the news.
Verdict: This is the type of filmmaking that should make headlines.
September 5 is rated R and available in theaters December 13.
