September 5 is a brilliant new take on a historical event, which makes you realise you were holding your breath, and you didn’t even know it.
Tim Fehlbaum takes us into the gallery of ABC TV’s sports coverage, in charge of simply broadcasting the Munich 1972 Olympic games around the globe.
However, this changes on September 5, when a militant organisation called Black September shot two members of the Israeli Olympic team and took the other nine hostage in the Olympic village, demanding the release of a significant number of Palestinians and non-Arab prisoners being held in Israel.
Nowadays, it is hard to find a movie that has a new, original plotline that doesn’t have the same predictable twists and turns.
How many times can you make a movie out of the same historical event before you begin to copy the ones previously released?
Through the use of archive footage and brilliant acting, Fehlbaum managed to make over an hour and a half of footage shot mostly in a TV studio engaging and thrilling for the entire time.
The audience is made to feel like they are watching over the shoulders of stressed studio producers, directors and camera crew, developing a real connection with the very likeable characters.
Depending on how much you know about the terrorist attack on the Israeli Olympic team during the Munich 1972 Olympics will affect what you know about the ending of this movie.
However, no matter how extensive your knowledge is surrounding the events of that horrible day, you will probably not know much, if not anything, about the TV coverage of the attack done by ABC TV.
This was the first time a terrorist attack was shown live on air in history, and over 900 million people tuned in to the coverage, 250 million more than the moon landing coverage.
It calls into question the ethics of journalism and you are anxious waiting on studio director Geoffrey Mason (played by John Magaro) to make the call on which camera to pan to and which sources to trust enough to include their comment on the air.
Mason is a young studio director, very new to the job and the claustrophobic studio and gallery, along with reporters out in the Olympic Village getting the news first-hand, are all under his control.
You’re most worried when Mason gives the green-light to film the German police’s attempt at climbing on to the roof of the apartments before swopping in to surprise the terrorists and saving the hostages, before Mason realises a TV is on in the apartment which the terrorists can be watching what ABC are broadcasting, possibly ruining the rescue mission.
Peter Sarsgaard plays executive Roone Arledge, and Ben Chaplin is the overseeing producer, Marvin Bader. These characters keep ABC News from getting the story, keeping it in the hands of the sports team, whilst aiding Mason get the coverage he needs, but ultimately every last call is up to him.
Leonie Benesch, who plays the role of fictional Marianne Gebhardt, also shows the importance of women in a male-dominated workplace, a sub-plot of the movie that doesn’t take away from the key events but ties in effectively, even if it wasn’t part of the true events.
Her character stands out amongst the men in their shirts, but the costumes of the ABC crew aren’t made too noticeable to ensure that the outfits of the terrorists are remembered with their black outfits in stark contrast with their haunting white masks, making them unidentifiable.
Similarly, the music isn’t something you walk away from the movie remembering, but it adds to the intensity of the film.
The movie doesn’t wander deep into the politics of the day, instead taking an outside point of view by showing the going-ons of a packed studio during a historical moment.
Simply, the movie shows the inner workings of what it takes to get the images from a studio to your TV screen, showing the work of a journalist getting the story, demonstrating the brutal realities of live TV journalism.
Featured Image Credit: Paramount Pictures
