During the 1972 Munich Olympics, an American sports broadcasting crew finds itself thrust into covering the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes.
Chuck says:
When ABC dispatched Roone Arledge and his Wide World of Sports team to cover the 1972 Olympics in Munich, they knew the event would be covered in the most comprehensive and engaging way possible. Having cut their teeth for over a decade presenting myriad sporting events from around the globe, the veteran crew’s work had come to be recognized as the gold standard in the industry. Little did they know their skill set would have to be employed to report on a series of rapidly unfolding events that would result in the most tragic day in Olympic history.
Tim Fehlbaum’s “September 5” is a gripping account of the horrific hostage situation that arose when a group of Palestinian terrorists infiltrated the Olympic village and took members of the Israeli team hostage. However, these events are seen through a different perspective, that of the ABC Sports control room where the reporters first hear of the attack and watch it unfold on the various television monitors before them. Though the majority of the film takes place in this one location, it is far from a static exercise, Fehlbaum keeping the pacing at a fever pitch, his cast bringing the proper urgency to their roles.
Geoffrey Mason (an excellent John Magaro), whose specialty up to this point was covering minor league baseball, finds himself in the hot seat. Having come in early to help set up for the day’s coverage of the games, he and his skeleton crew hear gunshots coming from the direction of the Olympic Village. Dispatching a small group, including German translator Marianne (Leonie Benesch), they soon find that two Israeli athletes have been killed and a dozen others taken hostage by a group known as Black September.
When ABC News moves to take over the story, Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) insists that his sports team is up to reporting the events. Knowing the logistics of the city, where their cameras are located and proximity to the action, the New York-based news division has little choice but to agree.
As the 17-hour ordeal develops, questions of journalistic integrity arise. Could their reporting endanger the hostages? Televising an unpredictable live event such as this, should they be weary of showing people being murdered? Considerations regarding the hostages’ families, issues of censorship and morality as well as political concerns all come to the fore, Arledge and his head of operations Marvin (Ben Chaplin) pushing ahead through uncharted waters. While the producer projects confidence in his decisions, his doubts lurk just beneath the surface.
Fehlbaum does a fabulous job setting up the parameters of the film and its environment. An archival promotional film, made to explain and promote the extensive nature of ABC’s coverage, is used to show the vast number of cameras set up throughout the games and city, as well as an explanation as to how they are employed. This quickly establishes the tools the team had at its disposal, while the director’s use of hand-held cameras and a grainy visual aesthetic suggest a documentary-like approach that adds to the realistic verisimilitude.
This behind-the-scenes glimpse also reveals the machinations of covering a story such as this as well as the danger the reporters face in doing so. Footage from within the Olympic Village during the siege is obtained by a reporter who smuggles a small camera in and out. Meanwhile, Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker) and his crew sneak into a building across from the action, breaking the law to get a closer look at the events. And while, these actions yield results, mistakes are made as well, some reported instances later turning out to be false.
“September 5” is not simply an account of a key event in media history, but it shows the genesis of how news coverage is conducted today. Invasive and impersonal, the foundation of modern reporting accentuates immediacy and sensationalism, ethics pushed to the side for the sake of ratings and headlines themselves. While Arledge and his team covered the events of the 1972 Olympics with integrity, over time their rivals, in their effort to replicate the power and urgency they captured, allowed their journalistic standards to erode. Unwittingly, their excellent work, which earned Arledge’s team 29 Emmys, created a slippery slope that’s resulted in infotainment age we live in.
4 Stars
