Last Updated on November 28, 2024 by
September 5 is a 2024 horror Movie directed by Tim Fehlbaum and written by Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum, and Alex David. The film stars Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, and Ben Chaplin with a runtime of 1 hour 31 minutes, theatre released on December 13, 2024.
The Story
Tim Fehlbaum’s newsroom drama of underprepared ABC sports reporters at the 1972 Munich Olympics confronting the Israeli hostage crisis culminates with no triumph. This scene features Peter Sarsgaard as Roone Arledge backslapping men and women getting the logo on the broadcast and bartering over satellite time. Thank you for being on-site and capturing this footage, especially when the situation was tense. For being real, true, bona-fide journalists.
In a discussion that took place at night over the appropriateness of depicting certain images or using particular words, Roone argued that it is his task to give a voice to the people and let ‘news’ decide what it means later. When he led a reporter to interview Jewish American swimmer, Mark Spitz, he found the words ‘It’s not about politics, it’s about emotions’.
The event to be held in 1972 Munich was to be a symbol of hope and unity of Germany with other nations of the world. A happy, non-serious, meaningful action of a nation that wants to celebrate peace and friendship. One peculiar feature that demonstrated the global importance of the occasion was two. It was the first time that any Olympics games were broadcast live through satellite and over four thousand reporters were present at the site.
The second one was the visit of Israeli athletes to the Munich Olympics, some of whom lost their dear ones in the holocaust. ABC is represented by its VP of Olympics Operations, Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin), who feels rather uneasy and is a bit of a skeptic about Germany’s outstretched hand and Roone’s rather reckless enthusiasm for ‘JPR for the Jews’ attitude.
Marvin pulled back to a back room and observed Israeli American weightlifter David Berger visiting Dachau and discussing the attitude of carrying on. Among them, sitting quietly isa young German translator named Marianne Gebhardt played by Leonie Benesch. “It’s what we want too, to move on,” she responds to Marv. Marv then takes a deep breath and somewhat sadly says, “I suppose your folks had no idea of all that was going on” pointing out that the pain remains current for Jewish persons like himself. He is very persistent in his regard and she tells him that he cannot reduce her to her parents, immediately another perpetual war emerges in this regard as another war is about to start. The B team is on board at 4 AM.
The producer is the rather inexperienced Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro), a New Yorker, preparing to have an extreme baptism in front, as what he thought was going to be a routine shift, that entailed, being in charge of less popular sports, transforms into it coordinating the coverage of the kidnapping and death of Israeli athletes taken hostage by Black Saturday members.
The first shots are fired coming from the hi-tech Olympic complex and Geoff along with the crew comprising of the French-Algerian technician Jacques Lesgards (Zinedine Soualem), the cameramen, and runners Carter Jeffrey (Marcus Rutherford), Gary Slaughter (Daniel Adeosun), ABC News’ Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker) and others must come to terms with what is going on. On the aspect of translation of what is said, the only one capable of doing it is Marianne, which implies that she is the one who works as the on-the-ground asset.
Journalistic ethics are mentioned in mid-sentence as if the speaker had started to say something else and then been interrupted. On language to be used, there is a conflict between Geoff and Peter Jennings. Marv raises his concern on whether they are supposed to be displaying Germans assaulting the Jews, or being oppressive to them. The outside world is very uncertain and the only character who seems at ease is Roone Arledge who seems sure that they get the footage and keep it with the icon of the show: the veteran sports reporter Jim McKay shown through the real telecast telling America and the world about the unfolding crisis.
The confusion of the ABC sports team is utilized on September 5 using the template of the story. This means they are observing events happening and reporting them based on minimal information. Jennings gets to the Olympic Village before it is sealed off by German police and relays the information back through FM radio or telephone. One of the team, Gary, tries to dress up as an Olympian complete with a fake sticker and his task is to run 16mm film back from the studio. Marianne picks up the police scanner to try and identify who has been apprehended.
They observe the hostage negotiator and the inept German police’s feeble attempts at conducting rescues. It is suddenly realized that nobody ever switched off the live television feed to the Olympic Village and that on Black Saturday people were watching what news organizations were filming. This is demonstrated when one strategy is foiled because the kidnappers are aware of what is going on, prompting someone to comment, “Is this our fault?” “Is this what the audience really wants?” “ ‘Media coverage?’ asks another person.
These questions have been answered for years including in Kevin Macdonald’s One Day in September was made in 1999 and received numerous awards. September 5 cannot answer such serious questions at the moment and the film is about the moment.
It doesn’t go into the background of the Palestinian cause: while there is a stock racist and sexist character, a tall African American, Hank Hanson played by Corey Johnson, who not only discusses the Arabs but also makes Marianne get some coffee. The Americans wonder why the German Army does not join their fight. There is information that it is closed and IDF was denied entry. Golda Meir is only mentioned by name once, she is an Israeli former Prime Minister.
As much as possible, it tries to employ the adage, ‘It’s not about the politics, it’s about the people,’ on September 5. Given that it is very hard to remove the political context in a narrative about a coordinated act of terrorism, let alone the weight of centuries worth of colonial oppression behind it, director Tim Fehlbaum is not operating outside the depicted frame of experience.
What they are suffering from is failure. A narrow world where they are all scared, and they are gathering information from all sources including the German Government. Geoff and Marianne are the two main subjects of interest. Geoff desperately pondered if only he could report the news properly, and get the right shots and people’s interviews, then he might possibly alter the events for the worse as they are in real-time.
Marianne hoped that the German people would never permit the extinction of the Israeli people for the second time on German soil. Joy which is an emotional manifestation appears when John Magaro believes the hostages have been released while grief which is another aspect of emotional schema is depicted when he realizes he has reported a rumor only to be disappointed that it wasn’t the truth. He has also been accused by Marv of doing so while other papers also covered the story and the Germans, Conrad Ahlers to be precise, also reported it.
Recording a match where one team dominates the other can be quite a challenging task. September 5 had nothing to do with unknown reporters working in newsrooms because ABC was one of the many stations that were utilizing the satellite and there were more often more reporters on the scene during the hostage crisis than there were working policing operations. The questions raised include, “If they (Black September) shoot someone on live television, is it our story or is it theirs?” It traveled to the point that Jim McKay, a famous sports commentator was witnessed saying that he had no understanding of what the Twentieth Olympiad would imply in the future. “Where these developments will lead the course of world history, it is hard to say.”
Coaches and athletes from Israel lost their lives, one of them being David Berger. Marianne complains about Germany’s losses. Geoff dismisses the cheers of Roone who compliments him saying “Attaboy, you did it” which is a man Geoff wanted to aspire to be like. Only a feeling of gloomy resignation is left in the wake of the poem. John Magaro accurately portrays how painful it must be to be Geoff Mason, who had the task of observing things that he could not alter and it presented audiences with how painful it was to see the occasion where people believed they would invest in festivities, but on a global level, the frailty of being unable to sustain peace.
Combined with the archival footage and reenactment, September 5 is a bitter and sorrowful film. A high-quality and rather tense drama about something terrible that nine million people saw, and some of them bought a television set with the specific purpose of watching the Olympics. This real-life documentary was filmed in September 1972 to show the militant attack that targeted the athletes in the Olympic village, Fürstenfeldbruck airbase and beyond as well as the simple ‘Triumph or Loss’ narrative in sports reporting.
Today the story continues and perhaps we have lost our ability to be appalled by death the same way some refused to cancel the remaining Munich Olympics. Bear witness and push for peace instead of the necessity for monuments for the dead.
September 5 2024 Parents Guide Age Rating
September 5 is rated R by the Motion Picture Rating (MPA) for language.
September 5 MOVIE PLOT FULL SUMMARY and parents’ guide will be updated closer to the release date (December 13, 2024.), so check back.
