September 5: The Dawn of News as Entertainment
the terrorists are ready for their closeup
We now live in a world where news is at your fingertips. But, in 1972, the sports crew at ABC revolutionized how news would be covered for the next fifty years. Premiering at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, swiss director Tim Fehlbaum’s latest film September 5 chronicles the news team covering the terrorist attack against the Israeli team at the 1972 Munich Olympics live. Steven Spielberg tackled this period in his 2005 thriller Munich, a sprawling epic from the perspective of Mossad agents who gradually grow disillusioned with their tasks. However, Fehlbaum keeps it simple tackling the attacks live in a dialogue-driven journalism thriller ripe with tension ala The China Syndrome or Spotlight. While steering clear of the broader geopolitical complexities, the film’s focus on journalistic ethics and avoidance of hot-button issues have sparked strong reactions from activist groups. Given the film’s ability to provoke such a strong response, it raises the question: is September 5 a biased, boring procedural? Or will it transcend the typical Oscar bait fare to compellingly explore the journalistic profession?
What’s it all about?
September 5 revolves around the ABC Sports team covering the 1972 Munich Olympics, where a terrorist attack by the group Black September on the Israeli delegation unfolds live. Overseeing the coverage is network executive Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), who decides to make the crisis the focal point of their broadcast instead of handing over the story to the news division halfway across the world. All the while, producer Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro) must navigate the ethical and logistical challenges of reporting a life-or-death situation in real-time. With the help of junior translator Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch) and operations manager Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin), the team grapples with personal stakes, professional pressures, and the weight of history as the tragedy unfolds.
Cameras are on us
In the tradition of journalism thrillers, September 5 is very true to its period. The texture of the image is granulated to look like low-resolution 1970s news footage or 16mm film. The immersiveness doesn’t stop there. Fehlbaum and company capture the behind-the-scenes chaos with the raw immediacy of a documentary crew, engrossing the audience further with the use of handheld cameras, abrupt punch-ins, and zoomed-in shots. The film evokes the feeling of being cut in real time by another control room at ABC. You’re almost pressed up against the reporters, editors, and technicians, constantly on your toes and trying to stay aware of any new revelations. The sound design facilitates this feeling as you’re constantly barraged by overlapping sounds of chatter, police radios, and TVs trying to sparse through the mysteries. It adds an extra level of weight and detail that engrosses the audience further into the mayhem. While many films have replicated the 70s film look (just recently Saturday Night), the low-resolution, gritty look perfectly captures the never-ending dread of the situation. Felhbaum brings it all together to produce one of the year’s best tried-and-true thrillers, crafting scene after scene taught with tension. Ramping up the tension in measured bursts, the film reveals the ethical compromises and hypocrisies embedded in covering a live event—most strikingly in a scene where the journalists realize they are inadvertently aiding the terrorists. It’s as if the cameras are being pointed back at the journalists, putting a larger lens on the profession as a whole—carefully examining their complicity in sensationalizing tragedy. But, that’s the business.
Breaking ethics
I always appreciate a great journalism movie, but mostly as fun entertainment. While the free press has been under severe strain and attack by the political machinery over the past few years, they’re far from perfect. So when Hollywood portrays journalists as altruistic saints, it always rubs me the wrong way since many journalists often lean to sensationalism and quick conclusions, painting stories however they feel. If anything, Ace in the Hole is more my speed. So, I did appreciate the film’s attempt to de-glorify the newsmakers, capturing the compromises, dedication, and human error of the newsroom accurately instead of placing them on an altar. The casting supplements this. Instead of casting A-listers, the film opts for great character actors to give the sense that these are normal people stuck in a strange situation. Not heroes. John Magaro is particularly wonderful. He’s never been better than here, playing the smart guy way out of his element. You can sense the anxiety and the weight of the world on his shoulders mulling over every little decision down to where to cut when. Moments when Magaro interacts with key coworkers stick out as some of the more poignant in the narrative, as their personal stakes and emotional struggles seep into their professional roles. Saarsgaard, Chaplin, and Benesch are wonderful, each adding layers of authenticity and depth. Although, one wishes the film spent more time outside the studio before the chaos unfolded, delving deeper into the characters’ relationships and solidifying their stakes in the story they’re covering. Even if that means bending the truth a little for drama’s sake.
Saarsgaard, portraying ABC Sports president Roone Arledge, wonderfully navigates the complexities of managing the broadcast while striking deals with CBS and ABC News for airtime. The triviality of such negotiations amidst human tragedy is chilling to witness. Aldredge would go on to head the ABC news division after this story, reaping the professional benefits of covering this unimaginable tragedy live to tremendous TV ratings. It’s here where the film explores the duality of the profession and the ethical qualms inherent in the job. The film’s final frame delivers this message with striking clarity: “life goes on.” September 5 charts the birth of live news as entertainment, depicting the root of the icky terrain we all traverse in the 21st century.
Elephant in the room
Unfortunately, the filmmakers dedicate the entirety of the film solely to journalistic practice, avoiding the hot-pressing, topical issues that stick out like sore thumbs. To their credit, the film is steeped in research, detailing the hand-crafted precision that went into 70s-era newscasts. From crafting new logos and images with basic art supplies to capturing them on video or developing 16mm footage, the process embodies the hands-on, analog intricacies of the era. However, it relies too heavily on being a “process” movie, and the issues often get sidelined. The film’s pace is so undeniably quick that the audience gets wrapped up (just like the crew themselves) in developing the story that not enough time is dedicated to reflection or any semblance of a moral dilemma is tossed aside to meet the deadline. On one hand, you can’t complain that these people don’t set aside their work and debate the ethics of their investigation or the larger political issues at hand. They work blindly to get the story out, but it makes for less thought-provoking cinema. The bigger questions are oftentimes supplanted with simplistic, cringe identity moments where, for example, a man underestimates a female character, mistaking her for a secretary and casually asking her to fetch him a cup of coffee. Or, when the French Algerian worker is offended by how the crew refers to Arabs. They all feel like scenes stuck in 2022, ringing false and shoehorned in to divert attention from the filmmakers' deliberate avoidance of the elephant in the room: the Israel-Palestine conflict.
September 5 refuses to address the historical and political context of this event. I admit that the history and politics of this conflict are complicated, and I can understand the filmmakers’ refusal to explore them. I find myself similarly stumped by the situation, preferring to stay out of it for lack of knowledge. But, September 5 still managed to track controversy with TIFF refusing to screen it due to the recent Israel-Palestine conflict following the tragic October 7th Hamas attack. On the side of common sense, I think it’s completely irrational to claim a picture is “zionist” for purely depicting a REAL tragedy perpetrated against Israelis by TERRORISTS. However, in the film, it’s striking that no one questions the validity of Black September’s demands for Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 10-15 Olympians. The film devotes extensive time to examining media ethics, the chaos of the journalistic process, and the frenzy of covering terrorism live, but it sidesteps any meaningful exploration of the deeper historical and political issues at play. By remaining uncontroversial, the film misses an opportunity for a more provocative narrative, ultimately at its own peril.
Solid work
Overall, September 5 is a taught, entertaining human interest story covering the precipice of news as entertainment and questioning its moral implications. While sidestepping the hot-topic political context the film desperately calls for, I still consider September 5 another in a long line of 2024 films that caught the teetering landscape of the past year. One of the more topical themes covered in the film is the changing identity of Germany as a nation looking to wash away its sins and rebuild, a fascinating conundrum that could have proved emblematic of bigger issues occurring in the world today. Regardless, the filmmakers pull all the stops to craft an exceedingly compelling chronicle of newsmaking and a tragic boiling point for journalism. Tim Fehlbaum’s latest film presents the kindling of a morose, triumphant war against journalistic ideals that have taken us to the current state of our decrepit news landscape, valuing hot takes over earnest reporting. Yet, despite moments of brilliant filmmaking, September 5 is neither biting enough nor topical enough to reach its potential.