Munich 1972 – What happened happens again and again

Right at the beginning of your new film it is mentioned that a camera was even positioned on the Olympic Tower in Munich, making comprehensive media coverage possible. Why did you choose this entry point?

They were the first games to be broadcast globally with optimal live TV coverage. An unprecedented media apparatus was deployed to broadcast the sporting competitions. This already appears in the prologue because this message was important to us. Germany originally wanted to send a positive image to the world. They were supposed to be cheerful games, after the first games on German soil in 1936 under the swastika.

But then hostages were taken by the terrorist organization Black September in the Israeli quarters. Eleven residents of the Olympic Village are murdered. Not the news channels, but the sports television broadcast the event live.

Roone Arledge, who led sports coverage at ABC, was a visionary television maker. Before him, there was an unspoken agreement between sports venue organizers and television broadcasters that the audience at home should never have a better seat than the audience at the stadium. Arledge changed that and invented the on-field camera, slow motion and “sensational” titles, as our film shows. Back then, current news was read dry from the page. On the day the hostage-taking happened, that suddenly changed; Arledge’s revolutionary means were now suddenly used for crisis reporting, accompanied by live moving images.

Image and sound are of great importance. Either you hear the sound first and see a picture later, or there is no picture that matches the sound. Alternatively, the image is so unclear that you can hardly see anything on it. For example, the airport where the fatal shootout between hostage takers and police took place is not shown, but only a distant glow that foreshadows the catastrophic situation. Was it clear from the start that you wanted to proceed this way, or did the idea only develop over the course of the film’s production?

We thought about this conceptually very early on. It’s not just about what you see, but what you don’t (yet) see. We strictly wanted to remain in this hermetically sealed room in front of the monitors as the only window to the outside world and work with an authentic perspective. We didn’t want to show anything that the TV crew couldn’t see. The public’s level of knowledge depends on them.

You are drawn into the frenzy of live reporting.

Yes! To research, I was in the control rooms of sports broadcasts in Germany and America. Even if it’s covering a regular football game or a Lakers game, it’s exciting. The energy that is created is unique. When we spoke to the real Geoffrey Mason, then on location for the ABC, I asked him about his feelings and thoughts at the time. His crew had no time to think about the larger, especially moral, questions surrounding the hostage drama. At that moment the journalists could only react. The reflections came afterwards.

Interview

Imago/Nicky Nelson

Tim Fehlbaumborn in Basel in 1982, studied directing at the Munich University of Television and Film from 2002 to 2009. He made his feature film debut “Hell” in 2011 and won several awards for it. Likewise his apocalyptic thriller “Tides,” which premiered at the Berlinale in 2021; The film was awarded four German film awards and two Bavarian ones. His new film “September 5” was nominated for the Golden Globes 2025.

Mason made no distinction between sports and news reporting. The head of operations, Marvin Bader, took him aside and said to him: “Slow down a gear. That’s a different topic!”

What’s more, in this case they weren’t trained news people, but actually sports journalists who were suddenly confronted with a deadly serious situation: “What do we do if an act of violence occurs?” You always have to keep that in mind, what a precedent it was! Also for the police. There wasn’t even a special unit. And they wanted to keep police presence as low as possible during the games.

It was the first time that terror could be experienced live on screen. This happened more frequently later, for example on September 11, 2001, during the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York. How did working on “September 5” change your view of the media conscience?

In a way, my respect for the journalists who cover news has grown. Interestingly, the big questions in news are still exactly the same: How many sources do you have? Can we send this or can’t we send it yet? What do we show and what don’t we show? I don’t want to blame the ABC for the false report that everyone at Fürstenfeldbruck Airport is fine. As is well known, the hostage drama ended bloodily there. ABC broadcast what was officially announced. The situation was very complicated and difficult to understand.

Above all, one must not forget that the matter took a very long time. Mason and his crew, including interpreter Marianne Gebhardt, worked for over 20 hours…

… who actually didn’t exist as an authentic person. We condensed everything into 90 minutes. You have to take certain artistic liberties so that the film works better for the audience. With Mason we also combined several functions in one figure.

How did the filming go?

We shot for about 90 hours and went through each scene with the intention that everything could be edited together from this one take. Basically, we re-enacted the moments as we thought they must have happened in the control room. The phone calls during filming are real, as are the pictures. This gives you a documentary feel.

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The iconic image of a masked hostage taker on a balcony of the Israeli athletes’ accommodation, which you used in your film, is authentic. How did you feel about the victims?

We didn’t want to show any of the real victims. That’s why we recreated certain scenes in the Olympic Village for reasons of piety. It was clear to us what we couldn’t and didn’t want to recreate. Of course, the focus should be on those affected and the witnesses; the human element was important to us. For example, we also wanted to show the face of the American sports reporter Jim McKay. We wanted to record the original material and incorporate its moderation into the film. For this we need a license. It was very complicated, but we were lucky enough to have the blessing of Jim McKay’s son, Sean McManus.

Even though you use a lot of original material from 1972, “September 5” feels incredibly current. You are in the now.

In fact, that was exactly our intention. On the one hand, the audience should feel as if they were looking over the shoulders of the reporting crew in their room, as if they were there live with the camera. On the other hand, we wanted to bring what happened back then into today. Thanks to the modern technology that ABC used, for example with the slow motion machine, it was successful. Our film is also about the influence of technological developments on the media, which change our perception of global political events. We also tested how the original material from the 70s fits our resources and options.

To what extent?

Films were shot differently back then and edited with a completely different frequency. The background music was also completely different. We contributed our own. We didn’t want to spread any 70s magic or offer retro, but the material still has the grainy, washed-out look typical of that time. We wanted to fuse the historically authentic and the contemporary. Because what happened back then can happen again and unfortunately happens again and again.

“September 5.” Germany/USA 2024. Director: Tim Fehlbaum, script: Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum. With: Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, Leonie Benesch. 95 min. Cinema release: January 9th.