Munich 1972 – When the countdown starts

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 games. This also appears in the prologue because it was important to us that we give a feeling for it right from the start. Germany originally wanted to send out a different image. They were supposed to be cheerful games because they were the first games on German soil after ’36.

Then a hostage-taking by the terrorist organization Black September happens in the Israeli quarters. Eleven residents of the Olympic Village are murdered. Not news television, but sports television broadcasts the events live. How was that possible?

Roone Arledge, who was currently at the helm of sports television, was a visionary television maker. Before him, there was an unspoken agreement between sports venue organizers and television broadcasters that the audience should never have a better seat at home than in the stadium. Roone Arledge changed that and invented things like the on-field camera, slow motion and “sensational” title design, which you also see in the film. The company’s own news division was much drier back then; news was only read off the page. The day the hostage crisis happened, news coverage changed because Arledge’s revolutionary tools were suddenly applied to crisis reporting.

Image and sound are of great importance. Either you hear the sound first and only 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, it doesn’t show the airport where a shootout is taking place, just a distant glow, which describes the situation very well. Was it clear from the start that you wanted to proceed this way?

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 stay in this hermetically sealed room with 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 level of knowledge is also based on them.

So you’re right in the middle of the rush 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. When the countdown starts until it goes live and when it goes live. The energy that is created is unique. When we spoke to the real Geoffrey Mason, I asked him what it was like for him back then. The crew had no time to think about the bigger, moral questions. At that moment all they could do was react. The reflections came afterwards.

Geoffrey Mason makes no distinction between sports and news reporting. The operations manager, Marvin Bader, takes him aside and says to him: “Slow down a gear. That’s a different topic!”

What’s more, in this case it wasn’t trained news people, but actually sports TV people who were suddenly confronted with the question: “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! They didn’t even have a special forces unit because they kept their presence as small as possible for the games.

It was the first time that terror went live, after which there were repeated events that happened in the media – such as September 11, 2001. How did working on “September 5” change your view of the media conscience?

In a way, my respect for the people who do news reporting has grown. Interestingly, the bigger questions in news today are still exactly the same: How many sources do you have? Can we send or can’t we send it yet? What do we show and what don’t we show? When it comes to the false report that everyone at the airport is fine, I don’t want to blame the ABC for broadcasting it that way because it was really an official report. The situation was complicated and difficult to understand.

Above all, one should not forget that the media coverage took a long time. People like Geoffrey Mason or the translator Marianne Gebhardt worked for over 20 hours…

… who doesn’t actually exist as a character. We condensed everything into 90 minutes. You have to take certain artistic liberties so that the film works better for the audience. With Geoffrey 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 just re-enacted the moments as we thought they must have happened in the control room. The phone calls really happened during filming, the pictures were really leaked. This gives you a documentary feel.

The image you took of a masked man on the balcony is iconic. How did you deal with 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 always clear to us what we couldn’t and didn’t want to recreate: the human element, namely the face of Jim McKay, who hosted the 1972 Olympic Games. So we really wanted to license the original material and use its moderation. It was very complicated, but fortunately we got the blessing of Jim McKay’s son, Sean McManus. That certainly helped us.

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

In fact, that was exactly our intention. On the one hand, it should almost feel to the audience as if we were watching this crew in the room – almost as if we ourselves were live with the camera the whole time. On the other hand, we also wanted the old equipment to feel modern because ABC, for example, had the very latest technology on the lot with the slow motion machine. It was important to us that the original equipment and processes were represented as accurately as possible. Our film is also about the influence of technological developments on the media, which changes our perception of global political events. We also tested how original footage from the 70s would behave on film in these spaces so we could then adapt our look accordingly.

To what extent?

Back then, films were shot differently and edited with a completely different frequency and the music that comes from us should also seem more like it is from today. With the music we wanted to subordinate ourselves to the theme as much as possible and not create a 70s touch. Still, the footage has that grainy, washed-out look that’s typical of the ’70s – but the way we film it makes it feel modern.

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.

“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.

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