September 5

Peter Sarsgaard

I was not particularly looking forward to September 5, a film from Swiss director Tim Fehlbaum, having watched on television the events it depicts in real time. It was a horrific event that I didn't especially want to revisit, but this is a worthy, if unspectacular movie. The event I refer to, for you youngsters, occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Athletes and coaches from the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by members of the Black September terrorist group. The debacle ended with both terrorists and hostages dead. September 5 views these events through the prism of ABC's live coverage. The action of the film is set primarily within the ABC production booth as rookie director Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro) juggles live shots and studio chatter during the coverage. 

In 1972, ABC was the most junior and least respected of the three major American television networks. One distinguishing feature of the network was its coverage of sports, particularly The Wide World of Sports, a mainstay of my childhood viewing. The show featured a potpourri of sporting events filmed on videotape, everything from cliff diving in Acapulco to demolition derbies in Islip, New York. The host of the show, Jim McKay, and the executive responsible for it, Roone Arledge, garnered great acclaim and were heading ABC's exclusive (in America) coverage of the 1972 Summer Olympics. Arledge, a hard charging business tyro is played by Peter Sarsgaard. Sarsgaard is not as rotund as Arledge was, even with padding, but aptly captures his cutthroat nature. Arledge, who had boots on the ground, was able to prevent ABC News from wresting control of the coverage from him. He and McKay were eventually able to win nearly every possible plaudit for their work in Munich. This catapulted Arledge, ironically, into being named head of ABC News, an extremely unlikely perch for a figure from televised sports.

The acting in September 5 is uniformly good, in addition to Messrs. Sarsgaard and Magaro, Ben Chaplin and Leonie Benesch are also first rate. That said, September 5 sacrifices characterization for a You Are There immediacy. The interpersonal conflicts end up seeming wan. Also, every time the flick addresses the Holocaust or German guilt, the effect is both trite and portentous. However, the film triumphs in its picturing of ABC's utilization of the crude technology of the analog era. One choice made by Mr. Fehlbaum and his cohorts works in the picture's favor above all others. Most of ABC's name performers are portrayed by actors, like Benjamin Walker's Peter Jennings, or a voice actor for Howard Cosell. However, the makers of this film wisely chose to retain the archival footage of anchor Jim McKay and not use a thesp. McKay's commentary, especially his announcement of the tragic end of the crisis, are indelible to those who were alive at the time and could not be equaled by any actor.