B.U. Bridge is published by the Boston University Office of University Relations.

Contact Us

Staff

Boston début
Six-time Oscar-winner says new film shows "what really happened in Munich"

By Brian Fitzgerald

On September 5, 1972, television viewers witnessed the horrifying sight of hooded Palestinian gunmen on the balcony outside the living quarters of the Israeli athletes whom they had taken hostage at the Summer Olympics in Munich. The tragic spectacle was compelling. But 28 years later, is it the stuff movies are made of?

The "Peace and Serenity" motto of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich was shattered when 8 Palestinian terrorists, one pictured above outside the athletes' living quarters, held in 11 Israeli athletes hostage. The incident ended in the deaths of all 11 athletes, 5 of the terrorists, and one German police officer. Photo: © Bettman/CORBIS

Producer Arthur Cohn thought so when he took on the project. And the American Academy of Motion Pictures showed that Cohn’s instincts were on the mark when it gave One Day in September an Oscar for best documentary feature last March.

Cohn predicts that his film will also fascinate a BU audience when it is screened for the first time in Boston on Thursday,

September 7, at 6:30 p.m. at Metcalf Hall. Cohn will be on hand to introduce the film, which traces the story of the hostage taking, the fruitless 24-hour negotiation process, and the final hours of the incident that cost the lives of 11 athletes, 5 terrorists, and one German police officer.

The term thriller is rarely used to describe documentaries, but it may be appropriate in this case. “It was done in the true form of a thriller,” says Cohn during a recent phone interview from Switzerland. The six-time Oscar-winner notes that aside from being a compelling story, the film contains “revelations that show for the first time what really happened in Munich.”

The eight terrorists’ original intent was to trade the athletes for the freedom of more than 200 political prisoners being held in Israel. But two athletes were executed during the invasion at the Olympic Village. Eventually the athletes and terrorists were put on a bus to the German airbase of Fuerstenfeldbruk, where, they were led to believe, a plane would fly them out of West Germany.

	Arthur Cohen has six Academy Award-winning films to his credit, more than any other producer.

Cohn was surprised to learn that the plane should have been filled with armed police disguised as crew — who were supposed to capture or kill the head captor. Instead, as one of the officers admits on camera, they panicked and deserted their posts. In the resulting chaos of shooting and grenade explosions, the terrorists murdered the rest of the hostages.

“Many of the film’s audiences — and this will be especially true at Boston University  — weren’t even alive, or were very young when this happened,” says Cohn. “And those who remember will still be shocked by some of the details discovered during two years of research.”

 One Day in September illuminates the complex and bizarre chain of events that led to the catastrophe, uncovering several aspects of the attack that Cohn found especially galling: East Germans helped the terrorists gain entry into the Olympic Village and then filmed the West German police movements for the terrorists, and the Olympic officials so desperately wanted the Games to go on that priority was put on getting the terrorists and the athletes out of the village and onto helicopters to the airport, rather than to saving the Israelis’ lives.

Cohn found it incredible that the West Germans didn’t clear the roads to the airport, slowing the arrival of armored cars that were ordered late in the first place; that they had only 5 sharpshooters when 50 trained gunmen were available in the area; and that the West Germans refused Israel’s offer to send an antiterrorist squad to Munich.

Remarkably, the film contains an interview with the lone surviving Palestinian terrorist from the Black September Movement, Jamil Al Gashey. (The Mossad had hunted down and killed the other two surviving terrorists.) “Director Kevin McDonald got hold of him,” says Cohn. “Al Gashey has been hiding for more than a quarter century in Africa. Oddly enough, he was more keen to talk than many of the Germans. He says at the end of the film that he doesn’t regret anything that happened in Munich, that he wanted to have a forum for a political plea that wasn’t heard by anyone until this act of terror.”

Cohn admits that artistically and commercially the project was a risky endeavor from the start. “At the beginning, we didn’t receive a lot of cooperation,” he says. “As a result, production took nearly two and a half years to complete because we wanted everyone who was there in 1972. But it looked for a long time like the film wouldn’t be complete, that it wouldn’t be a decent portrayal of what happened. Dr. Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the German minister of the interior at the time, gave an interview only three months before the production of the film.”

After seven visits to Germany, however, Cohn had all the protagonists on celluloid: Mossad head Zvi Zamir, who went on camera for the first time; Munich Police Chief Manfred Schreiber; Olympic Village head Walther Troger; and Brigadier General Ulrich Wegener. “We wanted the film to be even-handed. We had enormous trouble getting photos of the murdered Israelis. We did get them in the end, and I think they play an important part in showing that it is inexcusable to use terror against innocent athletes for political aims.”

Of course, a producer can’t please everyone. “Some Israelis thought that the surviving terrorist comes off as too credible,” says Cohn, “but he was crucial to the film.” On the other hand, Palestinian cultural critic Edward Said writes that One Day in September takes place in a political vacuum, that it doesn’t explain the political reasons for the incident. “Said would have preferred to have a film not only about Munich, but also before 1972 and after 1972,” says Cohn. “That wasn’t our target. Our film isn’t about 50 years of conflict; it’s about one day in September.”

Even without a lengthy political backdrop in the film, Cohn says, the production team “had enough material for a three-hour movie, but we didn’t want it to go over 130 minutes.” Cutting room sessions were reportedly tense. “Tough editing decisions were made,” he says, “but overall I think they serve the film well.”

The Swiss-born Cohn, who received an honorary degree from BU in 1988, says that screenings at the University “have become a tradition, and I look forward to coming to Boston. We had screenings at Boston University for many of my films, including Two Bits, Central Station, and White Lies, and they were greeted with enormous interest by students and professors.”

28 September 2000
Boston University
Office of University Relations