Munich (2005)
Spielberg clarifies on the DVD of Munich
What I watched was the single-disc widescreen edition which contained no DVD extras but for a short intro by the director Steven Spielberg. If you haven’t seen the movie before, I recommend you leave the intro for after you’ve finished watching the film.
In his piece, Spielberg emphasizes that the movie is neither attacking Israel nor arguing for non-response. He says that in the context of responding to terror today, we have to “try and ensure that the results we produce are the ones we really intend.” I think he was successful in getting that point across in this movie.
I usually prefer knowing as little as possible about the background of a film’s story, so that I can enjoy it in its “pure” form. But I think I benefited from having seen One Day in September, the documentary about what happened during the 1972 Olympics. I recommend you see it before this film. (Makes chronological sense that way…)
Spielberg acknowledges taking the indisputable facts (11 targets, decision by Golda Meir…) from George Jonas’s book Vengeance, published in 1984 and recently re-issued. The details are of course unknowable and it’s those gaps in knowledge that made possible the effective dramatization of the material.
Munich came out in 2005.