Peter Rainer of Bloomberg News wrote that , " Schlesinger ’s is the only segment that fully acknowledges the Black September terrorist attacks , in which 11 Israeli athletes and coaches , and a West German policeman , were murdered . " Rainer continues , " Penn ’s entry begins daringly . Not only is the imagery a slo-mo crawl , it ’s also out of focus and the soundtrack is silent . Gradually the visuals sharpen , the stadium sounds come up , but , for the most part , the pole vaulters rising into the sky remain superslow abstractions . Along with his great editor Dede Allen , who cut '' Bonnie and Clyde '' , Penn anatomizes the action without ever losing sight of the fact that these athletes , including USA ’s Bob Seagren , are men and not gods ( as Riefenstahl might have us believe ) " — referring to Leni Riefenstahl 's 1938 documentary '' Olympia ''
terrorist attacks
Munich massacre
Visions of Eight