The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) (2016)

IN CONTEXT

GENRE

Documentary

DIRECTOR

James Marsh

WRITER

Philippe Petit (book)

STARS

Philippe Petit, Jean-François Heckel, Jean-Louis Blondeau

BEFORE

1999 Marsh’s Wisconsin Death Trip reconstructs strange events that took place in a small American town at the end of the 19th century.

2005 In Marsh’s drama The King, a man named Elvis tracks down his reluctant father, a pastor.

AFTER

2014 The Theory of Everything, Marsh’s biopic of physicist Stephen Hawking, earned a Best Actor Oscar for its star, Eddie Redmayne.

Screen portraits of one person, whether drama or documentary, are usually about two kinds of lives: those that are interesting in themselves, and those noted for achieving something remarkable. James Marsh’s Man on Wire portrays a life that fits into both categories. It is the story of an audacious high-wire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974, yet it speaks to the larger theme of how far a person will go for art. The movie presents French high-wire walker Philippe Petit as a man whose art is all consuming, to the point that he risks his life for it. Rather than burnish its subject, Man on Wire derives its power from its focus on Petit’s flaws as well as his talent and determination. The viewer is left marveling at how such a restless personality can attain the Zen-like concentration needed to walk across an abyss on a wire.

Raison d’être

The movie is structured into two parallel narratives: the event and the life. One strand follows the night that Petit and his crew broke into the World Trade Center and the hurdles they had to overcome to enact their stunt; the other tells the broader tale of Petit’s life leading up to the event. Everything—from wire-walking across the two towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris or the Sydney Harbour Bridge to moving to New York City—was in preparation for the World Trade Center walk. For Petit, this was more than an ambition—it was the very reason for his life.

"The documentary, a hybrid of actual and restaged footage, is constructed like a first-rate thriller."

Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times, 2008

What else to watch: Wisconsin Death Trip (1999) ✵ Touching The Void (2003) ✵ Project Nim (2011) ✵ The Imposter (2012) ✵ The Theory of Everything (2014)