"The artistic crime of the century" is how many people referred to Phillipe Petit's high wire act between the World Trade Center in 1974. I've heard three interviews with Petit and filmmaker James Marsh about their documentary Man on Wire, which is currently making the rounds, and am most anxious to see it. I remeber watching the news reports in 1974, I was 9 going on 10 at the time, and thinking, "Yeah, I want to try that!" Of course, when I was that age I also wanted to take a barrel over Niagara Falls.

Has anyone here had a chance to see Man on Wire?

It is indeed an awesome film. Also ends a little sooner than I might have expected, yet I think it probably would have been a mistake to go much further (even if, by cutting the story off where they do, they minimize the degree to which Petit might have made himself look bad).

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10 Ways ‘Man on Wire’ Is Like “The Dark Knight’ — Only Better!
How is a new documentary about a tightrope walker like this year's biggest superhero blockbuster? Let me count the ways.
Christopher Campbell, SpoutBlog, July 31

Incidentally, the historical "man on wire" incident took place exactly 34 years and 2 days ago. (Darn, we missed the anniversary by two days!!)

Jeffrey Wells mentions a couple other stunts that took place around the World Trade towers in the 1970s (the Human Fly, a parachutist). Did no stunts happen in the '80s or '90s?

Looks like I'll be seeing this tonight.

I found it to be a fascinating film. The planning and the setup of the whole deal, as well as the compelling characters, are like watching a great heist film. The shots of Phillipe alone on the wire, suspended high in the air, are starkly beautiful.

What makes this stunt so compelling was how it had such an element of surprise for anyone who happened to be looking up from the streets of New York that day and saw this figure high in the sky. It captured a sense of wonder that our current reality TV shows and hyped celebrity stunts could never inspire.

Good movie, but I'm having trouble distinguishing between the re-created scenes and actual documentary footage. Most of the early scenes of Philip testing out the wire and practicing are recreations, right? The actor and his girlfriend are dead ringers for the man and woman in the photos, which were real, I assume. Maybe they weren't.

Some of the archival footage of the Trade Center and the people were obviously dated, very 1970s -- with washed out colors and bad focus that indicated it was real footage. The re-enactments looked cleaner, while retaining certain clothing and other elements characteristic of the time period. Still, there were some sequences that had me scratching my head, wondering what might be actual footage and what might be a recreation. What about that scene of the wirewalks in Australia? That came much later than the World Trade Center walk, although it's placed early in the film, right? Was that actual footage? The wire walk at Notre Dame was a recreation, I think. Right?

One more shout out to those who have seen the documentary. Any thoughts on the blending of recreations with actual footage? I'm still stumped by those scenes of wire walking in Australia and France. Archival footage, or staged for the movie?

I am looking forward to seeing this film. About a week ago I unintentionally celebrated the 34th anniversary of this event (as Peter mentioned above) by watching a little documentary on the making of the documentary.

That's so cool. Come to think of it, I just saw a documentary on the making of the documentary on the making of the documentary. ;)

According to the Wikipedia entry for Phillipe Petit, it mentions that he wirewalked the Sydney Harbor Bridge but doesn't say when. And this article from the London Times Online seems to indicate the he really did walk between the towers of the Notre Dame cathedral. So I would assume that is actual footage.

From this thread someone posted on IMDB, it seems that Petit filmed footage of himself practicing in France before the event, so I'd assume that is real as well.

It would have been interesting if the actual walk had been filmed as well, but given how rushed they were to get the whole thing set up before the morning came, it's not surprising that they couldn't get this footage. But the film doesn't suffer for not having such footage, because the still photographs were so beautiful.

The recreations were so well done, that I have to give the filmmakers credit for the fact that you can't easily tell the difference between the recreations and the actual footage. Maybe they were done too well, as it seems to confusing us.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the movie.

Dan Buck doesn't participate in too many threads these days, but I saw via the "A Closer Look" feed that he, too, has blogged the movie, which he and his wife saw as part of their 10th anniversary celebration. Interesting choice!

Marriage is a tight rope walk. The balancing skills don't change, but after ten years, there's just farther to fall. Thanks for the shout out Christian.

'Man on Wire' adds related short
Beginning Friday, select screenings in L.A. and Gotham will be followed by animated short "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers," based on Mordicai Gerstein's Caldecott Award-winning children's book.
Variety, September 2

I knew I'd be amazed by Petit. But I didn't expect that it would be such a strange, mysterious, emotional experience.

The filmmakers refusal to directly acknowledge 9/11 is itself a bold high-wire act, and one that has a profound effect on the audience. Or, at least it had a profound effect on me.

I jotted down some first impressions here.

I don't know, Jeffrey. It wasn't the images of the towers that inspired me. If anything, they made me uneasy. Rather than raising my ideas and expectations about human ingenuity in and of themselves, the towers represented something that was divisive. Not at the time, but now, in retrospect.

There's that scene of the man dedicating them at their founding. He says something -- it's in my notes, but they're not in front of me -- about how the towers are a symbol of peace for all the world, doesn't he? I remember thinking: That's not how everyone saw them.

To the extent the towers inspired me, it was in Petit's inventiveness and ambition to do something beautiful and exciting with them. But when certain people from other cultures saw those towers, they saw something other than beauty and excitement. To the film's credit, it doesn't go down that road, concentrating instead on Petit's focus and mission, the consequences be damned.

EDIT: Hey, wait a minute: Did your screening include the animated short? The linked clip at Movie City News lasts only about 90 seconds. Is there more to the animated film?

There was no animated short at my screening.

FWIW, the Variety article linked above says the short is attached to films in New York and L.A. starting this weekend (and it plays AFTER the film, not before). There is no mention of whether, or when, it will be attached to screenings of the film in other cities.

As for the towers themselves, I'm not sure how "inspiring" I find them, really. There's a slight Tower of Babel quality to them, isn't there? Someone also once remarked that they were very typical of "modern" or "modernist" architecture -- there was nothing particularly beautiful about them, they were very square and functional, and they were stamped out like cookies, with one building a basically identical replication of the other.

FWIW, the towers were also designed by the same architect who designed the Pruitt-Igoe housing projects, the destruction of which is an important sequence in Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi (1983). The architect, Minoru Yamasaki, was apparently a subscriber to the "modernist" idea that better buildings would make better people. But things didn't work out like that, and so the Pruitt-Igoe buildings were demolished in 1972, while the World Trade Centre was still being built. Bit of an irony, that.

But never mind all that. Petit's "artistic crime" is a marvel to behold, regardless.

Re: the Towers - my sentiments about them were dependent on their ultimate demise. In some ways, Petit's attitude to rope walk them is the same attitude it took to build them. From my blog:

But here's a question I'd like to raise. I'm not sure why but I got very emotional when Petit's closest friend (at the time of the walk) broke down into tears. I'm not sure I totally understand why he was crying, and I certainly don't know why I was. Here's my best stab at it:

Thoughts?

DanBuck wrote:
: And in the construction of both the building and this strange dream of Petit's the sentiment is "Look what humans can do!" instead of the "Look what humans have done" that would be cried 27 years later.

Excellent points, Dan.

I think he broke down in tears because all of the relationships that took place in this event are now lost. Philippe Petit somehow changed after the events on that day in 1974 -- a change that changed everything. His relationship to his girlfriend, a breaking up of the entire group, an end to what could have been a lifelong endeavor.

Notice that none of those who were involved in the act were filmed together talking about the story?

As far as the film goes, I sat there totally mesmerized (and a little uneasy). The shots from above the Trade Centers just made me queasy. But Petit gets up there as if it's nothing. And for him it IS nothing! What's the difference between risking your life at a few hundred feet and risking your life at a few thousand feet! The guy did this in his back yard every day for years. Doing it on top of the World Trade Center is the same risk he's always taken. The only difference is that now he gets to prove it to the world.

I never thought there was a re-enactment. I always thought everything was done with Super-8.

The elements that went into that night were astounding. Tricking the guards with fake IDs. Getting the freight elevator to take them up by accident. Both groups hiding from the guards. Pulling up hundreds of feet of lost rope for hours in order to still secure the tightrope and make the stunt operational. Standing out on it and making eight crossings, 45 minutes above the crowd below, after a night of hell trying to get there.

Remarkable.

Unbelievable.

I loved Petit. He was alternative before alternative was cool. Riding around on his little unicycle, playing magic tricks on people in the streets, having a vision for his life's trick before the buildings were even built.

I was blown away by this event, and by the film.

DO NOT vote this year until you've seen Man On Wire. Here's an inspiring documentary, in a time where docs typically tear us to pieces with sad truths that we really don't want to accept. (But reluctantly, we still do.)

Man On Wire shows us a Banksy before Banksy that actually takes his life in his artistic hands, and conquers the world when he conquers his dream.

Certainly the best documentary I've seen in years.

Do you mean this literally, or did you just sense the reenactments were seemless with the real footage? Because there were CLEARLY reenactments. Digital footage, actors playing the characters, etc.

No, I honestly never thought there was a reenactment. I guess I was just naive about that aspect of the story. I guess I thought, "This is France, and after the sixties every youth there must've had a camera, or at least the ones who thought they were doing something worthy of filming."

Well, for example, the sillohetted shots of the guys under the tarp were clearly not real footage.

My meditation on Man on Wire and why it moved me.

An article I ran in The Curator on Man on Wire.