Magnolia Pictures
Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center is profiled in "Man on Wire."
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Magnolia Pictures
Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center is profiled in "Man on Wire."
August 7, 1974. A young French man named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire suspended between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. ...
Rating: PG-13 for some sexuality and nudity, and drug references
Length: 90 minutes
Released: July 25, 2008 NY
Cast: Ardis Campbell, David Demato, David Roland Frank, Aaron Haskell, Paul McGill
Director: James Marsh
A model of documentary storytelling, "Man on Wire" is as gripping and suspenseful as a heist film as it reconstructs the fascinating but now mostly forgotten story of French self-taught tightrope-walker Philippe Petit, who in 1974 spent 45 minutes walking, dancing and posing on a 200-foot cable that he and his prankster/performance artist/engineer co-conspirators had strung between the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
A sequel to Petit's previous and equally illegal wire-walking conquests of the towers of Notre Dame cathedral and the pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the World Trade Center stunt brought Petit brief fame as well as a trip to a New York City jail. The movie's name comes from the unintentionally brilliant minimalist poetry of the arrest ticket: "Details of complaint: MAN ON WIRE."
Directed by James Marsh (responsible for the dark and inventive 1999 doc "Wisconsin Death Trip"), the movie presents Petit as the embodiment of a metaphor: A man who lives life on a tightrope. Recalling his determination to wire-walk between the towers, Petit, now almost 60, states: "If I die, what a beautiful death -- to die in the exercise of your passion."
Marsh tells this story with a mix of talking-head interviews, vintage footage and recreations. Wisely, the film never alludes to 9/11; our awareness of the "death" of the towers adds an undercurrent of melancholy to this celebration of a remarkable performance that we know can never be repeated.
"Man on Wire" is at Malco's Ridgeway Four.
-- John Beifuss, 529-2394
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