Walk This Way

A review of Man on Wire.

Man on Wire, a documentary directed by James Marsh, chronicles the incredible feat of Philippe Petit. (Yes, let’s all throw paper airplanes at me for the unintentional though clearly avoidable rhyme.) On August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit wirewalked across the terrifying expanse of nothingness between the barely completed Twin Towers in New York City. The political landscape of the moment – i.e., the imminent resignation of President Nixon and a nation consumed by the dishonesty and obfuscation of its leadership, provides an evocative context for Petit's single-minded focus on a seemingly purposeless goal.

The film does an excellent job building dramatic tension out of a story without suspense (we all know Petit came, he saw, he wirewalked). Similar to the way Titanic’s graphic reenactment of the ship splitting in two prepared the audience for what was to come, so too did seeing Petit’s actual wirewalks at Notre Dame and in Sydney, Australia. The film also utilizes dramatic re-creations of wirewalking, which are at times effective and at other times seem a bit cheesy. However, seeing the guerilla-esque preparations along with having the visual of those first two exploits makes it a little bit easier to wrap your brain around the truly remarkable nature of what is to come.

But the act of wirewalking is not the only mesmerizing aspect of Man on Wire. Philippe Petit is himself a force of nature with whom one does not really relate so much as witness. Petit's charisma almost vibrates off the screen, and the reverent manner in which his accomplices describe him even now, more than thirty years later, suggests that he is a kind of cult-inspiring figure. There is a magnetism to his charm that helps us to understand how people were pulled into his orbit and why a man like Jean-Louis would be reduced to tears when recalling his participation. Present-day Petit himself is interviewed on screen, giving us a more three-dimensional sense of his presence, though the most revelatory image of Petit is that of him deep in concentration, in the act of wirewalking between the Twin Towers. It's almost as if he has transcended to another dimension of consciousness.

The footage of Petit actually wirewalking between the Twin Towers would be compelling in and of itself, without the tragedy of September 11th. But being able to peek back into the past and see the Twin Towers when they were nascent creations, in their final stage of construction, is just plain eerie, as one watches from an inescapable post-9/11 perspective. In particular, there is one shot of Petit as he is traversing the wire and a jet crosses overhead. I believe this was a still photo in which the plane hovers, seemingly mere feet above Petit’s head. It seemed to almost portend the danger that would come with the turn of the 21^st century.

The filmmakers try to create an atmosphere of danger in the smuggling of the equipment to the roof of the Twin Towers, the illegal nature of the act itself and the exposure of the accomplices to liability. In this, they do not fully succeed, but that has more to do with the subject of the film than the filmmakers' effort. For, while Petit's act was breathtaking and beautiful, it was also phenomenally reckless. When you get right down to it, Petit is an incredibly selfish figure. What he did was ultimately for himself and in reality put a large number of people in great danger, not only his accomplices, but those souls watching from the sidewalks below. While the experience of watching the wirewalk undoubtedly gave those who saw it a great deal of pleasure for those brief moments, it was a fleeting pleasure, one that could hardly compare with the exhilaration felt by Petit during and after that wirewalk.

The title, Man on Wire, we learn in the end is less about the clever play on words it evokes than the surrealism of the feat portrayed, as the words are lifted directly from the police report indicting the fantastical act of Philippe Petit. How else to describe what they had witnessed that day? And in that same vein, rather than reading a description of this film, I urge you to see it on the big screen and experience Petit's act for yourself. If the foregoing hasn't been enough to convince you, see it because any movie that has a credit for an "archery consultant" has got to be worth your time.