Man on Wire
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Movie Reviews of Man on Wire
Movie Review: An Irresistible Target
Summary: 5 Stars
"Man on Wire" (2008) is a fascinating, suspenseful documentary with rare footage and some reenactments. On August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit an impish, pixyish Frenchman spent an hour tight-roping on a wire suspended between the towers of the World Trade Center. He spent months of preparation for his feat and gathered a team of helpers that included one inside operative. Incidentally there is no video footage of the event, but the film does include stunning still shots.
Petit was a daredevil who was greatly challenged to perform amazing exploits. Previously he had tight-roped between the towers of Notre Dame and also the Harbor Bridge in Sydney, Australia, in 1973.
He and his team traveled to the United States several times, planning and preparing, and they had made an aborted attempt. Back in France Petit practiced simulating the sway and wind conditions between the towers. We do see video footage of their planning sessions. Finally he hit on the idea of getting his wire across the vast open space, by shooting an arrow with a filament that could be tied to the tight rope itself.
On the morning of August 7, he and an assistant went up in one tower while other members of the team went up the other tower to shoot the arrow across. He knew he was risking his life and his liberty for this dangerous stunt, but the Towers were irresistible to this daredevil.
After crossing several times, flaunting his balancing skills, he was arrested, sent to a mental facility for observation and eventually merely slapped on wrist for his daring stunt. The Towers proved irresistible to others because one man scaled one of the Towers.
As one who visited the Towers on occasion, it was very poignant seeing the Towers in all their glory in their early days. Because they were so famous, so massive and so iconic, they also proved to be an irresistible target to the terrorists on September 11, 2001. Those gleaming towers beckoned to daredevils, but unfortunately they attracted those crying out for attention by wreaking havoc.
The docu-drama is well-told, and it builds to a climax. The interviews with Petit and his associates add a great deal to the motivation behind the stunning event. Petit was determined, supremely self-confident, and egocentric. After he made his initial steps crossing the wire, his grim look turned to a smile of triumph.
Author Colum McCann has taken that day and created a critically acclaimed novel called "Let the Great World Spin" (2009) using the event as the fulcrum in the lives of a number of his fictional characters.
Movie Review: Man on a Wire: Commentary
Summary: 5 Stars
Man On A Wire is one of those documentaries that stay with you. It is excellent and has a low to offer those of a thoughtful nature. First of all, it is a demonstration of the human spirit and the single-mindedness of the central character to perform an impossible feat: string a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center and walk back and forth without a net. The footage is clearly amazing. Watching Mr. Petit walk back and forth on this wire (and at one point laying down in the prone position on the wire) is staggering. His accomplishment was an unparalleled athletic performance that will never be repeated.
That alone warrants the purchase of the movie. However there is much more to be considered. Of particular interest is the slight of hand that was necessary to get to the top of the World Trade Center unobserved with all of the equipment. Though slow in parts, the fact that they (Petit and his associates) pulled it off will be quite amusing to many who watch the film. But there is much more to this part of the film than meets the eye. Let me explain this in terms of a metaphor.
I have a neighbor who has a large dog that kept escaping and running around at night. He tried everything and finally augment the 6 foot wooden fence, that was meant to contain his dog ("Buck"), with an electronic fence. It worked and the problem was solved. About a year or so later he had no problems with Buck escaping so he turned off the electricity as a cost saving measure. Buck has not tried to escape because he continues to believe that if he tries to get out he will get an electric shock. In some respects Buck the dog is everyman because he believes the "juice" is on and that he will be stopped from exercising his freedom. What this documentary also demonstrates brilliantly that we, like Buck, believe that we are constrained in our freedom. we believe that will be stop from entering or leaving certain places or not eligible for opportunities that are "restricted" rather than the many. The bottom line is that dogs and people act upon what they believe to be real rather than what actually is real. In this regard Man On A Wire is a brilliant ethno-methodological study about reality and illusion. The reality was the central character's incredible skill to perpetrate this accomplishment with the illusions that were dispelled by him and his hearty band of non-conformists' ability to make it happen.
Movie Review: Philippe Petit and The Zen of Wirewalking
Summary: 5 Stars
When Philippe Petit, after astounding the world with almost an hour of antics - walking, jumping, dancing and even reclining - on a steel cable strung between the Twin Towers on August 7th, 1974, before giving himself up to the New York police, the enigmatic entry under which he was booked read "Man on wire."
This is how the police viewed his act and also how most of the world viewed it - as the act of a crazy individual who, balancing on a steel cable rigged precariously at a height of 1,368 ft above the streets of New York, had astounded everyone by crossing and recrossing eight times before rain brought an end to his performance.
If the thousands watching Petit had been asked what they had seen they would probably have answered, like the police, that they had seen a man on a wire. However, it seems clear from the movie that many of the onlookers, far from merely having seen a man on a wire, had experienced something so beautiful and profound that it could only be described as religious or spiritual; they had seen a man becoming truly a man or even something more than a man; they had witnessed him demonstrating the full potential that lies buried deep within all of us. I think this is why they were so moved that some of them wept.
Awakening normally takes place in isolation. No-one actually saw the Buddha become a buddha. But when Petit, courting death and moved by some inexplicable force, took that first grim step onto the swaying steel cable and we saw his face suddenly melt into an ecstatic smile, at that very moment he triumphantly conquered the universal fear of death, shattered the prison of ego and, buddha-like, became one with the cable, the towers, the watching crowd, the city, the world and the universe itself and I'm sure some in the crowd must have felt this. The ancient Indian philosopher Nagarjuna (c.150 - 250 CE) explains:
"When buddhas don't appear
And their followers are gone,
The wisdom of awakening
Bursts forth by itself."
The world, in short, was granted the privilege of witnessing the awakening of a man, human as we are human, beautifully bursting forth into his full potential as man on wire became buddha on wire.
Movie Review: Thrilling and heart wrenching
Summary: 5 Stars
I can only join in the chorus of praise for this excellent documentary; it is terrifying, thrilling, and in many senses painful to watch, especially the human conflicts after the event. The other reviewers have done full justice to the power of the film; here are a few of my impressions and memories.
Petit's smile of pure joy that breaks over is face when he realizes after a few steps that his preparations will allow him to complete the walk -- amazing.
The four guy wires that anchored the main wire -- normally they would be attached to the ground, impossible here -- but possible because the two towers were angled to each other.
The 450 pounds of wire which threatened to fall to the ground before it was attached; the effort to hold onto it must have been extraordinary.
"My safety net is much stronger than anything else in the world -- it is my preparation." Man on Wire by Petit is a superb description of his preparations as well as being a thrilling description in its own right.
The New York City D.A.'s words when recommending dismissal of the charges: "The security at the WTC is not all that it should be." [Terribly prescient, that.]
I watched Petit walk across the Great Falls of the Passaic three weeks later, a personal insight into history.
The words of Sgt. Charles Daniels, Port Authority cop:
"I observed the tightrope 'dancer' -- because you couldn't call him a 'walker' -- approximately halfway between the two towers. And upon seeing us he started to smile and laugh and he started going into a dancing routine on the high wire.... And when he got to the building we asked him to get off the high wire but instead he turned around and ran back out into the middle.... He was bouncing up and down. His feet were actually leaving the wire and then he would resettle back on the wire again....Unbelievable really....[E]verybody was spellbound in the watching of it."
A perfect description for Daniels of the real event; a perfect description for me of this wonderful documentary.
Robert C. Ross 2008
Movie Review: "There is no why", sive de Aristocratia
Summary: 5 Stars
The word aristocracy comes from ancient greek "ariston", meaning "the best". It contains the Indo-European root "ar". The same root appears in the latin (and Lithuanian) words "ara" - altar - and "aratrum" - plow. Hence, civilization (that is the offspring of agriculture), spirit, and aristocracy. "Ar" also appears in sanscrit "Arya", "the nobles", who spread in the gangetic plane and documented their religion in the Vedic texts. Precisely their Vedas teach the meaning of action separated by its consequences. They teach to act not because of the outcome of action, but because of its significance. Because the action itself calls the noble into acting.
Strange, isn't it? This simple philological analysis, as well as a distracted look at any european mythology or at the life of illustrious romans, seems to suggest that civilization ("aratrum") did not come from utilitarianism, from the carefully planned, greedy action, sharpened to optimize its consequences. Paradoxically, the founders of our civilization unconsciously believed it came from the generous action that had a value in itself, whatever the consequences: noble, great gestures. As if only that action could renovate the spirit and the universe. Action as a sacrifice to the gods, in the Bhagavad Gita. Action as the altar ("ara") on which the best ones ("aristoi", "arya") could sacrifice.
I felt this sentiment reverberating over and over in this magnificent documentary, a true hymn to the meaning of nobility. I found it a powerful antidote to the lack of meaning, the greediness, the smallness of our world. Everybody witnessing the event or participating in it was deeply touched. While remembering it, many cried.
In the action without apparent meaning, true meaning is found. In the calculating, greedy pettiness, meaning is lost. This is where we came from. From this we have fallen. One of Petit's quotes should be carved in stone "I had just done this incredible, impossible, magnificent gesture, and the only thing they could give me was this very american, very utilitarian *why, why, why?*. But there was no why."