Man on Wire

To Live Your Life On A Tight Rope
Philippe Petit begins: “I started as a young self-taught wire walker, to dream of not so much conquering the universe but, as a poet, conquering beautiful stages.” As film-watchers, though we initially approach Petit’s wire walking as courage and athleticism, we learn very quickly that the athlete and his comrades view it first and foremost as a form of performance art. As collaborators and friends are interviewed, it becomes plain that they were absolutely consumed with and commanded by the stunning beauty and artistry of what they were participating in. During the Notre Dame walk, the elegiac Jean Louis Blondeau observes that it is “Something that’s so beautiful, not only does it not hurt somebody, but gives something to somebody … It’s a dream.” And Petit tells us that his world is “basically the world of a poet or a writer who decides to write in the sky.” A bit melodramatic you might say? The moment you see Petit perform, you learn there’s nothing remotely melodramatic or deceptive about this mild-mannered yet ferocious individual; he’s the real deal. Accompanying this gorgeous film (with much vintage footage of NYC, Paris, and Sydney) is an equally gorgeous soundtrack. The harvested music is gentle, contemplative, and transcendental, with the selection of each piece connoting painstaking consideration including (but certainly not limited to) an excerpt from Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Lark Ascending,” one of the most elegant pieces of early 20th century symphonic music ever written.So much frenzied planning and activity precedes the WTC walk that it’s unclear what to expect once it commences. Yet as soon as Petit takes that first step, we become enveloped in the warmth of his concentration, certainty, and intrepidness. Set to the reassuring calmness of Erik Satie’s “Gymnopedies,” the walk between the Twin Towers is at the same time spectacular and quietly elegant, monumental and humbly poetic, frightening yet tranquil. Petit is commanding and celebratory, at the height of his prowess, and seems to be in complete peace. The fusion of art, strength, and daring is mystifying, just as Petit wants it. His companion Annie Allix watched from the ground below, and there’s a still powerful and visible sense of exhilaration as she recalls it: “It was extraordinary … It was like he was walking on a cloud. And there were such amazing moments … when he lay down … We were thrilled by this image of Philippe lying down up above … It was so beautiful!” Collaborator Jim Moore recalls: “The awe of the event and the overwhelming scale of the situation … was magical … profound.” It’s clear that each participant was affected in ways that have lasted a lifetime. Petit would later say the towers were his throne, “the sun my scepter, my cape the wind.” There are no moving images of the WTC walk, only still photography–a testament to the enduring power of the photograph. Petit later observed that he was initially “devastated” that there were no movie images, but that “now 35 years later I think it’s fabulous that there is no film.” The documentary’s focus is on the personalities, the caper, and the artistry, not the “whys” compelling the dare. Petit would later say that what made these walks so beautiful is that there were no whys. As for the storyline involving Philippe’s desertion of his friends as his fame grew, that appears to have involved a bit of literary license.Says Petit, “Living intensely is a magnificent way of living … But it doesn’t happen every day. One has to fight for it.” Most of us ordinary folk may not be able to follow our passions with the precise same vigor and apparent fearlessness of a Philippe Petit. But we can certainly try to live life to the fullest, to give our personal best, to be just a little less pragmatic and a little more inspired. Man On Wire makes you want to do that. What more can one ask of a film. Petit leaves us with this: “Life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to experience rebellion, to refuse to taper yourself to rules, to refuse [to deny] your own success … to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge. And then you have only to live your life on a tight rope.”

Me encanta y llegó antes de lo esperado.Es región 1.Solo tiene subtitulos en inglés y francés.

da ammiratrice del grande Philippe Petit ho apprezzato più questo del pur bellissimo film The Walk.è coinvolgente e commovente vedere i filmati dell’epoca e sentire parlare i diretti interessati in questa impresa al limite della follia…anzi che ha superato i limiti della follia!! è parlato e sottotitolato in inglese ma risulta molto comprensibile anche a chi lo mastica poco…

What compels the high-wire walker? Danger, uncertainty, vulnerability, tension — both in the wire and situation. Also, simplicity. The wire’s symbolism is clear, a thin dividing line between life and death. The walker is many things — artist, acrobat, adventurer, exhibitionist, dreamer. But he’s also a kind of clairvoyant, a soothsayer. What does he see? He sees death. If not imminent, eventual. One slip and it’s over right now. If not, if he crosses safely, then later, perhaps in his bed in his sleep one night, or in some other way. Existentially, then, he’s an emissary. Through his action he says we all walk a wire. How well we keep our balance and how far we go on it is what time determines.Of course that’s the lure: the thrill and fear and dread of death. We look up at him, high above the pavement, imagining it’s us in his soft shoes. Few want him to slip. Probably no one does. Slipping is the end of everything, the show and life immediately terminated.He knows all this. He uses it to challenge himself, to keep him focussed on the job. He doesn’t want to die. Quite the opposite, in fact. The taunting of death is what intoxicates him in life. A strange art and courage, but that’s the basis of it. Otherwise the venture is mad, hopelessly insane. Some might think so anyway, but they’re in the minority, not in the crowd. Most look up in fear and trembling, as they’re meant to. They can’t take their eyes off him. Their own hopes go with him.Philippe Petit was a high-wire walker. He was audacious and ambitious. Higher and grander meant better: more spectators, greater spectacle. He started out modestly in France in back gardens and parks on ropes and cables strung low between trees. He juggled on the wire, did handstands, sometimes fell off. All quite amusing. But he stayed at it, got better and better. Gradually the wire was raised higher. Falling now was not an option unless he wanted broken bones or a cracked skull. No, he didn’t want these. So, perfecting the art became his goal. He steeled his mind and body toward this purpose. He learned to overcome fear, to breathe calmly, to trust his balance and step. After a time he was at home at great heights, comfortable in airy places where he belonged — like a bird on a wire, though Leonard Cohen’s bittersweet song is about something else.The greater his techniques became, the more confidence he gained in his art and himself. Back gardens and parks would no longer do. Now he wanted cathedrals, bridges, skyscrapers. Grandiosity for him became a badge of honour. How else could he have conceived the mad scheme to walk between the roofs of the WTC Twin Towers in Manhattan? Later, of course, another mad scheme would take down those very towers. Madness and world trade — some existential link there?The story or urban legend is this: When Philippe was 17 or 18 he was sitting in a grotty dental office in Paris either bored, dreading having a tooth drilled, or both. Flipping through a magazine, he saw an artist’s sketch of the Twin Towers New York architects were planning to have built. The year was 1967 or ’68. The drawing mesmerised him. In an instant it became his Holy Grail. He ripped the page from the magazine while inducing a sneeze, theft making the gift all the more precious to him. The film reveals he wasn’t a born rebel, trickster and thief. He became these to defy a strict and confining upbringing, his life not being the first in which too much parental control backfired. Breaking rules thrilled and inspired him. Not laws per se, though he has broken some of these as well — petty rules, the numerous little duties and obligations that wear down a spirit and turn it to dust. He hated rules, wanted to make his own. He was a kind of Peter Pan who dreamed of taking flight, of transcending the world. High up there on his wire he would be lord and king, untouchable, beyond all the stuff below, all the rules and commands and expectations. He wanted out of his Earth-bound prison.He wouldn’t ask for permission to walk the towers. No, that would ruin everything. It would have to be a surprise, a secret gift to the world. He would dance on air and delight those who looked up. They wouldn’t see the wire, only his small dark shape and the balance bar silhouetted against the sky. He would fly like an angel, dance like a sprite. He would be beautiful and magnificent. They would know it too. They would say that about him. You were beautiful, you looked magnificent. He wanted the world to tell him the truth of what he already knew about himself.He describes the caper as a coup, as indeed it was. The film here couches it as a kind of bank heist, though this seems backward to me. Bank robbers steal from vaults. They take. Philippe came to New York to give, not take. His act was no heist. In the end if he stole anything it was only our hearts.The coup was audacious, his dream so large it had to be impossible. He saw this for himself when he finally got to New York. He stood beneath the towers in the spring of 1974 and looked up. One quarter of a mile up — 1,348 feet, 411 metres up. Yes, impossible. Mad. Ridiculous. Thus he would have to do it. Or die trying. That was the pact he made with himself: dance and death were calling him. He could not turn back now.Prior to this, his great dream, he made two very memorable practice runs. The first was between the two belfries of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris (69 m., June 1971). The second was across the two main north supports of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Sydney, Australia (134 m., June 1973). Both walks were illegal of course. His police blotter is filled with misdemeanour infractions: trespassing, misuse of public property, endangerment to himself and the public, etc. But this record of criminality is part of the art. What art without mischief? He’s the kid who will always play hooky if he can. Why? Because the open classroom window looks more interesting than the desk and book and chalkboard. He doesn’t make apologies or excuses for this. He does what he feels he’s compelled to do.Narcissism? Exhibitionism? Maybe some of that. But all of us lie to ourselves if we tell ourselves we don’t want to be noticed. We’re social beings, not lone wolves. We need attention. Philippe is honest in his art. If it is extravagant, all the better. Why not please as many as possible?He wrote a book before this film was made about him. He titled it To Reach the Clouds. One quote on the back of the paperback is this:“Philippe Petit planned and executed the perfect crime…and the whole world loved him for doing it.”The author of the quote is Guy F. Tozzoli. Who? He was the President of the World Trade Centers Association. Guy appears in the film briefly and looks bemused. He was hoodwinked by Philippe. The wire walker pretended to be a French journalist. He wanted access to the Twin Towers to learn everything he could about them and Guy obligingly let him, another coup among the many needed for Philippe to walk on air.The film shows how he researched all aspects of the coup. He scouts locations, talks to administrators, makes drawings and models, takes temperature and wind readings, and converses endlessly with his accomplices (French and American) about his plans. He’s like a wild animal, a predator on the savannah, stalking his prey. He has to know everything about its weaknesses, tendencies, vulnerabilities. He must learn how he can go for the kill.He went for the kill on the morning of August 7, 1974. The film wonderfully recreates how Philippe and his accomplices got all the equipment in place and the wire rigged on the night of August 6. What effort! They were superhuman in their dedication. Jean-Louis Blondeau, Philippe’s closest French accomplice, shot the arrow from the bow that carried the first thin fishing line from the North Tower across to the South, where Philippe stood. With this line and another in place Philippe and other accomplices dragged the metal wire (weighing 200 kilos when unspooled) across the void between the towers.There were complications. The rigging took longer than expected. They started before midnight but the wire was still sagging before dawn. It wasn’t taut enough. It couldn’t be walked. Too dangerous. Yet somehow, working feverishly, they got it tightened and secured. Philippe was exhausted. But now, nearing the summit of Everest, was no time for rest. Instead, reach deep for reserves of strength.He changed into his walker’s costume — all black like the rebel Johnny Cash: black long-sleeved top, black loose and flared trousers, black slippers. All black against the white sky of dawn. Just before 7:00 a.m. he stepped onto the wire.Jean-Louis said he looked tense at first, unsure. But this passed in an instant. Philippe’s face relaxed. He smiled. He looked comfortable, at home, at peace. He was. He stayed on the wire for 45 minutes. He made eight crossings. He said it was easier than he thought it was going to be. He danced, knelt on the wire, lay down on it. The Keystone cops scrambled over one another to get to the roofs of both towers. They implored him, pleaded with him. They had their good-sense safety regulations in mind. They were right. But so was Philippe and nobody was going to walk out on the wire to get him. A helicopter was sent up and whirled above him. Far below he heard sirens wailing. Bullhorns from both tower rooftops were directed at him. But he was in the zone, wholly focussed, completely concentrated on the wire and his feet. All this stuff was just background noise.In the book he describes what he was going through:“The gods in my feet know how to hit the cable, how not to make it move when each foot lands. How do they know? They worked that out during their endless days of rehearsals…They ask the feet to land on the steel rope in such a way that the impact of each step absorbs the swaying of the cable, its vertical oscillations, and its twisting along the axis of the walk; the feet answer by being gentle and understanding, by conversing with the wire-rope, by enticing the huffing and puffing living entity above them to let go of his rage to control.Wire-walker, trust your feet! Let them lead you; they know the way.”Through the white noise whirring and vibrating around him he finally heard something that registered — the sound of his native French. It reached him from Jean-Louis who was telling him it was time to leave the wire. He complied.Later he would call the outstretched arms of the police and the authorities an octopus. The arms of this creature reached out and grabbed him on the South Tower, the place where he had begun his walk. They gripped him firmly and handcuffed his arms behind his body. Imagine that, those graceful thin arms that had held the balance bar and saluted the crowd below, now roughly and rudely immobilised behind him. The scariest moment was never on the wire where he felt safe. He would confess this later. It was in the hands of the police who shoved him down the narrow stairwell where he had no hands to hold the balance bar.But he lived and escaped the police. And the courts. The judge was lenient. No fine. His punishment? To perform for children for free in a park. Why so lenient? Our good friend Guy F. Tozzoli again, President of the World Trade Centers Association. He called the judge, had a word. No one had been hurt and the city loved what had happened, he said. His WTC was suddenly lovable. Imagine that. He was overjoyed. The judge saw the sense in this and let all the crazy foreign Frenchmen go. The French! What are you going to do? But they gave us that Statue of Liberty out there in the harbour. No one knows why but they did. Strange people, unpredictable. Very proud and artistic. We had better play it by their rules in this case so that we don’t look too uncouth. Our President and his inner circle of henchmen are bad enough.Thus it was that Philippe Petit conquered the Twin Towers, the World Trade Center, New York City and the world on that August morning in 1974. Days later King Richard Nixon was deposed and King Philippe began the new reign for America.He’s a legend now: folk hero, pied piper, author and Academy Award winner. He still juggles, rides unicycles, walks wires. Once an artist, an artist for life.The film understands this and pays tribute to a magnificent man. Finally, how does it serenade him? How else? — with the soft piano compositions of Erik Satie, another gentle, graceful, delicate French artiste.Viva la France!