Man on Wire

Theatrical Release Date: 2008 07 25 (USA - Limited) / 2008 08 15 (USA - Limited) / 2008 (USA - Limited)

UPC: 876964001564

Studio: Magnolia

MPAA Rating: PG13   Contains:[Brief Nudity, Sexual Situations, Drug Content]

Summary: On August 7, 1974, a 24-year-old French high-wire artist named Philippe Petit committed one of the most astonishing performance stunts of the late 20th century: he strung a thin cable in between the two towers of the World Trade Center and not only walked across, from one building to another, but did a nerve-wracking series of knee-bends and acrobatic movements on the cable, some 1,350 feet above the ground, before turning himself in. This occurred to the consternation and chagrin of Port Authority policemen, who immediately arrested Petit for the act -- prompting many to dub Petit's stunt "the artistic crime of the century." James Marsh's documentary Man on Wire revisits and recounts this chain of events some 34 years after they occurred. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Category: Culture & Society

Awards: Grand Jury Award for Best World Cinema Documentary – Sundance Film Festival Audience Award – Sundance Film Festival Film Presented – Tribeca Film Festival Film Presented – Hot Docs International Film Festival Film Presented – Full Frame Documentary Film Festival Film Presented – Silverdocs Film Festival Best Documentary – Toronto Film Critics Association Best Documentary – Las Vegas Film Critics Association Film Presented – Seattle International Film Festival Film Presented – Los Angeles Film Festival Film Presented – Edinburgh International Film Festival Film Presented – Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Film Presented – Sheffield International Documentary Festival Film Presented – Melbourne International Film Festival Best Documentary Feature – Broadcast Film Critics Association Best Documentary – National Board of Review Best Documentary – Washington D.C. Film Critics Association Best Documentary – New York Film Critics Circle Best Documentary – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Documentary – San Diego Film Critics Association Best Documentary – Southeastern Film Critics Association Best Documentary – Boston Society of Film Critics Best Documentary – Alliance of Women Film Journalists Best Documentary – St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Best Documentary – New York Film Critics Online Best Documentary – Austin Film Critics Best Documentary Feature – Houston Film Critics Best British Film – London Film Critics Association Best Documentary – Chicago Film Critics Association Best Documentary – Florida Film Critics Best Documentary – Phoenix Film Critics Association Best Documentary – National Society of Film Critics Best Documentary – Kansas City Film Critics Association IDA Feature Documentary Award – International Documentary Association Best Edited Documentary – American Cinema Editors Guild Carl Foreman Award – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best British Film – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Documentary – Online Film Critics Association Best Documentary Feature – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Documentary – Independent Spirit Awards Best Documentary Feature – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Documentary – Dallas/Fort Worth Film Critics Association

Features: cc
Philippe Petit's Sydney Harbor Bridge Crossing (1973)
Philippe Petit interview
The Man Who Walked Between the Towers (animated short film)

Man on Wire

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 12/09/2008

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Alternate Wide Screen

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1, DD2 Dolby Digital Stereo

Runtime: 94 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,French

Subtitles: English,Spanish

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- Man on Wire
1. Dreams [8:18]
2. The Beginning [5:17]
3. Sydney [5:02]
4. Inside Man [8:20]
5. Impossible [8:28]
6. Bow & Arrow [6:48]
7. Disguise [6:54]
8. Recruiting [8:10]
9. On the Edge [5:42]
10. Ready [4:35]
11. Extraordinary [1:58]
12. End Credits [8:33]

Nathan Southern

Back in the late '90s, a heartbreaking incident occurred involving a young American college student that made headlines in some local papers. In an attempt to win a "dare" with some of his friends, he made the hare-brained (and impetuous) decision to scale a radio tower atop a university building. The rungs were wet from rain, and he slipped off and fell to his immediate death -- a humiliating end, to be certain. The contrast between the circumstances surrounding that tragedy and those surrounding Frenchman Philippe Petit's now-famous August 1974 feat -- a 45-minute walk on a tightrope suspended between the tops of the two World Trade Center towers -- illustrates the central thesis of director James Marsh's magnificently entertaining new documentary about the Petit stunt, Man on Wire, which deservedly picked up two of the top prizes at Sundance in January. Unlike the aforementioned student (and the ill-fated victims of many other dangerous stunts over the years) Petit perceived tightrope walking as his form of lifelong creative expression, and spent an unholy number of hours, weeks, months, and years perfecting his craft. Such actions saved him by making the Trade Center feat about a thousand times safer than it would have otherwise been. Everything leading up to Petit's Trade Center walk echoes his explicit comparison of himself to a master artist -- the preparatory details suggest the image of a sculptor gradually honing in on a creation from a formless block of clay. From there, the film expands the breadth and ambition of its ideas and begins to turn around the same profound theme as Ratatouille -- that every artist (performance or otherwise) requires the breadth of freedom necessary for self-expression, though that freedom will invariably pose risks to oneself. After all, what is any work of art except for the creator putting his or her deepest and innermost self "on the line" for the world to see, and thus risking humiliation? Undergirding these ideas, Marsh paints a portrait of unbridled determination, courage, and raw intelligence in Petit that shows him implicitly damning all the naysayers by thinking everything through with an almost obscene level of thoroughness. The director intuitively affords so much attention and screen time to the scientific preparations behind Petit's coup that the film at times threatens to turn into a catalogue of detail. We learn that Petit made a photographic record of the prospective mounts to which his cable could be affixed on both towers; that he considered, gauged, and compensated for possible torque on the cable by anchoring it with diagonal mounts attached to the central line; that he and a friend devised a method of mounting the line between buildings by firing an arrow attached to the cable from one building to the other; and so on, and so forth. The director approaches this material like a first-rate thriller, employing a largely chronological narrative structure that ratchets up the tension (despite the known outcome) as the film details Petit's efforts to pull a band of international assistants together, and as those men spend time onscreen reflecting on the crafty, incredible ways in which they thwarted Twin Towers security and the New York Port Authority in carrying out their "artistic crime." Marsh is abetted throughout by the thoroughly winning presence of middle-aged Petit, a natural showman, who turns up on-camera for interview commentary, and who imparts a wealth of emotion with his excited, impassioned recollections. In addition to suspense, the film also benefits enormously from the inclusion of offbeat humor throughout, such as the revelation that one of Petit's cohorts was a terminal pothead (who showed up for the preparations stoned), and the revelation that Petit celebrated his success on the wire with a series of actions that completely ignored the devotions of his longtime girlfriend -- he accompanied a groupie to a nearby hotel and indulged in uninhibited sex with her (an event recreated in hilarious black-and-white flashbacks). Equally funny are the authorities' irritated reactions to Petit's wire stunt, which Marsh wisely holds off-camera until about ten minutes into the photomontage depiction of the actual walk. It may have been inevitable that Marsh needed to work in dramatic reenactments of the preparations with actors playing the perpetrators' younger selves, but the dividing line between the period footage of Petit and friends and the footage of the actors is invisible. The young actors bear such an astonishing resemblance to their real-life counterparts that it looks like Petit actually had people shooting sound footage of him over the years, while he planned the coup, conducted brainstorming sessions with his cohorts, mounted a "test" wire in his backyard, and perfected his walk. Especially in the wake of 9/11, the film's lengthy Super-8 sequences of the World Trade Center towers in mid-construction (which blanket the first ten minutes of screen time) bring a poignant, elegiac quality to the material. The documentary benefits from this added level of emotional complexity, and it in no way detracts from the suspense or the humor in the sequences surrounding it. The film's only real lapses are twofold: it goes on a bit too long, lagging somewhat at the midway point, and when we actually reach Petit's much-anticipated derring-do atop the Twin Towers, Marsh fails to incorporate an actual film of his walk, resorting (as mentioned) to still photographs. It may be true that such footage doesn't exist -- that the actual walk was impossible to catch on camera (back in 1974) given the clandestine circumstances of the preparation and planning, and the height of the buildings. (The tale made city-wide and national headlines and drew massive crowds -- didn't news cameras, arriving at the Trade Center, at least attempt to capture some of it?) If not, that's a serious handicap for Marsh to work around, though we do get incredibly entertaining film clips of Petit pulling his high-wire stunt at Notre Dame Cathedral and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Anyway, on some level, one could argue that the absence of an actual filmed record of the Twin Towers walk further ensconces the feat itself in an aura of myth and legend -- the sorts of myths and legends that explicit onscreen depiction can easily destroy. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Annie Allix  Actor 
Mark Lewis  Actor 
Barry Greenhouse  Actor 
Alan Welner  Actor 
Jim Moore  Actor 
Jean-Francois Heckel  Actor 
David Foreman  Actor 
Jean-Louis Blondeau  Actor 
James Marsh  Director 
James Marsh  Executive Producer 
Michael Nyman  Composer (Music Score) 
Nick Fraser  Executive Producer 
Jonathon Hewes  Executive Producer 
Lenny Crooks  Executive Producer 
Andrea Meditch  Executive Producer 
J. Ralph  Composer (Music Score) 
Simon Chinn  Producer 
Philippe Petit  Actor 

Country: UK,USA