Even if Man on Wire was a horribly made documentary filled with overlong, uninteresting, mumbling interviews with people who weren’t involved in the events in question, it would still be worth watching for the incredible footage towards the film’s end. Here, through archival videos and photos, the film reaches its apex with images of Phillipe Petit tightrope-walking 104 storeys above the ground, with no net or safety harness, between the World Trade Center’s twin towers on August 7, 1974. The feat is so audacious, the grainy photos and tiny speck videos so gobsmackingly beautiful, the look on Petit’s face so perfectly content, that any critical discussion of the film is rendered moot. It simply has to be seen.
Fortunately, in addition to containing some of the most amazing real life footage to ever grace theatres, Man on Wire is a damn fine documentary that keeps interest up through all the requisite history and talking heads before the mind-blowing climax. Director James Marsh wisely employs an interweaving, dual narrative structure. One narrative focuses on the immediate buildup to Petit’s extraordinary accomplishment, including sneaking into the towers, smuggling gear up to the roof, dodging security guards, painstakingly affixing hundreds of pounds of cable to the twin roofs and, finally, the spectacular display itself. The film’s second narrative looks at the six years of planning that was required to pull off the seemingly impossible feat, and the people who were behind it.
While the first narrative obviously contains the more griping scenes, it’s in the second where Man on Wire really excels. Through interviews with Petit and several of his cohorts, Marsh hammers home the immensity of what was being proposed and the singular vision and determination that was required to accomplish it.
Marsh also takes time away from the intensive planning to focus on the individuals involved, providing much-needed anchors to the fantastical reality in which they live. These moments make Petit’s walk across the wire even more fulfilling when it finally comes, as audiences are privy to just how all-consuming his need was to dance between the twin behemoths. Marsh masterfully illustrates that Petit’s walk wasn’t just an attempt to shatter the notion of the impossible, or even a grand artistic display, but the culmination of a lifelong character arc for the larger-than-life Frenchman.
These inclusions add to the immense power of the scenes within the film’s last half-hour, elevating Man on Wire from a documentary that gets by on its subject matter, to a straight-up marvelous experience. It bears repeating — this is a movie that simply has to be seen.
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