 Man on a Wire: Commentary
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.
LEFT ME AMAZED!
I have never seen anyone with this much passion about something in my life! It was also amazing to see the twin towers being built, and the real footage is incredible!! I absolutely LOVED this documentary!
 "Man, that guy is nuts..."
Man on Wire (James Marsh, 2008)
I've been reading commentary about Man on Wire in the weeks since I watched it, and what most surprises me is the number of people who don't get it. It seems obvious to me, because it's a very basic thing; unlike most documentaries, which make no apology for being documentaries, Man on Wire is structured like a suspense film. It's a documentary that doesn't play like a documentary, and there seems to be no recognition of this among those who don't get it. (Of course, that may mean Marsh did his job all too well; the people who don't get it may have actually thought they were watching a suspense film, in which case, it is awfully slow.) If they do get it, and still don't like the movie, well, more power to them. I can understand that. It just depresses me when something so different is treated like something that's the same.
Man on Wire is the story of French tightrope walker Phillipe Petit's greatest achievement: tightrope walking between the still-under-construction Twin Towers in the early 1970s. For some reason, I always assumed that this had been sanctioned, so I was fascinated by the planning it took to do all this (a good chunk of the middle third of the movie reminded me of a number of bank heist films I've seen over the years). Necessarily, a lot of the description of how the thing was pulled off required a lot of re-enactment, and I've read where that turned some people off. But really, did you want even more head shots of people sitting around and talking? We already got a lot of those. Besides, there's a studied (and, I'm sure, conscious) cheesiness to the re-enactment scenes that put me in mind of Spike Jonze's video for the Beastie Boys song "Sabotage", and that can never be a bad thing. Fake mustaches!
No, it isn't an actual suspense film. It's still a movie that's going to go at the speed of documentary (and I mean actual documentary here, rather than the recent flood of "agitprop masquerading as documentary", viz. Michael Moore or The Company or other such silliness). And yet it doesn't feel quite right to call it "documentary" in the same vein as something like Winged Migration or Hoop Dreams. If Hitchcock had made a documentary, it might look like this, and that is about the highest praise I can think of to heap on this movie's back. ****
Unbelievable!
It doesn't matter that this documentary isn't "new". What matters is the event. Philippe Petit did what no person has ever done, or will ever do again. His accomplishment is so unbelievable it borders on the spiritual. He is an incredible man, a true spirit, impervious to the crippling code of "it can't be done". He is truly a hero in today's world of false bravado. I only wish I had been one of the gaping crowd in the street below witnessing Petit's unparalleled feat.
Amazing history and biography
I was mesmerized by this documentary. I bought the copy for my father and we had a great family discussion about it. Having grown up in the NY/NJ area, I remember when Petit performed this. Learning about the history of this amazing and incredible feat was icing on the cake.
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