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Truly Dreadful Film

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The guy who accomplished this, is not only insane but he's also a great storyteller. The way he describes the tiny details of what was going through his head during this whole thing is very enjoyable. This documentary is about the guy who illegally walked on a tightrope between the two world trade center buildings.

James Marsh's Man On Wire is a marvelous cinematographic moment. Philippe Petit's very first vertiginous step on a steel cable anchored at a height of 1,368 ft (417 m)) transcends the laws of man's commonly acknowledged senses and defies how every one of us experiences existence. It's all about human immensity - It reminds me the first powered flight of the Wright brothers in 1903, but first and foremost it calls to mind Lumière brothers' first public screening of their short films in 1895, hand cranked through a projector. It's the extraordinary talent, the creative touch of filmmaker James Marsh in the making of Man On Wire that breathes new life into Petit's sublime walk in the sky. Despite having recourse to still pictures - a step becomes a walk, a walk becomes a dance, a dance becomes life of on a tightrope. Fine-grained clays, of which this motion-picture is made of, are the restored archival color footage and newsreel material, the captivating black and white photographs, the bright and sighted scenes reenactment, the lively present-day interviews and the perceptive use of music. - "It was a misty day, there was a little bit of air that morning." - "I had to make a decision... of shifting my weight from one foot anchored to the building to the foot anchored on the wire." - "Look a wire-walker! He's walking!" - "Something that I could not resist... called me upon that cable." - "It was so... so beautiful". Once more - It is James Marsh's commitment and profound emotional engagement to moviemaking that makes it possible. It is James Marsh's skill that arranges the polyphonic montage of visuals and voices, and directs their interactions. 7th August 1974, Twin Towers, New York City. Philippe Petit was 24 when he completed Le Coup. Philippe Petit is still with us today - "There is no why."

MAN ON WIRE is an engaging documentary telling the true story of Philippe Petit's attempts to cross the gap between the Twin Towers on a tightrope back in the 1970s. As other commentators have mentioned, it's a sometimes gripping story that plays out like a heist film, with lots of careful planning and preparation leading up to the 'big job'. The biggest disappointment is that nobody thought to film the walk for posterity, although photos do exist and are included.The documentary consists of voice over narration, plenty of interview footage with the still-surviving members of Petit's gruop, and reenactments of the events leading up to the stunt. I'm not really a huge fan of reenactments in documentaries - I'm capable of picturing stuff for myself in my mind's eye so I find them a bit pandering - but they're done quite classily here. It's a slight story, truth be told, but the documentary retelling is done professionally which makes it engaging.

The movie sure did a great job in coming up with a screen time duration of more than one and a half hours out of this story, which is not really supported with adequate footage. The approach sets the movie way back by telling the background of Phillipe Petit. The thing is, it's strange that the movie consists heavily of interviews and with less dramatization or narration. It makes the movie didn't feel like a movie, but instead more like an expose. Another weird thing to see is that not all the people interviewed has the story-telling instinct as good as Petit himself. His expressiveness brings the whole thing to life, even without enough footage of the feats he's done.