On August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit and a small band of
associates rigged a tightrope cable between the twin towers of the
still-under-construction World Trade Center; then Petit spent 45 minutes
walking back and forth in mid-air, before the police threatened to pluck him
off with a helicopter. James Marsh's documentary Man On Wire offers a meticulously detailed look
back at the event, reconstructed via talking-head interviews, archival footage,
and somewhat corny re-enactments. Marsh adds a repetitive, dreamy Michael Nyman
score, giving Man On Wire a sort of Errol Morris-y aspect—though Marsh is more
direct and less interested in exploring tangents than Morris tends to be. The
movie starts with Petit talking about how he skirted security to get into the
World Trade Center in the first place, and then it works backward and forward
until the story is complete—right through the nerve-wracking,
awe-inspiring moment when Petit steps into the chasm and enchants the world.
The photographs and films of Philippe Petit's various
late-'60s/early-'70s tightrope stunts—which included traversing the
spires of Notre Dame and the pylons of the Sydney Harbor Bridge—are
suitably breathtaking, and the very idea of walking between the World Trade
Center buildings definitely stirs the imagination, and evokes nostalgia for the
days when crimes of trespassing and disorderly conduct were more benign. But
Marsh's film lacks a certain broader scope—or necessary contrast. Marsh
could've picked any number of counter-stories to put Petit's feat in context:
the building of the towers, the history of Houdini-like public stunts, the
relative letdown of Petit's post-WTC life, etc. Instead, Man On Wire mainly focuses on the logistics of
the stunt so intensely that the details of shooting a rope across the chasm and
hiding out from security guards eventually lose their sense of wonder, and
become as mundane as listening to an ex-jock describe how he once caught the
winning pass in the state championship. It's a story worth telling,
yes—but after 90 minutes, it's hard not to wonder if the storyteller can
talk about anything else.