Man on Wire
by James Marsh
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DVD details
Actor: Philippe PetitDirector: James Marsh
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 94 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-12-09
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Magnolia Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Man on Wire
DVD Review: Man on a Wire
Summary: 4 Stars
Excellent, daring, insanity driven person. I compare him to the man
who lived amongst the Grizzly Bears, who ultimately killed him. Man on
a Wire had me on the edge of my seat with his daring feats. Amazing, but
absolutely insane. Loved his charismatic personality that drew others
into his dream to tightrope across the Twin Towers in N.Y. They loved
him even after his fame caused him to abandon them in the end.
DVD Review: To Each His Own
Summary: 3 Stars
We all have our passions and, for some of us, Philip Petit's passion will be difficult
to understand. Since he was a boy, he has had the urge to climb and to push the
limits of society. We are given to understand that these two desires go hand in
hand, at least for this film's hero.
He has walked the wire (a tightrope) between the towers of Notre Dame, he has
rode unicycles in a park, he juggles and does magic tricks. However, since he
was 17 he has had a desire to walk a tightrope between the two towers of the
World Trade Center. This was a premonition of his and a passion he had before
the towers were even built. He tells the story like this:
He was waiting in an dentist's office when he was 17 years old.
He picked up a magazine that had a story about a huge skyscraper
that was about to be built. He knew that he had to climb this sky-
scraper and tightrope between its two towers. He ripped the article
out of the magazine and ran out of the dentist's office despite
having a bad tooth. Many years later he read another article
about the World Trade Center being built and knew this was
the building of his dreams and that he was destined to tightrope
between its two towers.
How poignant this is supposed to be since Mr. Petit had this vision way before
the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. However, it seemed rather
banal and silly to me. All the illegal activities, machinations, and tomfoolery
that went into this dream. According to Mr. Petit's wife, he wanted to accom-
plish this act because it was 'beautiful' and 'like a bank robbery'. Somehow
both of these outcomes are lost on me. I find a tightrope walker frightening.
My heart beats fast and I fear that they will fall. I do not find it beautiful and
I can't conceive of it being like a bank robbery.
Oh well! For some, I suppose this documentary will be like an epiphany. For
me, I tried hard to understand the meaningfulness in all of it. Other than a
sad yearning for life before the tragedy of 9/11, I could not find much mean-
ing in all of the shenanigans.
DVD Review: Interesting documentary about daredevil act
Summary: 3 Stars
This documentary recounts how French high wire walker Philippe Petit and a small band of accomplices managed to string a cable across the roofs of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974 so he could walk, dance, kneel, run and lie down in mid-air for an unforgettable 45 minutes.
The movie never mentions the 2001 attack that destroyed the towers but that is always in your mind and gives the movie some additional poignancy.
We meet Petit, who is articulate and almost laughably French. He had already walked on a wire between the two spires of Notre Dame in Paris and on a bridge in Sydney. He was apparently obsessed by the idea of walking between the twin towers from the moment construction on them began.
Why is the event interesting enough to deserve to be remembered? Like all theater, it was fleeting and transitory, yet it created an image of beauty that those who witnessed it never forgot.
From the grim aftermath, we know that the towers themselves were transitory. Like twin Towers of Babel, they aspired to touch the sky and yet they were so easily destroyed by those evil men.
And I guess it teaches us that everything we create and build and achieve, no matter how grandiose and significant it may seem, is transitory in this world of ours.
According to the movie, the event changed Petit in some fundamental way. For a short time, he became a star. He broke up with his girlfriend and his relationships with his loyal helpers also ruptured. I wish the movie had delved more into the aftermath. One extra included on the Dvd is an animated version of the story intended for children. It's almost more moving and resonant that the movie itself.
In the end we're left with the unforgettable image of a man walking, so it appears, on thin air, suspended in space a quarter of a mile in the sky.
DVD Review: Magnifique!
Summary: 5 Stars
This outstanding documentary plays like a top-notch work of fiction. It's exciting, of course, but it's also hilarious at times -- with a cast of compelling, oddball characters right out of a Monty Python skit. Highly (pun intended) recommended! DVD Review: you cant "4-star" a feat like this...
Summary: 5 Stars
Great part about this film there is authentic home film of the wire walker and crew in the 70's training and playing, really added to the experience, nice treat. The film itself is about the only man to tight rope walk (or dance as a witnessing police man said in a live interview after the act). What Philip Petit did was a awe and life aspiring feat. This should be watched by basically everyone...what made this film extra special for me is that I watched (by happenstance) maybe 2 days after seeing another documentary concerning the world trade towers. It was called "falling man", which was about the attempts of a journalist trying to uncover the identity of a man who was one of the many who choose to leap to their death than be consumed by flames following the jet attacks on the towers (the unidentified falling man was put on the front page to the shock of many viewers, that picture only ran once, remember?)...the movie is actually about more than that but that is beyond the scope of this review.
After watching "Man on Wire" was a life affirming movie. We should all live so passionately....what else are we to do with this small amount of time given on this earth?
Description of Man on Wire
On August 7th 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire and illegally rigged between the New York's twin towers. After nearly an hour dancing on the wire, he was arrested, taken for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail before he was finally released. This documentary complies Petit s footage to show the numerous extraordinary challenges he faced in completing the artistic crime of the century.Native New Yorkers know to expect the unexpected, but who among them could've predicted that a man would stroll between the towers of the World Trade Center? French high-wire walker Philippe Petit did just that on August 7th, 1974. Petit's success may come as a foregone conclusion, but British filmmaker James Marsh's pulse-pounding documentary still plays more like a thriller than a non-fiction entry--in fact, it puts most thrillers to shame. Marsh (Wisconsin Death Trip, The King) starts by looking at Petit's previous stunts. First, he took on Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral, then Sydney's Harbour Bridge before honing in on the not-yet-completed WTC. The planning took years, and the prescient Petit filmed his meetings with accomplices in France and America. Marsh smoothly integrates this material with stylized re-enactments and new interviews in which participants emerge from the shadows as if to reveal deep, dark secrets which, in a way, they do, since Petit's plan was illegal, "but not wicked or mean." The director documents every step they took to circumvent security, protocol, and physics as if re-creating a classic Jules Dassin or Jean-Pierre Melville caper. Though still photographs capture the feat rather than video, the resulting images will surely blow as many minds now as they did in the 1970s when splashed all over the media. Not only did Petit walk, he danced and even lay down on the cable strung between the skyscrapers. Based on his 2002 memoir, Man on Wire defines the adjective "awe-inspiring." --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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