Man on Wire
The documentary is a look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City's World Trade Center's twin towers on August 7, 1974. He danced on this wire for an hour with no safety net before he was arrested for what has become to be known as the 'artistic crime of the century.'
12 February 1922, North Bergen, New Jersey, USA
19 November 1966, Stamford, Connecticut, USA
13 August 1949, Nemours, Seine-et-Marne, France
September 30, 2015
...cheekily irreverent
November 10, 2008
In this exhilarating, palm-moistening documentary by British filmmaker James Marsh (Wisconsin Death Trip), the twin towers are back to celebrate one of their finest moments.
October 18, 2008
By any rational gauge, Petit's WTC obsession was flat-out crazy, but Marsh takes a limpid, nonjudgmental view of it all.
April 08, 2011
The pains of the public eye are acknowledged just as much as the joy this artistic endeavour brought people.
November 03, 2015
Exhilarating docu about high-wire feat has some edgy scenes.
May 07, 2009
It all makes for an absorbing, mischievously amusing yarn, whose climax unfolds with unexpected emotional force.
October 18, 2008
The erasure of the towers adds poignance and irony to a documented event that is inherently thrilling and beautiful.
October 01, 2015
...captures the mysterious beauty of Petit's obsession, without ever being so gauche as to 'explain' it.
October 18, 2008
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.
September 19, 2010
Despite a known outcome, James Marsh's documentary offers sublime thrills - grafting the tense suspense of a heist film onto an existential dissection of artistic accomplishment and true friendship.
October 18, 2008
Though we know how it ends, it unfolds with suspense. And though it lacks any discussion of the towers' destruction, it succeeds as a tribute to their birth.
