Man on Wire

On 7 August 1974 Philippe Petit – a French visionary, street artist, pickpocket, tightrope walker and, above all, an idealist prepared to die to fulfil his dream – managed to pull off the “artistic crime of the century”. “It would be wonderful to die whilst realising one’s passion,” says the French adventurer today, a man who illegally stepped out onto a steel wire suspended between New York’s twin towers, at the time the highest buildings in the world. Petit and his team of accomplices spent eight months planning the event. In a stunning re-enactment, director James Marsh pieces together the memories of everyone involved which reveal that, even though the feat was plotted down to the last detail, it would only have taken a slight hitch and there would’ve been no picture on the international front pages of Petit dancing on a wire between the twin towers, almost 500 metres above the ground. The superbly constructed film incorporating a thrilling dramatisation of this unique accomplishment, makes use of the many authentic shots and photographs which Petit and his colleagues took, and, at the appropriate moment, surrenders to the compelling music of Michael Nyman.