Man on Wire and The Walk
I rewatched Man on Wire (currently streaming on Netflix) and then went
out to see The Walk in "Imax 3D".
Man on Wire (2008)
at IMDB
This is a charming and engaging documentary about the tightrope (er, wire)
walker Philippe Petit. A Frenchman with a passion for heights, he
pulls some stunts putting up wires in public places, eg, Notre Dame
and Sydney Harbor Bridge, then walking on them for a while before
getting arrested. But then he learns that the towers of the World
Trade Center have been finished, and what purpose could those have
been built for but to let Philippe run his cable and walk on top of
the world....
There is much about the planning of this undertaking (you need a lot
of heavy wire for the "rope", and how do get it across that chasm?)
with modern interviews with participants and recreated scenes. The
end is probbably not a surprize to anyone, so I'll let slip that the
title comes from the desciption of the crime in the police report.
Petit's worst luck was the date, which had more newsworthy events.
The Walk (2015)
at IMDB
Both concern Philippe Petit's ambitious goal to high-wire walk between
the towers of the World Trade Center, a plan that starts to form in his
mind before construction begins. Man on Wire is a documentary that
ends with the event. The Walk is a recreation that puts a lot less
emphasis on the preparation and a lot more on the actualization. Instead
of seeing how many times Philippe flies across the world, to practice on
the Sydney Harbor Bridge, or to study things at the site in Manhattan
and then practice in a carefully measured out space in a field in
France, that is largely compressed. Instead we watch them sneaking the
supplies into the building, hiding from the guards, attaching the
cables (main and stabilizers), and the Walk.
The camera follows Philippe out over the Void, looking down that vast
distance, too far to even register in the 3D projection, and follows him
as he walks back and forth, teasingly avoids the cops at either end, and
puts his show 1300' in the air.
I've read that some people have felt vertigo and nausea watching this,
but I did not feel anything approaching that. The projection was pretty
sharp for 3D, in close-ups of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's face, I could see
that he was wearing contacts, but the most I was jolted was an early
scene where a young Philippe has a rope snap on him. That incident
prompts him to seek lessons from a professional, Papa Rudy, who is not
in the documentary.
Apparently Philippe taught Gordon-Levitt to tight-rope walk for the
film. In the time he spends walking for the camera, Gordon-Levitt looks
a total natural. Clearly it was a casting / teaching job well done.
qz thoughts