Man on Wire was awarded a 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. This is so well-deserved. The film is one of my all time favourite documentaries, and provides a remarkable record of Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers.
Using archive footage, and filmed in the style of a heist, it shows what happens when one man had a beautiful but seemingly impossible dream, and then made that dream a reality against all of the odds.
I recently had the pleasure of seeing Philippe Petit talk about his life in person, and found him wonderfully charismatic and captivating. See it.
Trailer after the break.
I rented this one out yesterday after seeing it won the Oscar. I was wondering where his income was coming from, how he got the money to go back and forward to the US. It was really interesting though.
Let’s hope it now gets another run on a few big cinema screens. Looked for it when it was first released and no cinema near me was showing it.
Yeah i had the same issue Katherine, but i will be sure to rent this out soon.
Fantastic film – gripping and strangely moving.
Richard’s right – you should see it.
The photographer who helped Petit in the planning stages of the WTC walk has set up a web site for the photographs that appeared in the film MAN ON WIRE.
http://moorepics.com
Great stuff..Go look at it!
Have now seen it. Borrowed the DVD from the local library. Just amazing, the sheer enormity of what Petit did. Very moving. A life changing event for all concerned. Will be thinking about it for quite some time to come.