James Marsh’s Oscar-winning 2008 documentary Man on Wire turned the story of Frenchman Philippe Petit’s high-wire walk between the towers of the World Trade Center in 1974 into a suspenseful heist movie, aided enormously by the presence of Petit himself and his exuberant recounting of the events.
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Yes, things get silly at times. Petit’s walk actually popularized the Towers, which at the time were seen as somewhat of a blocky eye sore.
Viewing Petit’s walk in 3D (or IMAX 3D) is a dazzling, visual treat, but most people going to see The Walk are only interested in the actual walk, not everything leading up to it. A feeling of “hurry up and get to the walk” occasionally pops up, making Man on Wire the safer bet for anyone looking to know the full story. Once everyone has stopped talking and The Walk’s technical wizards (along with Gordon-Levitt, who really did perform on a wire, though not 1,350 feet in the air) do their work, the film finds the grace it’s been seeking all along, and its self-serving narration finally feels necessary to the show, rather than thuddingly obvious.
The execution of the stunt makes for a fitting climax, but the film doesn’t appear to know what to make of the stunt-an introductory speech by Petit claims that he can not explain why he did it, only show us how-so the film that precedes that climax too often feels like filler. So why bother with all the gooey, slapdash stuff that comes before it?
The last 30 minutes or so are all about the walk. He’s resplendent in a goofy wig, jarring blue contact lenses, and a heroically silly French accent (a fluent French speaker, he sounds great when speaking the language, but far less so in English). Maybe there is a few historical accuracy in this part of the plan, and if so, that provides a cruel historical irony given the long shadow of 9/11 that the movie both milks and dodges, but the build up doesn’t add much to the drama. Always one to blaze the trail and not to follow it, Zemeckis’s most recent film, Flight, was more of a character study, although it arrived with a CG-heavy near-plane-crash sequence that was vintage Zemeckis. It was one of the more ideal and exhilarating moments I’ve ever gotten to play as an actor’.
Film critics and writers confirmed that people were getting ill in the aisles, and that it was all thanks to Zemeckis’ expert direction.
There’s an obvious motivation for this kind of pastiche: In personality and actions, Petit is hardly a subtle person, so why not rise to that? Even the film’s final shot, of the Twin Towers gleaming in the sun and then fading to black, falls just shy of being manipulative, managing to dwell in that liminal place between reverence and exploitation.
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The new film is directed by Robert Zemeckis who uses vast green screen technology to recreate the feat. Elated by what we’ve seen, longing for all we’ve lost. I disagree. I liked the whole movie, quite a bit.
