The Walk is based on the true story of Philippe Petit, the Parisian street performer (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who, in August of 1974, famously pirouetted his way on a high-wire across lower Manhattan’s Twin Towers and lived to tell the tale.
Advertisement
Even Mick LaSalle, the San Francisco Chronicle film critic, had trouble watching some scenes: “During the movie, I was squirming and wincing, and a few times even had to close my eyes, just to find some relief”. But in the end, my senses of profound terror, anxiety, and euphoria at Zemeckis’ cinematic feat proved worth the discomfort.
The dementedly winsome Audrey Tautou isn’t around, thank the gods. Following the critically acclaimed documentary “Man on Wire” and adapted from the book authored by Petit himself, “To Reach the Clouds”, comes a narrative biography film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ben Kingsley.
In fact, Gordon-Levitt himself had actually quit acting and went to Columbia University to study French Literature. Yes, Philippe has a dream, and he’s willing to do anything to make it happen. I’m pretty sure that tarring and feathering is no longer a form of governmentally sanctioned punishment. “I think of it like Robin Hood or Mark Twain”. He planned it like a crime, and though his walk was interrupted by the arrival of the NYPD, who promptly arrested him once he’d finally agreed to get down off the rope, Petit was treated with indulgence by the courts, who must have reckoned he deserved it. And afterwards he would stay on in New York, and become a kind of adopted local hero. You’ll be too busy sweating through your shirt to wonder about Petit’s psychological struggle. The Walk, directed by the studio legend Robert Zemeckis, accomplishes that, and without Iron Man or the Hulk.
French high-wire walker Philippe Petit was the legendary man who did the walk between the two rooftops of the World Trade Center in 1974. This is hardly Zemeckis & Company’s fault. “So it was a rare treat to get to be in a movie that has such incredible, spectacular visuals, but also has at its core a really intriguing and nuanced human drama”. That said it would have been more interesting had the side characters not been relegated to mere placeholders in Petit’s grand plan. His, how you say, magnetism doesn’t really translate? There are smartly staged near-misses involving security guards and a missing arrow and an unexplained visitor atop one of the towers – a two-minute, wordless sequence that is perhaps Zemeckis’ most haunting one, suggesting that Petit’s presence may have, at least for the moment, staved off a potential suicide. Petit’s planning was meticulous, and it had to be, because a careless calculation might have cost him his life.
If you’ve seen the Oscar-winning documentary Man On Wire, you’ll know Petit survived his ridiculous stunt. “The film, a PG-rated, all-audience entertainment for moviegoers 8 to 80, unlike anything audiences have seen before, is a love letter to Paris and New York City in the 1970s, but most of all, to the Towers of the World Trade Center”. The minute I felt the cable was safe enough, then I started enjoying myself. It may be the best final quarter after an underwhelming first three-quarters in the entirety of my movie-going history.
JGL: Everyone in the production was saying, “Don’t worry if you can’t walk on the wire, you know it’s all gonna be movie magic anyway”.
This is the first film since Gravity that I’d recommend seeing in 3D or not at all. A defiant Philippe Petit declared, “This is life!”
Advertisement
Robert Zemeckis: When I had my deal over at Disney and [with] Dick Cook, who was the co-head of production there, there was a mandate at the time that they were very enthusiastic about 3-D. And then, when I got in the real deep discussions with Philippe about it, I was amazed by the performance that he did.
