The visual unreality continues when Petit is up on the wire learning his craft, but Zemeckis keeps a steady, smart, and gently humane focus on the people in his story; once the plot moves to New York, the effects begin to improve dramatically.
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Mr. Zemeckis, the director behind technological marvels like “Flight” and “Back to the Future“, has magically recreated the towers and dares you to look down from some 100 stores above the ground.
“That couldn’t be done in the documentary because there’s no moving picture of the walk ever recorded”, he said. The Walk easily could have been all about the walk itself, but because Zemeckis and co-writer Christopher Browne take the time to show how Philippe’s behavior affects the people around him, the movie functions as a strong character journey as well.
The emotional payoff, when it comes, isn’t out on the New York rooftops, but back in France: a single, subtle gesture from Kingsley that sums up the miracle at hand. During the final scene on the wire, Petit as portrayed by Gordon-Levitt, kneels on the wire and murmurs, “I salute first the wire, then the Towers, and then I salute the great city of New York”. As for Le Bon, she’s certainly got chemistry with Gordon-Levitt and manages to sell Annie as a real person rather than just Philippe’s girlfriend. He’s a master at it. One of the things you notice first is, as sensitive as he is with camera work, as visually motivated as he is, he always prioritizes performance, and maintaining a sincerity from the characters.
During the press conference the actors and director were perched on a little bridge that was suspended some distance from the floor. And with the screen filling my peripheral vision and the depth of the image pulling me in, I realized I was having the kind of exhilarating experience that can only be had at the movies.
Q: “Man on Wire”, the 2008 documentary about Petit’s walk, won an Oscar.
The 3D version of the movie “The Walk” directed by Robert Zemeckis will be premiered at the Rome Film Fest ahead of its Italian premiere. I thought it was odd that much of marketing for the film in the last few weeks has been aimed at calling it a “family film”, but I can see that. “But I think it’s also important that we remember handsome things that happened during their existence as well”.
Channing Tatum once broke into Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s home. “And my answer is yes”, said the actor. I loved “3rd Rock from the Sun” for many causes, but one of these reasons was that it did sort of afforded me the cushion to not have to take jobs just for cash, and just do what I wanted to do primarily based on what seriously inspired me. The helmer usually goes uncredited for writing and approaching mainstream moviemaking in a method largely untraditional by Hollywood standards (perhaps because numerous movies themselves are ultimately fairly traditional). “It’s not about the tragedy of the towers”. He saw them. He fell in love with them. “The only factual difference is he crossed eight times and in the movie he crosses six times”.
Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in “The Walk“. But these unconventional characteristics, while admirable, are often hampered by the rest of the scripting: “The Walk” is broadly written with two clunky first acts that are saved, arguably superseded entirely, by its nerve-wracking, majestic and spectacular finish.
“The Walk” is a new 3-D thriller capturing Phillip Petit’s 1974 death-defying tight rope walk between the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center.
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This is irresistible movie material: the lead-up to the wire-walk has all the elements of a heist, with Petit (here played by an elfin Joseph Gordon-Levitt with a thick French accent) as the fearless or at least highly determined leader of a loosely assembled group.
