Man on Wire is a 2008 documentary film directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It is based on Petit's 2002 book, To Reach the Clouds, released in paperback with the title Man on Wire. The title of the film is taken from the police report that led to the arrest (and later release) of Petit, whose performance lasted for almost an hour. The film is crafted like a heist film, presenting rare footage of the preparations for the event and still photographs of the walk, alongside re-enactments (with Paul McGill as the young Petit) and present-day interviews with the participants, including Barry Greenhouse, an insurance executive who served as the inside man.[4]
The film's producer, Simon Chinn, first encountered Philippe Petit in April 2005 on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, after which he decided to try to acquire the film rights to Petit's book, To Reach the Clouds. After months of discussion, Petit agreed, with the condition that he could actively collaborate in the making of the film.
In an interview conducted during the run of Man on Wire at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, director James Marsh explained that he was drawn to the story, in part, because it immediately struck him as "a heist movie", though, as Jean François, one of Petit's collaborators, said, "It may have been illegal...but it wasn't wicked or mean."[7] Marsh also said that, as a New Yorker, he saw the film as a gift to the city after the 9/11 attacks and hoped to hear people say after seeing the film that they would always think of Petit and his performance when recalling the World Trade Center's twin towers.[8] Responding to a question about why the towers' destruction in the 2001 attacks is not mentioned in the film, Marsh explained that Petit's act was "incredibly beautiful" and it "would be unfair and wrong to infect his story with any mention, discussion or imagery of the Towers being destroyed."[9]
Release
Box office
The film opened theatrically in the United States on August 29, 2008, earning $51,392 its first weekend and ranking 37th at the domestic box office.[10] By the end of its run on March 5, 2009, the film grossed $2,962,242 in the United States and Canada and $2,296,327 internationally, for a worldwide total of $5,258,569.[3]
Critical response
Petit at the 81st Academy Awards
On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, Man on Wire has a 100% approval rating based on reviews from 159 critics, with a weighted average score of 8.40/10; the website's critical consensus states: "James Marsh's doc about artist Phililppe Petit's artful caper brings you every ounce of suspense that can be wrung from a man on a (suspended) wire".[11] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 89 out of 100 based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[12]
The film appeared on many American critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008.[18]Movie City News found that it appeared on 76 of the 286 different American critics' top ten lists surveyed, which was a tie for the seventh "most mentions" on a top ten list out of all of the films released in 2008.[19]
