Man On Wire

Man on Wire

       Man on Wire was a joy to watch. This was a terrific film that captured the essence of Philippe Petit’s extraordinary journey to The Big Apple to achieve the unthinkable. Man on Wire was produced by Simon Chinn and directed by James Marsh. This film was released on July 25th, 2008 and received the Academy Award for Best Documentary feature.

        This film showed firsthand what it was like for Philippe and his lifestyle of walking across a wire that was suspended 1000 plus feet in the air. Philippe’s wanted to go further and push his limits to the test.

        In this film in the beginning it shows us Philippe at the top of El Arc de Triomphe [Was it the arc or the Notre Dame? 69 meters = how many feet?], which is 162 feet in the air and him happily walking across his wire as if it were a normal sight for the people of Paris to see. Philippe later in the film says how he wants to accomplish the unthinkable of suspending a wire across the Twin Towers in the heart of New York City. One might think that this may not be as insane as we think, but the original Twin Towers were standing at approximately 1,370 ft tall [about one quarter of a mile in the sky].

        During Philippe’s journey, we see the effort and the amazing support from his team that he had behind him in order to make this vision a reality. This was a very difficult task for Philippe to accomplish, he confronted many heaps of conflict [this is a little awkward; can you provide examples of the conflicts that he faced?] along the way and up until the moment he was up 1,300 ft in the air. He was sneaking around, pretending to be someone he wasn’t to get through security and finally arrested by the police after completing his act [okay, what was his reaction to being arrested in Sydney, Australia?].

        I think that this film taught others and myself that if there’s something that you believe in and something that makes you happy or you want to achieve something that others say you shouldn’t do… Go for it! Life is short, and you can go out and live your dream. Live life on the edge like Philippe Petit did.