The 2008 documentary Man On Wire, showed us what it's like to live life on the edge, literally. Philippe Petit had a dream to walk across the space between the twin towers on a tightrope. We see in this documentary Philippe's passion for tightrope walking. In his backstory we hear that he always liked to climb things. As a child he taught himself to walk on a tightrope. It was a source of joy for him and he thoroughly enjoyed it.
Man On Wire also allows us to see Philippe's ambitions rise. He started out by tightrope walking across two bell towers of Notre Dame. After that experience, he just wanted more. Philippe went on to tightrope across the Sydney Harbor Bridge. But not only did he walk, he did various acrobatic stunts that shocked me as a viewer. Although I think of it as one of the most dangerous hobbies you can have, Philippe enjoyed it and you could tell that by the way he spoke excitedly about his feats.
Through this documentary we got to see how driven Philippe was to do this. He gathered a team to help him with his plans. With this group of friends, he was able to plan how he'd accomplish this goal. Together they helped him practice, using a tightrope in an open field and jumping on it to simulate the wind. They also brainstormed ways to get the rope from one building to another, finally ending up with the idea to use a bow and arrow to shoot it across the gap. Finally, they helped him break into the Twin Towers to set everything up. They risked being caught and arrested multiple times. In my opinion, this group was a group of true friends. Philippe was so driven that he wouldn't have given up his dream. His friends, knowing this, chose to help him so he could do this as safely as possible.
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