James Marsh "Man On Wire"

On July 25, 2008, Director James Marsh made a movie about the amazing adventure of a daredevil name Philippe Petit as he take a walk of faith across the World Trade Center towers in New York City. Philippe Petit is a French wire walker, juggler and street performer. On the day of his walk, Philippe Petit crossed eight times on a tight-wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center on Aug. 7, 1974. Another reason is that the documentary, a hybrid of actual and restaged footage, is constructed like a first-rate thriller. Early in the film, we see what we think is sadly familiar footage: Construction workers and huge trucks and cranes, at work in the footprint of one of the WTC towers. The film shows the towers growing, huge steel beams being lifted, the puzzle being put together.

"Man on Wire" is about the vanquishing of the towers by bravery. James Marsh has access to all of Petit's film, video and photographs of the assault on the towers. But there is more than that. Ingeniously using actors and restaging events, Marsh fleshes out the story with scenes that could never have been filmed, such as the episode when Petit and a partner crouched motionless under tarps on a beam near the top floor as a security guard nosed around. Petit has gathered a motley crew, including a pot-addled musician and an executive who actually works in an office in one tower. He trains these amateurs on how to rig a high wire. Properly, he hopes.

The installation of a wire between the two towers was as complicated as a bank heist. He and his friends scouted the terrain, obtained false ID cards, talked their way into a freight elevator reaching to the top above the level of the finished floors. Incredibly, they had to haul nearly a ton of equipment up there. You may have heard how they got the wire across, and how they guy-wired it, but if you don't know, I won't tell you. Their plan worked. And on the morning of that Aug. 7, Petit took the first crucial step that shifted his weight from the building to the wire, and stood above a drop of 1,350 feet. Many people know he crossed successfully. I had no idea he went back and forth eight times, the police waiting on both sides. His friends shed tears as they remember it happening. It was dangerous, foolhardy, glorious. His assistants feared they could be arrested for trespassing, manslaughter or assisting a suicide. Philippe Petit was arrested and eventually found guilty. The charge: Disturbing the peace.