Man on Wire (2008)
Average Rating: 8.4/10
Reviews Counted: 151
Fresh: 151 | Rotten: 0
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.
Average Rating: 8.5/10
Critic Reviews: 39
Fresh: 39 | Rotten: 0
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.
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Movie Info
On August 7, 1974, a 24-year-old French high-wire artist named Philippe Petit committed one of the most astonishing performance stunts of the late 20th century: he strung a thin cable in between the two towers of the World Trade Center and not only walked across, from one building to another, but did a nerve-wracking series of knee-bends and acrobatic movements on the cable, some 1,350 feet above the ground, before turning himself in. This occurred to the consternation and chagrin of Port
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Man on Wire Trailer & Photos
All Critics (154) | Top Critics (39) | Fresh (154) | Rotten (0) | DVD (6)
It all makes for an absorbing, mischievously amusing yarn, whose climax unfolds with unexpected emotional force.
Top CriticIn this exhilarating, palm-moistening documentary by British filmmaker James Marsh (Wisconsin Death Trip), the twin towers are back to celebrate one of their finest moments.
By any rational gauge, Petit's WTC obsession was flat-out crazy, but Marsh takes a limpid, nonjudgmental view of it all.
Though we know how it ends, it unfolds with suspense. And though it lacks any discussion of the towers' destruction, it succeeds as a tribute to their birth.
James Marsh tells Petit's story, the most inspiring 'heist' in modern history, a Frenchman's stroll between two 110 story buildings in lower Manhattan.
In archival photos Petit seems to float between the towers, a tiny black figure against a vivid blue sky; the images are all the more poignant for the unstated fact that Petit is still around when the buildings aren't.
The pains of the public eye are acknowledged just as much as the joy this artistic endeavour brought people.
Despite a known outcome, James Marsh's documentary offers sublime thrills - grafting the tense suspense of a heist film onto an existential dissection of artistic accomplishment and true friendship.
The tension builds incrementally, reaching almost unbearable heights at its dizzying climax.
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Interviewed today, Petit is a whale of a storyteller, and he recalls with relish the chilling details of that amazing day.
Man On Wire's cinematic tension that in the wire Philippe Petit balanced on as he walked between the Twin Towers in the history-making high wire stunt shown in this compelling documentary. The film's also a poignant memorial to the hallowed Twin To
Not only a fun heist movie but also a moving tale of spiritual uplift and beauty.
The details of how the event was planned and staged are fascinating, but a crucial element missing from the film is good cinematography of the actual event.
A feat like the one Philippe Petit pulled off deserves to be documented.
I would have found it easier to get emotionally invested in Le Coup (rather than abstractly awed) if I had a better sense of his coup de foudre.
Petit transforms his stories into mini-masterpieces of performance.
An exhilarating experience not to be missed, either its enlightening peek inside the elite mind of an extraordinary individual or its ethereal tribute to the Twin Towers.
Man on Wire is absolutely breathtaking, a documentary as life-affirming as it is artistically intoxicating.
Audience Reviews for Man on Wire
Super Reviewer
Made in 2008, Man on Wire elides all discussion of 9/11, and even though this was probably better for the film -- after all, what can they really say of any importance? -- watching Philippe Petit and his cohorts break into the WTC with enough equipment to set up their wire made me think that I was watching what could have been a terrorist attack instead of a crazy, effervescent Frenchman with a God complex. The film might have made me uncomfortable, but I think it's better to say that I was uncomfortable watching it.
Petit is nuts. But from a distance, he's fun to watch. I think my favorite moment was when, describing how he was looking for a small fishing wire in the dark, Petit said -- as though this is the most reasonable thing to do, right out of the "How to Find Fishing Wire in the Dark" manual, -- "I stripped naked so that with all my body I could feel for the wire." Who thinks that? Next time I lose my keys in my office, I'll give it a try.
Other critics have called the film's climax "exhilarating" and said that the film's result takes on an adventure-movie level of suspense, and though I didn't feel this, I did find the film as a whole to be entertaining and fun but not with much sophistication. The "follow your dreams" mantra that provides the film's moral center feels contrived, like something out of a Cracker Jack box.
Overall, I liked Man on Wire, and now that there are movie-goers too young to fully remember 9/11, this documentary may serve as a tribute to buildings' existence rather than a reminder of their destruction.
Super Reviewer
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Foreign Titles
- Le Funambule (FR)
