Man on Wire.

"On August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit went where no man had gone before, and where no one can ever go again," writes Nicolas Rapold, introducing his interview with Petit for the New York Sun. "Early that overcast morning, a quarter mile above the streets of New York, the French tightrope artiste crossed a high wire linking the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. When he crossed back over the wire, he lay down in the middle, then practically danced a jig as police waited at either end and crowds below gawked."

Updated through 7/27.

"It goes without saying - and, happily, Man on Wire doesn't say it - that all this happened in a more naïve time, that today the notion of foreigners with fake ID's slipping past security guards into the Twin Towers has a different meaning," writes David Edelstein in New York. "So does the prospect of falling from the sky. The most miraculous thing about Man on Wire is not the physical feat itself, 1,350 feet above the ground, but that as you watch it, the era gone, the World Trade Center gone, the movie feels as if it's in the present tense. That nutty existentialist acrobat pulled it off."

"The law caught up with him every time, but so did a flabbergasted public, who understood what he was doing may have been illegal but in no way wicked or mean - as one of Philippe's friends succinctly puts it," notes Ed Gonzalez in Slant. "And it is with the same awe of those who were lucky enough to have seen Philippe walking on what looked like a cloud that morning that director James Marsh, in an aesthetic mode best described as Errol Morris meets vintage Spike Jonze."

"The narrative is a wonderfully edited and engaging mix of loquacious French aesthetes rhapsodizing over the poetic beauty and daring of the act, more monosyllabic Americans justifying their participation, and hilariously wacky re-enactments," writes Benjamin Sutton in the L Magazine. "'The coup' (as the group called the event during planning) happens in a cheesy 70s crime-saga aesthetic, with hideous broad-collared shirts, massively ugly suits and simply massive sideburns. Scenes of Petit's early acrobatics development, meanwhile, are rendered in the wacky silent film style of Buster Keaton movies. The influence of Guy Maddin's period-popping style is in there somewhere."

Earlier: Catherine Wheatley in Sight & Sound and reviews from Sundance.

Update: Howard Feinstein talks with Marsh for indieWIRE.

Update, 7/22: "Like the events it's based on, Man on Wire is the kind of film that's more inspiring to witness than it is to later think (or write) about, but let it be said that Marsh's adeptness at mounting his tale is undeniable, and what the film lacks in any sort of subtextual richness it more than makes up in narrative functionality and the clarity with which it reconstructs Petit's mission impossible," writes Michael Koresky at indieWIRE.

Updates, 7/23: Anthony Kaufman talks with New Yorkers and some of the film's major players about that August day in 1974. Also in the Voice, Jim Ridley: "Still lithe and trim, with a strangely well-muscled delicacy, the middle-aged Petit animates Man on Wire with his impish presence.... Ultimately, Man on Wire memorializes a New York of almost lackadaisical looseness - a place where security breaches end in magically fanciful outcomes; where even Petit's awestruck arresting officer refers to him as a 'tightrope dancer, because you couldn't call him a walker'; where the Port Authority bestows upon this daredevil scofflaw not a ticket to Gitmo, but a lifetime pass to the World Trade Center's observation deck. Marsh shows the pass, and you may feel a catch in your throat when you see the word hand-written in the corner: 'permanent.'"

At the House Next Door, Godfrey Cheshire explains why he walked out after 45 minutes: "As far as I can recall, this is the first, nominally serious movie to come along with a soundtrack that has been plundered not just from other movies, but from movies once celebrated for their distinctive collaboration between composer and director."

Updates, 7/25: AO Scott in the New York Times: "Why did they do it? Rather than risking banality by addressing this question head-on, Mr Marsh allows the answer to be at once self-evident and profoundly mysterious. A work of art is its own explanation, and Man on Wire leaves no doubt that Mr Petit's coup deserves to be called art."

"Marsh's film rattles one's nerves simply via the regular sight of Petit suspended over immense chasms, appearing, from a distance, like he's literally floating in air," writes Nick Schager at Cinematical. "There's a supernatural beauty to these stark images... and they lend the proceedings an almost quasi-religious atmosphere, as if what we're watching is the story of a man attempting to do something divine."

"All the components of a riveting heist film are here," writes S James Snyder in the New York Sun. "There's a well-laid plan that runs afoul, conflicts among the criminals that blow up mid-heist, and unexpected complications that heighten the drama. The fact that it's all true only makes it more exciting - so exciting, in fact, that we almost forget the simple majesty of what Mr Petit set out do in the first place."

David Fear in Time Out New York: "Marsh has, in effect, created a real-life heist procedural (the black-and-white scenes of the ragtag bunch infiltrating the WTC might have been plucked from a Melville flick); one of the most compelling portraits of because-it's-there ideology ever captured on celluloid; and a ghost story."

"[T]his tale is as notable for its evocation of a prelapsarian New York as it is for Marsh's ability to sustain interest in a story with a known conclusion," writes Brian Sholis for Artforum.

"Marsh allows the high-wire man to yammer away and tell his own story: And, strangely enough, it works," finds Simon Abrams in New York Press.

"Marsh's film lacks a certain broader scope - or necessary contrast," argues Noel Murray at the AV Club.

David Jenkins talks with Marsh for Time Out.

Kevin Maher meets Petit for the London Times.

Update, 7/26: Andrew O'Hehir talks with Marsh and Petit for Salon; Damon Wise chats with Petit for the Guardian.

"One recurrent theme has to do with Europeans' perceptions of Americans - gentle bemusement mixed with a smidgen of distaste," notes Bryant Frazer. "Petit recalls that, after his arrest, news reporters bombarded him with the same query: why did you do it? For him, that's a particularly frustrating question because it betrays a failure of imagination, or perhaps just a misguided practicality."

Update, 7/27: Lauren Wissot talks with Marsh and Petit for the House Next Door.

Posted by dwhudson at July 21, 2008 12:35 PM