When I was 10 years old, in 1973, I experienced the heart-stopping fear of vertigo during a visit to the observation deck of the Empire State Building in New York City. That terror of heights stopped only when I cured myself 12 years later by skydiving from the first plane I ever flew in.
It is nothing compared to tonight’s double feature, the Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire (2008), which chronicles the death-defying tightrope stunt of Philippe Petit, and The Walk (2015), a fictionalized account of the same event. And what was this event, you ask?
Petit and several accomplices in 1974 rigged a cable between the Twin Towers in NYC under cover of darkness and at dawn he crossed that thin umbilical on foot multiple times some 200 feet between the skyscrapers, back and forth, at a height of nearly 1,800 feet over lower Manhattan, stooping on one knee to salute the cheering crowd far below and laying on his back along the cable minutes later, without benefit of safety equipment. He pranced on the wire for about 45 minutes before high winds and a police helicopter threatened to knock him off his precarious perch. So he returned to the north tower.
The police handcuffed the aerialist and read him his Miranda rights. Petit was taken to a hospital for psychiatric examination, then booked for disorderly conduct and criminal trespassing. Under details of the complaint, the arresting officer wrote only “Man on Wire.” The same afternoon, Aug. 7, 1974, Manhattan’s district attorney dropped all charges in return for Petit’s agreement to give a free aerial performance in Central Park, this time only a few feet off the ground. He did.
The Twin Towers are long gone. Inspiration, though, is forever.
I share this not so much in enduring astonishment at Petit’s titanium balls and divine madness in pursuit of an artistic vision, but because life is beautiful, great art should be breathtaking and fear is only a state of mind to be conquered.
Cinema Uprising copyright © 2019 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.
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