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Tarfumes.com - Man on Wire
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List Price: $26.98
Our Price: $18.99
Your Save: $ 7.99 ( 30% )
Availability: Not yet released
Manufacturer: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Starring: Philippe Petit
Directed By: James Marsh
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0876964001564
Format: Color
Label: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2008-12-09
Running Time: 94
Studio: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
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Editorial Reviews:
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On August 7th 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire and illegally rigged between the New York's twin towers. After nearly an hour dancing on the wire, he was arrested, taken for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail before he was finally released. This documentary complies Petit s footage to show the numerous extraordinary challenges he faced in completing the artistic crime of the century.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Batman On Wire
Comment: While police sirens whine far below, this man looks from a towering skyscraper down at Gotham as he prepares to step into the abyss. He knows that what he will do is not legal, but thinks that it will benefit others. Even more, he is drawn -- by his very nature -- to act.
If you think I'm writing about Batman in The Dark Knight, well, I'm not (at least not just yet). I'm writing about Man on Wire, a documentary about tight rope walker and proto performance artist Philippe Petit, who wire walked between the tops of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in August of 1974.
Director James Marsh uses a combination of vintage footage, contemporary interviews and dramatic recreations to tell the story of how Petit dreamed up his mad scheme, recruited his motley band of helpers and circumvented security to bring his dangerous plan to fruition. In some ways, the film works as a caper or heist film wherein in a team is gathered to steal the jewels or break out of prison.
There is no mystery about whether he will be successful. After all, Petit is interviewed in the present day (so we know he lives), and no one would make a film about someone who wasn't able to pull off an elaborate stunt over thirty years ago. The fun is watching how it was done. But it can be a bit unsettling to watch as blueprints for the World Trade Centers are laid out to plot a stunt, when we know that in the years after 1974 the blueprints for the buildings will be studied for much more malignant reasons.
But as a Christian, I find it odd to be put in a place of rooting for someone who's breaking the law. In Romans 13: 1 & 2 the apostle Paul wrote "1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."
Petit's comrades argue that since he has no ill intent, it doesn't matter if he breaks the law. In the film we are shown some of Petite's stunts prior to the WTC, tightrope walking between the towers of the Norte Dame Cathedral and the towers of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. After being arrested in Sydney, Petit swipes the watch of one of the policemen who arrests him.
I think when we're young we all have an impulse to break or at least bend the law. (I know as a kid and a teen, I might not have always strictly followed laws scrupulously concerning trespassing when with a friend off-roading or toilet papering houses or...the traffic laws or... how much of this do I want my kids to read?) And part of the fun of watching movies is seeing characters do what we would never do. But this is a real person committing a real crime that could have not only cost him his own life, but the lives of onlookers and the police called to bring him in.
And yet watching a man walk back and forth between those massive structures is captivating and at times quite beautiful. Can we become too obsessed with following legalities?
Jesus certainly was not always a stickler for the law. The Pharisaic law said that one should not do any work on the Sabbath, including healing. But we have this story about Jesus from Matthew 12 - "9Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?"
11He said to them, "If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." 13Then he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other."
But there is a difference. When Jesus broke the law, it was always clearly for the glory of God, the benefit of others and the furtherance of the Kingdom. It wasn't just on a lark or for self glorification.
So back to Batman. Yes, I did see some similarities between these films. One of the most fascinating things in The Dark Knight (directed by Chris Nolan) is Bruce Wayne (played by Christian Bale) wrestling with the outlaw nature of his work as a vigilante. He sees his work as necessary to protect the lives of others, but he would rather be able to live within the law. But he finds he can't.
In The Dark Knight, Wayne uses all the tools at his disposal to fight a war against crime and terrorism (as personified by the Mob and the Joker played by the late Heath Ledger). But he comes to realize there will be a cost to such a battle not just for himself, but for those who join him in the battle. And he agonizes over the potential costs in the lives of others. (Petit in Man on Wire rarely seems concerned by the costs paid by those who join him in his quest.)
These moral quandaries, never fully answered, are what make The Dark Knight a little more thoughtful that the average summer superhero epic. And it was odd to find that the fictional blockbuster was more serious on a moral level than the documentary from the BBC and Discovery Films.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beneath the Thrill, a Lot of Sadness
Comment: I was lured into seeing this film by my teenage son, who is a circus acrobat by genetic conviction as surely as Philippe Petit was a high-wire walker and as I am a musician. I would never have entered the theater if I'd known what I'd be seeing. I have a pathologically empathetic response to films. When I was a little kid, I used to shout out warnings to Tweetie Bird when the cat got near. During fight scenes, my whole body twitches and my wife gets nervous for the safety of the unsuspecting head in front of me. I'm a climber in real life. I've been to the summit of Annapurna. But my blood pressure rises and I tremble with acrophobia at Hollywood simulations of climbing. This film Man on Wire took two years off my life, I'm sure. It's that intense, with its coy intersplicing of still photos and super-eight footage of Petit in mid-air and lovely slow talking-head interviews of Petit and his accomplices, years later, clearly establishing that they all survived to tell the tale.
Those interviews of middle-aged daredevils, reminiscing about their greatest caper, were as intense for me as the dodgy accomplishment of the adventure. It was literally the end of a love affair with life for all of them, something "too hot not to cool down," an overture too overwhelming to be followed by a mere opera. When Petit's boyhood friend broke down in tears at the waning of their friendship, when Petit's wife-the-love-of-his-life felt the reality that his life no longer needed hers, the whole social cost of Petit's obsession moved me also almost to tears. Hey, I might have cried if my heart had slowed down to twice normal. I felt an urge to grab my son and hug or shake him, saying "don't let your art be more to you than your life."
There's more to this film than a mere victimless heist thriller.
Customer Rating:
Summary: FANTASTIC
Comment: A MUST-SEE FILM, simply an inspiring, amazing masterpiece. ALSO READ PHILIPPE'S WONDERFUL BOOK; his story transcends words and transports you to a place of rare passion, beauty and possibility. Soaring! I remember this story just after it appeared in the New York Times back in 1974 and filed it away in my mind, wondering when the whole story might be told by the man who did it. Thank you Philippe for sharing your story with us in your own time. I look forward to meeting you some day... Highest regards (no pun intended), Matthew Cross, [......]
Customer Rating:
Summary: "When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk."
Comment: "I observed the tightrope 'dancer'--because you couldn't call him a 'walker'--approximately halfway between the two towers. And upon seeing us he started to smile and laugh and he started going into a dancing routine on the high wire . . . And when he got to the building we asked him to get off the high wire but instead he turned around and ran back out into the middle . . . He was bouncing up and down. His feet were actually leaving the wire and then he would resettle back on the wire again . . . Unbelievable really . . . everybody was spellbound in the watching of it."-- NYC Police Sergeant, Charles Daniels.
Directed by James Marsh (known for his cult film, Wisconsin Death Trip), Man on Wire is an inspirational documentary about Philippe Petit's daring high-wire walk between the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York. It has since been called "the artistic crime of the century." Petit, who was 24 years old at the time, is a French high-wire artist (a "funambule") and Paris street juggler who made history by walking (illegally) between the Twin Towers on August 7, 1974 without a net. In the course of his half-hour walk, Petit sat on the wire, gave a knee salute and, while lying on the wire, spoke with a gull circling his head. (While the Twin Tower walk now defines him, Petit has also made tightrope walks using the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Louisiana Superdome, the Hennepin County Government Center, and the Eiffel Tower. He also juggles for children in Central Park.) Why did he do it? "L'art pour l'art," Petit explains, art for art's sake. Marsh describes his film as a heist movie (a "rififi") about Petit's "incredibly beautiful" "coup." The breathtaking film features a soundtrack drawn from the Michael Nyman album, Nyman/Greenaway Revisited, which seems as though it were written for the film. Marsh's film will appeal to the children, clowns, magicians, athletes, and dancers in all of us.
G. Merritt
Customer Rating:
Summary: I saw it and still don't believe it
Comment: I saw this movie in a local theater about a month ago and I can't stop thinking about it. It's a good, well constructed documentary film that uses some recreated scenes as well as current interviews and period film and photos. The story of how Phillipe Petit planned and executed a tightrope walk between the twin towers is laid bare. 1350 feet in the air, 200 feet across. It was hard to believe even as I watched it. It seemed inspiring and insane all at once. I don't know if he's courageous or crazy but I suspect the answer is both.
If this movie sounds the least bit interesting to you, go ahead and get it. You won't be disappointed. If I hadn't seen it on the last night of it's run at the theater I might have gone more than once.
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