"To Reach The Dream"

Film has been a medium of a public interest and debate ever since its introduction in the late 19^th century. Lumière brothers screened their early actualitè films as fairground attractions in native France and consequently set the ground for spectator’s relationship with the moving image around the world. Nowadays, we associate non-fiction genre with documentaries which claim to be based on a true story, presenting historical, biographical and discovery tales. Reading film texts, on the other hand, has developed into a part of cultural studies for academic discussion where the representation of events is under the question mark. In 2008 British-born director James Marsh adapted a story of a young French tightrope walker Philippe Petit, and Man on Wire was brought to the big screen. Yet, critics tend to classify it as a feature film, which raises a harmless question: how true can a true story be?

Man on Wire (Marsh, 2008) is unlikely to be a story of a man alone; it is a story about Philippe Petit’s dream, passion and immense determination. His dream of walking the wire rigged between the World Trade Center’s unfinished towers came true as a real-life fairytale on the early August morning in 1974 when spectators in Lower Manhattan witnessed the event in disbelief. For those, the story of the wire-walker is real while others have to make judgement based on Marsh’s reconstruction and Philippe Petit’s voice. Together they have created a ‘voice’ of a documentary which conveys to us a sense of a text’s social point of view, of how it is speaking to us and how it is organizing the materials it is presenting to us (Nichols, in Leach, 1998:169).

The film opens with Philippe’s nightmare before the magical stunt and advances into giving a brief introduction of the events that follow. It also draws attention to various techniques used in the documentary since Marsh places Petit as the voice – an interviewee and narrator of the story at the same time, except that there is no one asking the questions apart from the silent camera-eye. Above all, Philippe does not introduce himself or his co-conspirators while Marsh chooses not to use introductory tiles throughout the film when new faces appear from the dark. We get to know them in the context of the narrative and talking about each other, never in the same shot. Regardless, the story flows fluently, shifting from historical footage of the WTC being built to Petit’s preparation via both, archive and re-enactment scenes. While this might seem over-exaggerated, International Documentary Association brings in Marsh’s own view on how to make a good documentary:

“[As the director] you should let the story direct you on how the story should be told. Quite honestly, I don't make a distinction between fiction and nonfiction; a film is a film."

Moreover, he brought a taste of a black-and-white heist film intentionally whilst editing re-enacted material with Michael Nyman score, such us ever-telling Dreams of a Journey. Philippe himself is a fan of heist films and often refers to walking between the towers as carrying out a ‘bank robbery’, therefore the connection could have been done rather consciously in order to set the mood.

On the contrary, black-and-white scenes in Man on Wire are frequently drawing parallels with silent Lumière films, mainly when Petit is shown performing as a circus artist in front of Parisian crowd which would have previously been a fairground attraction for the spectators. Emphasizing on that, Marsh shows an evolution of the image – from single still shots, to slide shows and finally, a moving picture. Nevertheless, Man on Wire presents a certain fascination with the city, showing New York from the various angles and indisputably admiring tallest building in the world at that time. Not only is Marsh offering an insight into Petit’s admiration, it is also reminding viewers there was a happier metropolis before one gloomy day in September 2001. After all, documentary film images present viewers with images of “the world” and become evidence of certain facts shown by the use of montage constructions, Bill Nichols says. Every cut or edit is a step forward in an argument (Nichols, in Testa, 1998:270). The tragic faith of the WTC is therefore intentionally not mentioned in order to keep memory of the iconic landscape alive.

David Jenkins from TimeoutLondon questioned Marsh about the various documentary techniques used where he eagerly agreed:

“It's a hybrid of the methods you can use in documentary - these are reconstructions, archive footage and special effects. Notionally there are talking-head interviews, but in case of Petit, we've got him physically acting out his testimony. So, everything that's available to a documentary filmmaker is pushed to extreme levels. The music is very big in the film"

In respect of re-enactments, James Marsh is using actors to recreate the significant scenes leading up to the death-defying walk which would have been impossible to obtain as real footage due to the criminal nature and secrecy of the event. However, the actors are brought into the text only to show, not to tell, and Petit remains the main narrator alongside his other accomplices. On the contrary, Paul Ward argues that one of the main reasons for a documentarist to use drama and reconstruction is due to the lack of any original footage of the events being depicted (2007:189). This arguably applies to the Man on Wire since Philippe has collected an unbelievable amount of archival footage - photos, sketches, videos and other personal memorabilia. Nonetheless, it is his ability to re-live the story in front of Marsh's camera as if he has only stepped off the wire connecting the towers recently. Petit reacts the moment of hiding from guards during the first (and failed) attempt to string his tightrope between the Twin Towers with passionate credibility, and a viewer himself is willing to sit still whilst holding breath with Philippe until the danger of being discovered passes by. As Marsh declares to Jenkins, the richness of the narrative comes from Phillippe himself, with his endless capacity for self-dramatization and his inability to sit down and tell his story when standing up and acting it out came more naturally (2008). Petit gives a self-conscious performance as a versatile artist throughout the film whether it is his wire-walker-self hailing through the archival footage or a comic Frenchman who's saturating canvas of the film art by painting his dream vividly real.

Man on Wire is an unforgettable documentary, but yet I fail to recognize it as only that – a documentary. It is Petit’s real-life fairytale which we come to believe in through director’s all-round filmmaking techniques. My only concern with the film is that it gives almost too much respect for Philippe Petit’s privacy. His character is explored down to a minimum – as far as achieving The Dream goes - and we never get to know what happens after the ‘artistic crime of the century’ has been committed. Is it a happily ever after ending or is there more to expect from the man who once brought the buzzing streets of New York to a standstill? In the documentary he proclaims: “So what if I die? What a beautiful death – to die in the exercise of your dream!” And drawing on the way his story is voiced, questioning this is almost illegal from spectator’s point-of-view. We believe the man on wire and his need to fulfil this dream of dancing on top of the world through Marsh’s camera lens even if authorities call it a crime. And what a harmless, beautiful crime it is!