The Pope even has the power to change a NY Film premiere: don’t you wish Mayor de Blasio;) OK, logistics/security – all joking aside. But the NY Film Fest premiere of The Walk was postponed from last Friday to Saturday (I could have told you about that problem but they never listen to me at NYFF:(. It has a limited release tomorrow Sept 30th (the UK will have to wait until Oct 2). The film is based on Frenchman Philippe Petit’s August 7, 1974 orchestrated and performed high-wire walk between the Twin Towers (he became an artist-in-residence thereafter at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine). James Marsh’s 2008 documentary Man on Wire was a revelation to many and talked about throughout the world. Director of The Walk Robert Zemeckis had wanted to make a film about the event since 2005. Fact. And many who were fans of the doc will view suspiciously the Hollywood movie.
Understandably. A captive audience were wowed, though, tonight at MoMA (and so was I) at a special screening that opened a retrospective there of Zemeckis’ films. I was an early fan of the documentary and so too approached the film with some trepidation. Zemeckis noted in a post Q&A that given the advances in special digital effects the film was somehow destined to be late by 10 years- it was never easy to pitch a film that didn’t fit a ‘box’.
The 3D is great. So too the performances. There are facts from the documentary that have been eased over (correct me if I’m wrong but I recall from 7 years ago Petit or someone mentioning that the NYPD had pushed him down some of the stairs after his arrest). Not wanting to sound adjutant but the film’s ‘happy ending’ of a ‘happy ending’ may be a little too much for some. What is extraordinary, though, is the walk itself. The preparations for the ‘coup’ Zemeckis makes as suspenseful as any French heist noir.
Something happens, though, when Petit starts walking and continues AND continues to walk (in reality he performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire a quarter mile above the ground). [Happenstance blesses Zemeckis because there is no: ZILCH actual footage of the walk. The 16mm camera was being loaded ('the walk' was way behind schedule) just as police raided the roof and they had to take flight: behind their backs and down the stairs.]
Zemeckis recountered Petit telling him over dinner how the whole world seemed to disappear. There was only the wire. I will now write something that may upset some people. Apologies. But I would encourage anyone thinking of jumping off a tall building or bridge as an escape from life to PLEASE see this film. Whatever your problematic relationship is to yourself (and indeed this world- and to contemplate suicide rationally not irrationally is a very brave thing) (sorry to have offended more readers) - the film is a hymn to respecting the air, the body, the wind, the soul. Truly a James Joyce epiphany. Moreover, it is quite possibly the most moving requiem for 9/11 and the collapse of those towers. Lux aeterna. It is in the truest sense the sublime. Fractured sky by cold exquisite metal. And one human brave enough to enter into that dialectic. Like the ISIS destruction of temples and antiquities in Syria, the perpetrators of the 9/11 destruction were oblivious to the beauty. They wrongly imbued the towers with knowledge and/or greed that they believed must be demolished. The erasure of a symbol. While their actions may indeed have struck at the confidence of capitalism arguably leading to financial markets collapsing in the next decade did they fulfill a dream? Banks and capitalism are the same as they always were. NO. One little Frenchman wirewalker Philippe Petit fulfilled a dream un-arguably far far greater than 9/11. That of reaching deep into his soul whilst not willfully threatening any other human.
What I didn’t originally say in my post was that walking a wire is not THAT difficult if you have that where-with-all in body and wire. 1ft = 1,000 ft. What IS the dream and IS extraordinary is going higher and higher and even higher. Without help. Without harness. All you have is a belief. A belief in yourself, in the wire, in the air, in something higher than oneself. And at any moment a doubt can creep in from any element. Then you may not succeed. At any moment fate may twist a fraction against you. At any moment (as in Philippe’s case) fate may eddy a fraction in one’s direction.
Need one gild a lily and state THAT is a metaphor or Life!
Questqua fois c'est une 'ding' a'pro les Americains! Dolour ou/et amour?:) ? Sartre ou/et Camuse o u...
