A fine line...

An almost invisible cable cuts the air in half, as a man balances gracefully, sitting, walking across it with style and ease. 'Man on Wire' is a new documentary directed by James Marsh which examines the remarkable life of the wire walker Philippe Petit, whose most daring walk was done in the 70's across the 138 foot gap between the World Trade Centre buildings. After he was arrested for it, they asked him why he did it. Petit was so irritated by the question, explaining that people had missed the beauty of the act. It seems that a free spirit's path can't be defined by "Why?" and Philippe Petit's life is a perfect example of this existence.

Petit was expelled from every school he ever attended and arrested over five hundred times for pick pocketing and street juggling. The Frenchman who is autodidactic became a master at chess, magic, sculpture, fencing and bullfighting. But it was his love of tightrope walking that elevated his spirit to the real freedom of his self expression. A true romantic in every sense from the love for his girlfriend Annie Alix to finding outlets for his expression and ways of releasing it in creative forms. As Petit says in the documentary, "If I die what a beautiful death to die in the exercise of your passion!"

In 1971 Petit did his first illegal high wire walk across the two spires of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. All across the world he is praised for his heroic, romantic expression, except by his own countrymen. Next stop Australia, Sydney Harbour Bridge it is the world's largest steel arch bridge, but it's reputation does not deter Petit. On a winter morning he brings the rush hour traffic on the bridge to a standstill. As Petit looks like a god of the sky as he casually strides across a thin steel cable he is clearly at home in his domain above the rest of the landlocked mortal population.

In his first wire walk at Notre Dame, Petit enlisted the help of two French co-conspirators; Jean Louis Blondeau and Jean Francois Heckel. For the Sydney Harbour Bridge walk he had the help of an Australian friend Mark Lewis. But it was the World Trade Centre wire walk, which was the tallest building at the time, that the 23 year old Petit assembled a crew of eight people who trusted his vision to find away to infiltrate the towers unseen to accomplish his biggest illegal mission. His secret training camp was known as ''World Trade Centre Association" and was based at his home in rural France. The crew, included: Petit's French girlfriend, his childhood friend, international friends, an insider, a rock musician and even a Judas.

Between Petit posing as a journalist to get into the World Trade Centre, hiding under tarpaulin and after much hardship finally after eight months of planning they are ready. On 7 August 1974 the crew manage after even more drama to suspend a 20 foot cable between the towers. As the sun rose above the city skyline, Petit's dream was cemented in the minds of New Yorkers and the whole world, as below in the bustling streets, between the greyness and the yellow cabs dotting the urban landscape people stopped in the middle of the rat race to watch a tiny speck 1350 feet above them. A poet dwarfed by behemoth buildings, yet unfazed by their magnitude as he moved almost dancing on a thin wire that unites the twin towers.

In a recent interview with the BBC Petite talks about The Twin Towers wire walk, this became known as 'the artistic crime of the century.' "I spent six years of my life hypnotised by the idea - how to bring a ton of equipment in secret in the towers, rig at night without being caught and, of course small detail, walk on it".

America in 1974 was a different country to today, crime in New York was escalating, and the same week that Petit did his wire walk was the same week that Nixon and the Watergate scandal reached its climax. Yet in spite of all the corruption and the state of things going on, it seems that in America before the age of zero tolerance, that there was an openness there that allowed people to stop, watch and appreciate a poet of the sky, instead of panicking, being full of fear and worrying about threats to national security. Truly Petit's walk summed up the end of an era and perhaps one of the last acts of true freedom, before the foundation of the walls in the age of control were constructed.

By Mark A. Silberstein

London Kicks

Written by:
charlie

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