Some three decades before 9/11, crowds stopped and stared at the Twin Towers in New York one day, transfixed by a sight wholly unexpected and logic-defying.
A 24-year-old French man was walking on a steel rope, 410 metres above the ground.
It was an extraordinarily bold stunt, not least because the young performance artist in question – Philippe Petit – had illegally sneaked all his equipment (including rigging and the steel wire itself) into the World Trade Centre, with the help of friends and some fake ID cards.
Once he stepped onto the wire, he crossed it eight times, sat down, conversed with a seagull and bounced up and down.
The world was aghast and enthralled. Listen to the reporter’s awe-stricken tones in a contemporary radio broadcast here: “The Associated Press is talking about an unidentified man who is apparently walking a tightrope between the Towers of the World Trade Centre in Lower Manhattan…”
British director James Marsh has made an award-winning documentary about the feat, with in-depth commentary from Petit to accompany archive footage of the event, reconstructions and an appropriately hypnotic soundtrack from minimalist and veteran score-composer Michael Nyman.
Jason Solomons calls it no less than “the best British documentary since Touching the Void” and the film won two awards at Sundance this year. Looks like you should stay away only if you’re prone to vertigo.
