Man on Wire
Encyclopedia
Man on Wire is a 2008 British documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 directed by James Marsh
James Marsh (director)
James Marsh is a film director known for directing the cult film Wisconsin Death Trip starring Marcus Monroe and Sir Ian Holm. He won 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for directing Man on Wire....

. The film chronicles Philippe Petit
Philippe Petit
Philippe Petit is a French high-wire artist who gained fame for his high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, on 7 August 1974...

's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...

. It is based on Philippe Petit's book, To Reach the Clouds, recently released in paperback with the new title Man on Wire. The title of the movie is taken from the police report that led to the arrest (and later release) of Petit, whose performance had lasted for almost one hour. The film is crafted like a heist film
Heist film
A heist film is a film that has an intricate plot woven around a group of people trying to steal something. Versions with dominant or prominent comic elements are often called caper movies. They could be described as the analogues of caper stories in film history...

, presenting rare footage of the preparations for the event and still photographs of the walk, alongside reenactments (with Paul McGill as the young Petit) and present-day interviews with the participants.

It competed in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival
2008 Sundance Film Festival
The 2008 Sundance Film Festival ran from January 17, 2008 to January 27 in Park City, Utah. It was the 24th iteration of the Sundance Film Festival. The opening night film was In Bruges and the closing night film was CSNY Déjà Vu.-Films:...

, where it won the Grand Jury Prize: World Cinema Documentary and the World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary. In February 2009, the film won the BAFTA
British Academy Film Awards
The British Academy Film Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . It is the British counterpart of the Oscars. As of 2008, it has taken place in the Royal Opera House, having taken over from the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square...

 for Outstanding British Film, the Independent Spirit Awards
Independent Spirit Awards
The Independent Spirit Awards , founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the paltry budgets of independent films. In 1986, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit...

 and the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Production

The film's producer Simon Chinn first encountered Philippe Petit in April 2005 on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...

, after which he decided to pursue him for the film rights to his book, To Reach the Clouds. After months of discussion, Petit agreed, with the condition that he would play an active, collaborative part in the making of the film. In an interview conducted during Man on Wire's run at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, director James Marsh explained that he was drawn to the story in part because it immediately struck him as "a heist movie". Marsh also commented that as a New Yorker himself, he saw the film as something to give back to the city. He said he hopes to hear people say that they will now always think of Petit and his performance when recalling the World Trade Center's twin towers. Responding to questioning as to why the towers' destruction 27 years later was not mentioned in the film, Marsh explained that Philippe Petit's act was "incredibly beautiful" and that it "would be unfair and wrong to infect his story with any mention, discussion or imagery of the Towers being destroyed."

Reception

Man on Wire won the prestigious Special Jury Award and Audience Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of non-fiction cinema. Each spring Full Frame welcomes filmmakers and film lovers from around the world to historic downtown Durham, North Carolina for a four-day, morning to midnight...

, the International Audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival
Los Angeles Film Festival
The Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by the Los Angeles Times is an event held annually in June in downtown Los Angeles, California. The Los Angeles Film Festival began as the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival in 1995. The first LAIFF took place over the course of five days in a single...

 and the Standard Life Audience Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival
Edinburgh International Film Festival
The Edinburgh International Film Festival is an annual fortnight of cinema screenings and related events taking place each June. Established in 1947, it is the world's oldest continually running film festival...

. The film also won the Jury Prize and Audience Award in the World Cinema: Documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...

. Man on Wire is the sixth film to pick up both top awards at Sundance, and the first from outside the US. In February 2009, the film won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film, and Best Documentary Film in the Australian Film Critics Association
Australian Film Critics Association
The Australian Film Critics Association or AFCA is an Australian film critic organisation.-History:Formed in 1996, AFCA began as the Melbourne Film Critics’ Forum, expanding to a national organisation in 2004...

 Awards. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 81st Academy Awards
81st Academy Awards
The 81st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2008 and took place February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST...

.

Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

 reported that 100% of the 145 reviews they have collected have been positive. It is currently the best reviewed movie on the website. The film also received a golden tomato for best documentary of 2008.

Top ten lists

The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008.
Movie City News shows that the film appeared in 76 different top ten lists, out of 286 different critics lists surveyed, the joint 7th "most mentions" on a top ten list of the films released in 2008.
  • 1st - Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter
    The Hollywood Reporter
    Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...

  • 2nd - Kyle Smith
    Kyle Smith
    Kyle Smith is an American critic, novelist and essayist. He is a staff film critic for the New York Post. His film reviewing style has been called "an exercise in hilarious hostility" by Entertainment Weekly....

    , New York Post
    New York Post
    The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

  • 3rd - Tasha Robinson, The A.V. Club
    The A.V. Club
    The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...

  • 3rd - Ty Burr
    Ty Burr
    Ty Burr has been a film critic for the Boston Globe since 2002 where he reviews films alongside Wesley Morris.Born in 1957, he studied film at Dartmouth College and New York University and has written three books: The Hundred Greatest Movies of All Time, The Hundred Greatest Stars of All Time and...

    , The Boston Globe
    The Boston Globe
    The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...

  • 4th - A. O. Scott
    A. O. Scott
    Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...

    , The New York Times
    The New York Times
    The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

  • 4th - Liam Lacey, The Globe and Mail
    The Globe and Mail
    The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...

  • 4th - Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter
    The Hollywood Reporter
    Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...

  • 5th - Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
    The Washington Post
    The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

  • 5th - Carrie Rickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer
    The Philadelphia Inquirer
    The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...

  • 5th - David Ansen
    David Ansen
    David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...

    , Newsweek
    Newsweek
    Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

  • 5th - Joe Morgenstern
    Joe Morgenstern
    Joe Morgenstern is a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic for The Wall Street Journal.-Career:Morgenstern graduated from Lehigh University in 1953. His first journalism experience was as news clerk at the New York Times...

    , The Wall Street Journal
    The Wall Street Journal
    The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

  • 5th - Marc Mohan, The Oregonian
    The Oregonian
    The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...

  • 5th - Ben Mankiewicz
    Ben Mankiewicz
    Ben Mankiewicz is an American radio and television personality, known for his work as a TV journalist, news anchor, and film critic...

    , At the Movies
    At the Movies
    At the Movies is an Australian television program on ABC1 hosted by film critics Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, in which they discuss the films opening in theatres that week.-History:...

  • 6th - Dana Stevens, Slate
    Slate (magazine)
    Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...

  • 6th - Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
    The Hollywood Reporter
    Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...


  • 6th - Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle
  • 6th - Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club
    The A.V. Club
    The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...

  • 7th - Josh Rosenblatt, The Austin Chronicle
  • 7th - Kenneth Turan
    Kenneth Turan
    Kenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...

    , Los Angeles Times
    Los Angeles Times
    The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

    (tied with Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
    Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
    Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired is a 2008 documentary film directed by Marina Zenovich. It concerns film director Roman Polanski and his sexual misconduct case...

    )
  • 7th - Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter
    The Hollywood Reporter
    Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...

  • 7th - Michael Philllips
    Michael Phillips (critic)
    Michael Phillips is a film critic for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Previously he was the drama critic of the Tribune; the Los Angeles Times; the St. Paul Pioneer Press; the San Diego Union-Tribune; and the Dallas Times Herald....

    , Chicago Tribune
    Chicago Tribune
    The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...

  • 7th - Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor
    The Christian Science Monitor
    The Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...

  • 8th - Andrew O'Hehr, Salon
    Salon.com
    Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...

  • 8th - Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle
    San Francisco Chronicle
    thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

  • 8th - Robert Mondello, NPR
  • 9th - Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
    Entertainment Weekly
    Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

  • 10th - Lawrence Toppman, The Charlotte Observer
    The Charlotte Observer
    The Charlotte Observer, serving Charlotte, North Carolina and its metro area, is the largest newspaper, in terms of circulation, in North Carolina and South Carolina...

  • 10th - Peter Travers
    Peter Travers
    Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...

    , Rolling Stone
    Rolling Stone
    Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...



Soundtrack

Much of the film's soundtrack is derived from the 2006 album, The Composer's Cut Series Vol. II: Nyman/Greenaway Revisited
The Composer's Cut Series Vol. II: Nyman/Greenaway Revisited
The Composer's Cut Series Vol. II: Nyman/Greenaway Revisted is the second in a series of albums, all released on the same day, by Michael Nyman to feature concert versions of film scores, in this case, films of Peter Greenaway, and his 52nd release overall. The album is similar to The Essential...

.
  1. Fish Beach - Michael Nyman
    Michael Nyman
    Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...

     (from Drowning by Numbers
    Drowning by Numbers
    Drowning by Numbers is a 1988 British film directed by Peter Greenaway. It was entered into the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:The film's plot centers on three women — a grandmother, mother and daughter — each named Cissie Colpitts. As the story progresses each woman successively drowns her husband...

    )
  2. History Of The Insipid - Michael Nyman (from The Libertine
    The Libertine (2005 film)
    The Libertine is a 2004 film starring Johnny Depp, John Malkovich, Samantha Morton and Rosamund Pike. Directed by Laurence Dunmore in his first outing and adapted by Stephen Jeffreys' from his play of the same name, the film stars Johnny Depp as John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, a notorious rake...

    )
  3. Albatross
    Albatross (composition)
    "Albatross" is a guitar-based instrumental by Fleetwood Mac, released as a single in 1969, later featuring on the compilation albums The Pious Bird of Good Omen and English Rose...

     - Fleetwood Mac
    Fleetwood Mac
    Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...

  4. Dreams Of A Journey - Michael Nyman (from The Piano
    The Piano
    The Piano is a 1993 New Zealand drama film about a mute pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater on the west coast of New Zealand. The film was written and directed by Jane Campion, and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin...

    )
  5. Time Lapse - Michael Nyman (from A Zed & Two Noughts
    A Zed & Two Noughts
    Elements of Michael Nyman's score invoke the "Dies Irae" section from Heinrich Ignaz Biber's Requiem ex F con terza minore. The Angelfish Decay/Swan Rot/L'Escargot theme was originally written for Childs Play, a dance work commissioned by Lucinda Childs. Performance of the soundtrack is credited...

    )
  6. The Disposition Of Linen - Michael Nyman (from The Draughtsman's Contract
    The Draughtsman's Contract
    The Draughtsman's Contract is a 1982 British film written and directed by Peter Greenaway – his first conventional feature film . Originally produced for Channel 4 the film is a form of murder mystery, set in 1694...

    )
  7. A Fifth of Beethoven
    A Fifth of Beethoven
    "A Fifth of Beethoven" is a disco instrumental recorded by Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band. It was adapted by Murphy from the first movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. The record was produced by noted production music and sound effects recording producer Thomas J. Valentino. It was one of...

     - Walter Murphy
    Walter Murphy
    Walter Anthony Murphy, Jr. is an American instrumentalist, songwriter, and arranger. He rose to fame with the hit instrumental "A Fifth of Beethoven", a disco adaptation of passages from the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, in 1976, when disco was at the height of its...

  8. Chasing Sheep Is Best Left To Shepherds - Michael Nyman (from The Draughtsman's Contract)
  9. An Eye For Optical Theory - Michael Nyman (from The Draughtsman's Contract)
  10. The Lark Ascending
    The Lark Ascending
    The Lark Ascending is a work by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, inspired by George Meredith's 122-line poem of the same name about the skylark. The work was written in two versions: violin and piano, written in 1914; and violin and orchestra, written in 1920. The orchestral version...

     - English Northern Philharmonia (composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams
    Ralph Vaughan Williams
    Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...

    )
  11. A Ramble In St. James's Park - Michael Nyman (from The Libertine)
  12. Passage de L'Egalité - Michael Nyman (from La Traversée de Paris
    La Traversée de Paris (album)
    La Traversée de Paris is an album by the Michael Nyman Band featuring music composed by Michael Nyman for an audio-visual exhibition of the same name which took place at the Grande Arche de la Défense from July to December 1989 to celebrate the bicentennial of the French Revolution.-Track...

    )
  13. In The Hall Of The Mountain King
    In the Hall of the Mountain King
    In the Hall of the Mountain King is a piece of orchestral music composed by Edvard Grieg for the sixth scene of Act II in Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, which premiered in Christiania on February 24, 1876....

     - Philadelphia Orchestra
    Philadelphia Orchestra
    The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...

     (composed by Edvard Grieg
    Edvard Grieg
    Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...

    )
  14. Drowning By Number 2 - Michael Nyman (from Drowning by Numbers)
  15. Trysting Fields/Sheep 'n' Tides - Michael Nyman (from Drowning by Numbers)
  16. Memorial
    Memorial (composition)
    Memorial is an epic funeral march-like piece, composed by Michael Nyman around 1984-1985. This composition is one of the most praised in the work of Michael Nyman. Its first commercial recording was on the soundtrack of The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover and has been rerecorded on the Michael...

     - Michael Nyman
  17. Leaving Home (Opening Titles) - Josh Ralph
  18. Leaving Home Sunday Exploration (End Credits) - Josh Ralph
  19. Gnossienne
    Gnossienne
    "Gnossienne" is the name given to several piano pieces by the French composer Erik Satie in the late 19th century.-Characteristics:Satie's coining of the word "gnossienne" was one of the rare occasions when a composer used a new term to indicate a new "type" of composition. Satie had and would use...

     No. 1 - Gheorghe Constantinescu (composed by Erik Satie
    Erik Satie
    Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...

    )
  20. Gymnopédie
    Gymnopédie
    The Gymnopédies, published in Paris starting in 1888, are three piano compositions written by French composer and pianist Erik Satie.These short, atmospheric pieces are written in 3/4 time, with each sharing a common theme and structure...

     No. 1 - Anne Queffélec
    Anne Queffélec
    Anne Queffélec is a French pianist, born in Paris.-Biography:She started playing piano at the age of five. In 1964, she enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire. She won the first prize for piano in 1965 and the first prize for chamber music in 1966. She continued her education with Paul Badura-Skoda...

     (composed by Erik Satie - music also used for the DVD menu)

External links

  • Man on Wire Q&A at IGN
    IGN
    IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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