No Ordinary Fool

They called it the greatest artistic crime of the century. Two teams of men had to use all manner of subterfuge to bring the necessary heavy equipment to the top of both World Trade Centre towers. The preparation took daring, courage, discipline, and determination. Only then did Philippe Petit, a 24-year old Frenchman, step off the top of one tower onto a thin length of cable strung between the two buildings and walk over and back for a full forty-five minutes.

This documentary recalls that heady day of 7 August 1973 when incredibly-honed skills and outrageous self-belief combined to create a now unique moment of immortality. The film flits back and forth between several strands of the story – previous well-publicized high-wire walks by Petit in Paris and Sydney, the meticulous planning and training in France, and the tense hours spent gaining access to the tower roofs and rigging the wire under the cover of darkness.

All of the people involved in bringing this magical moment about provide separate interviews for the film – Petit, his close collaborators Jean-Louis Blondeau and Jean François Heckel, girlfriend Annie Allix, as well as various Americans and an Australian who had been recruited along the way.

Now in his early fifties, Petit still comes across as an intense, hyperactive, detail-obsessed individual with a natural flair for showmanship. Blondeau, in contrast, was his anchor – the man who wanted to help Petit succeed, but who wanted to ensure that Petit did not die in the attempt either. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear how powerful the tensions did become between these two steadfast friends as they prepared for “le coup”. Even now Blondeau sheds tears when recalling those days and weeks.

While the focal point of the story is inevitably Petit, what also becomes clear is how it was, in truth, a remarkable team effort. In this sense, it is reminiscent of a Formula One team. The driver takes the real chances with his life and is the man who enjoys the glory of the podium if he wins. However, all of his courage and skill would mean nothing without a huge crew of highly trained mechanics and race tacticians behind him doing their part to perfection.

The documentary makes great use of archive footage and photographs, although few images of the feat itself actually exist. The World Trade Centre is shown throughout various stages of its construction, with Petit almost hypnotically convincing in his belief that this enormous structure was being erected solely so that he can achieve his destiny as a performance artist. There are also a number of impressive recreations of Petit and his team in France.

Near the end, Petit humorously recalls being continuously asked “why?” in the immediate aftermath of his feat. It is, perhaps, an inevitable question that most of us with caged-in, mundane lives ask of anyone who astounds, amazes, and astonishes us with an achievement that we had not even dared to imagine. In making this film, director James Marsh did not dwell heavily on factual details. This can be a touch frustrating, as certain questions go unanswered. Instead, through the use of judicious editing, a playful score from Michael Nyman, and the engaging candour of the interviewees, the story is one that emphasises the beauty of the feat above all other considerations.

The result is a documentary that will leave you sad for an innocent era where a man risked death for nothing more than the fulfilment of a dream and where friends helped him for no other reason than because the idea appealed to them. The idealism and romanticism that are demonstrated here seems long-forgotten values.

One last thought, they may have been the fashion of the time, but what was the deal with Petit wearing flares when taking a walk across a wire suspended 400 metres up in the air?