For the man whose high-wire walk in the clouds was dubbed the artistic crime of the century, the possibility of falling simply did not exist. He talks to PETER CALDER about the film documenting his exploit
KEY POINTS:
Before the twin towers of the World Trade Centre were even built, Philippe Petit was planning to stretch a cable between them and walk it. He was just a teenager when he read, in his dentist's waiting room, an article about the proposed skyscrapers. Reflexively, the novice tightrope walker drew a line
between the two towers in the accompanying illustration. The plan was in motion.
On the morning of August 7, 1974, Petit, at times circled by a seagull, walked, jumped, danced, knelt and even lay down on a 43m-long, 19mm-thick cable more than 400m above Manhattan. And now, the 6 years of meticulous preparation and the event itself are minutely examined in a touching, often heartstopping and finally spellbinding documentary film which opens in Auckland next week.
The film's title, Man on Wire, is drawn from the prosaic language of the police report into an incident for which there was no official terminology. But it distills the drama into monosyllables that are poetically and purely apt: the novelist Paul Auster called Petit's exploit "a gift of astonishing, indelible beauty to New York" but, after all is said and done, this is the story of a wire-walker and a wire.
The film, which earned its maker, Englishman James Marsh, two awards at Sundance last year, is a relatively straightforward blend of interview, archive and re-enactment - and it has to be said that Petit seems ambivalent about it. He batted away many proposals over the years to make a film inspired by the walk because "they were the type of offers where they say: 'Sign on the dotted line and we will invite you to the premiere'." But he had his own film "assembled
in my head".
"The film in my head would have been full of respect for the equipment and explanations of what rope was used and so on. It is the core of the story: I am a man of wire. Instead the film leaned immediately on the human drama. I would have leaned heavily on the sky and the seagull and the dialogue of me and that cable.
"Many people ask me 'How did you feel up there?' and I say to them - this is not in an arrogant or critical way - 'You mean the film didn't answer that for you?'."
It is hard not to conclude that Marsh's take was smarter than Petit's. Some of the finest moments - apart from the sublime, heartstopping sequence of the walk itself - come in the human reality of interviews with Petit's collaborators: looking back on what became known as the artistic crime of the century, they fight back tears of joy, of amazement and of the sweet grief that tends to follow peak experience.
But Petit denies that his approach might have been too technical.
"It is not about technicalities. When I stand on a cable I know all about how it was made and its tensile strength but I can also talk to you about the song of the cable, about the dialogue of the wire-walker and the cable, the mystery of breathing in unison with the cable so you don't impose your presence on it. All that is the world of theatre and poetry."
So how did he feel up there?
"Well, I felt..." he says, then grasps for the word... "... changed. It was immense, confronting myself through this void. It was probably terrifying although I was not afraid. It was the end of 6 years of dreaming and working and I was extremely happy - it shows in some of the photos."
It does show in the photos but what Petit seems not to understand - as Marsh does and we do - is that this is a film about what we
feel: it is the viewer's response and not the
performer's experience that is the essence of performance.
The response of any viewer - even one not susceptible to vertigo - is inevitably driven by the terrifying scale of the drop, but for Petit there is no concept of falling.
"I don't see that," he says. "I see the sky. Falling cannot exist. But this is not a matter of chance. It is something that I created from 45 years of dialogue with the wire. I built this physical and mental confidence and there is nothing that can take me out of the wire."
Incredibly, no moving images exist of Petit's feat: the team member assigned to shoot 16mm movie film snapped some still photographs but took fright - and took flight - when the police arrived on the roof.
"At the time I regretted that immensely," says Petit, "but 34 years later I come to think that it is very unusual and very beautiful that there is not moving footage. Especially now that the towers are not there any more, it feels like we are in the domain of the legend."
When, after 45 minutes, he came in from the wire, Petit was initially roughed up by some embarrassed cops, but by the time he reached street level he was already a hero. All charges were dropped (though he was "sentenced" to put on a lower-altitude show for kids) and within days his phone was ringing non-stop with offers of millions to commercialise his fame by endorsing products. He turned them all down, as he still does.
"For me it is disgusting to use your art, which is precious and beautiful to do something un-beautiful like sell shoes. In this country [America] it's completely accepted, but in my heart, a different country, it's unacceptable."
Petit has done some 75 walks since 1974, in New York, Paris and across the Louisiana Superdome. An expert pickpocket, he sometimes busks by lifting watches and wallets from passers-by in Washington Square Park. And he nurses an ambition to walk a wire across the Grand Canyon, if he can raise the funds for the expensive set-up.
He'll be 60 in August but shows no sign of stopping and it's tempting to wonder whether his reportedly strict upbringing was what made him the consummate free spirit that he is.
"There is probably something in that." he says. "As soon as I am told not to walk on the grass, that is exactly where I want to walk. I guess it is the rebellious child in me. If you have to break the rules to create, well, then I would encourage everybody to break the rules."
LOWDOWN
Who: Philippe Petit, tightrope walker and star of documentary Man on Wire
When and where: Opens at cinemas on Thursday