American Cinematographer - September 2008 - (Page 18) Production Slate A High-Wire Act and Orwellian Intrigue On Aug. 7, 1974, French wirewalker Philippe Petit became an instant, worldwide celebrity by staging a 45minute routine on a tightrope suspended between the towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. An Aerial Daredevil by Patricia Thomson What’s the best way to combine a heist film with a fairytale in the context of a documentary? How do you respond if your star interviewee just won’t sit down and behave? What if your key location — the World Trade Center — no longer exists? These are just a few of the brainteasers British director James Marsh and New York-based cinematographer Igor Martinovic faced while making Man on Wire, which won the audience and jury World Cinema awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Subtitled A Tale of High Crime, the film uses an inventive mix of techniques to recount the elaborate planning and perilous execution of one of New 18 September 2008 York’s enduring legends: the day in 1974 when French high-wire artist Philippe Petit broke into the newly constructed World Trade Center, strung a cable between the Twin Towers, and walked back and forth for 45 minutes in a graceful, balletic and illegal performance a quarter-mile above the streets. Marsh, now based in New York, had already made one successful hybrid film, Wisconsin Death Trip, so he knew he’d need a cinematographer equally adept at nonfiction and dramatic work. Martinovic filled the bill, having shot documentaries in his native Croatia and in the U.S., plus numerous shorts and features, including Padre Nuestro (2007). Petit referred to his Twin Towers tightrope walk as “an artistic crime,” and accordingly, says Marsh, “we began to tell the story as a crime caper. Once we stumbled onto that idea, it seemed exactly the right way to do the reconstructions.” The re-enactments were never meant to seamlessly mimic reality, but to reimagine it using a stylized approach as flamboyant as Petit himself. The first order of business was to pin down the story, which traces how Petit hatched his idea even before the construction of the World Trade Center began, the nature of his earlier stunts in Australia and at Notre Dame, and his elaborate preparations for “le coup” in New York. The film would also reconstruct how Petit and his team sneaked into the towers’ unfinished upper floors and strung cable across the void using a bow and arrow. The walk itself, a highwire act without a net or safety harness, ended in Petit’s arrest under the charge “man on wire.” Petit, who now resides in New York, would be the key narrator. In 2002, he’d written a memoir, To Reach the Clouds, “a very idiosyncratic, precise, obsessive record of how he did what he did,” says Marsh. But the director wanted a more “kaleidoscopic narrative,” incorporating the sometimesconflicting memories of Petit’s coconspirators, including his girlfriend, accomplices from France and Australia, and less trustworthy recruits from New York. Martinovic observes, “Beside the crime story, there was the drama of a broken friendship, a love gone sour, and a comedy provided by Philippe’s flamboyant style. We saw this incredibly layered storyline as a series of different genres that we could exploit visually.” The main thread would be the interviews, which Marsh expected to be long and emotional. (Petit’s ran nine hours over two days.) Seeking to limit Photos courtesy of Polaris Images and Magnolia Pictures.
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