50 years ago this week, Richard Nixon resigned and French funambulist, Philip Petit, walked 45m between the 400m-high twin towers of New York’s then recently opened WTC
34 years later, film maker James Marsh celebrated PP and his friends’ achievement in an academy award winning 2008 doc called Man on Wire. Made all the more amazing by its almost total lack of footage of Petit’s feat, JM’s film is a wonderful celebration of a far more innocent time. If you’ve not already seen the film, do yourself a favour and give it a look.
This week the now 74-y.o. Petit marked the anniversary of his WTC walk by mounting a 20-foot high wire and walking the 30m nave of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York.
While we’re all waiting for the longer film that will doubtless be along shortly, here is a brief news item about the event.
Man on Wire is currently free to stream on ITVX.
I really enjoyed The Walk, a dramatised version (2015) of the story starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit. Not only the walk itself, but how he and his team had to get into the WTC, before it was fully completed, with all their equipment.