'Man on Wire' Q&A: James Marsh

Yes, that little black speck is Philippe Petit. (Credit: Magnolia)

Proving again that the cliché “truth is stranger than fiction” is cliché for good reason, the new documentary “Man on Wire” tells the seemingly unbelievable tale of Philippe Petit, a French tightrope walker who performed an illegal walk between the World Trade Center Twin Towers in 1974.

Director James Marsh has structured the story as an elaborate heist film that’s as cool and funny as any of those “Ocean’s” capers, but also happens to be true. We asked Marsh about making a positive World Trade Center story, why not all crimes are all that criminal and the unexpected dangers of reading People magazine.

Can you tell me what attracted you to this story initially?
Well it’s one of those stories that you can’t believe when you encounter it. It’s a fairy tale, it’s a myth, it’s a gripping suspense story… Philippe wrote a very idiosyncratic and beautiful memoir of the event called “To Reach the Clouds.” I found it truly gripping and unexpected—the setbacks and impediments and obstacles that are in the way of this impossible objective. It was tailor made to be a film.

And why tell the story now?
Of course [now] there’s another whole other dimension to the Twin Towers. That kind of changed the meaning to the story and without the story itself having been changed. It felt to me a story that was about a miracle, if you like, that took place there.

It’s not right that those buildings are just known for one thing, their memory has been owned by the people who destroyed them. And then by the politicians who exploited that destruction to embark upon their own self-serving agenda. All that really offends me and still does. I felt that this story, in its own small way, is some kind of minor antidote to all the horrors of what became of those buildings.

Did looking back underline even more how what Philippe did is really a part of history that can’t be repeated?
Philippe himself would say nothing is impossible. That’s the idea that the film offers as kind of an inspiration. [But] it’s hard to imagine that a group of funny Frenchmen could hang around a New York monument now and case it out and have designs upon it, however benign and beautiful [their plans] might be. So yes it is a kind of unfortunate mirror being held up to us a little bit. We’ve lost a great deal.

It’s striking that even though Petit and his friends were committing a crime, there was just this sense of innocence and wonder about their actions.
[Petit] knew it was illegal, but he wasn’t wicked or mean. And that was a very important distinction that he made. Of course it’s illegal and they break in and they’ve [already] committed a series of crimes—one of [Petit’s accomplices] has been smoking pot ahead of time—but I would say…the only people that are going to be harmed by [these crimes] are the very people who are doing them.

In the press notes, it says when you first met Philippe he showed you how to kill a man with People magazine.
It can be any sort of magazine of that size, but yes indeed, I know that now.

How exactly did he demonstrate that for you?
Well he showed it to me. Philippe is a mischievous character and he kind of tests you out a bit. He wants to know whether you’re going to be any fun to be around. I shouldn’t really say this but basically you roll it up and it’s used on the windpipe. It’s very effective if you put it on the right part of the windpipe, you collapse and that’s it.

He’s a very entertaining and unusual presence on film as well—the audience reaction at Sundance for both the film and for him was fantastic.
I think [the movie] works best when seen with other people. There is always the great joy of seeing a film with other people that you don’t even know. Your emotions are being harnessed and your feelings are engaged collectively, even though you’re all strangers. It’s part of the magic of filmmaking and the magic of going to see a film that works on that level.

And then there’s the obvious question—did you ever want to make this as a narrative drama instead of a documentary?
I had never any inclinations to do that. Of course the story may yet be a spectacularly good feature film for all I know, but for me, as a filmmaker, [when I] met Philippe and began to work with him and began to talk [with] and meet the other people involved, it felt impossible to improve on this as a fictionalization.

I also felt, first and foremost, that I was making a movie anyway. It was a responsibility to not make a dry, detached documentary but to make a movie experience that just happened to be a documentary.

Find showtimes for "Man on Wire."