THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY
We ask too many questions in life. Sometimes the smart thing is to stand back in silent awe and admiration.

How good is your head for heights?

 

I know plenty of people who cannot sit in the upper tiers of a sports stadium or cannot drive in the outside lane of the Dartford Bridge as it crosses the Thames because they feel sick and queasy. Imagine, then, walking a tightrope between the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. The idea is the stuff of nightmares - yet it has been done.

 

Amid the BAFTAs and Oscars scooped up by ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, two awards went to ‘Man on Wire’ for best documentary, recalling the story of the Frenchman Philippe Petit who on August 7, 1974 spent an hour on a tightrope between the towers, walking to and fro, waving to crowds who couldn’t see him he was so high up and lying down on the wire to relax. Man on Wire (2008) includes interviews, footage and photographs of the preparation and execution of this most unusual trespass. Petit had previous, having walked a wire across Notre Dame Cathedral and the Sydney Harbou

 

Research with a willing team of friends was meticulous, including preparation for handling the maelstrom of wind that could make the towers sway. Two teams had to breach the lax security at the towers to get to the top, hide under tarpaulin overnight – meaning no sleep for Petit - and then shoot the wire by arrow from one tower to the other. As he walked across, police arrived to arrest him, but he would simply walk back into the middle, inviting them to join him.

 

When he had had enough entertainment, Petit was taken away for psychological profiling and asked continually by his interrogators and the American media upon his release: ‘why did you do it?’ This was a crude teleological concern for Petit, for whom the act was pure art, performed with Gallic insouciance.

 

You could argue persuasively that this was a deeply irresponsible act which could have caused several deaths and yet the impression you are left with is of a man who had been extraordinarily gifted by God with poise and courage and who possessed unshakeable confidence in his talent. Educated people analyse, categorise and interpret evidence ceaselessly. They need to have answers so they can understand the world better. This is the empirical tradition which Petit baulked at. Sometimes the smart thing to do is to stand back in silent awe and admiration.

 

There is no mention of God in this story, yet you feel the invitation once again to ponder the beguiling beauty of life and the possibilities God has set before us. The film makers sensibly make no reference at all to the event 27 years later which defined these towers. Before the unspeakable crime of the twenty-first century there was the unfathomable heist of the twentieth. I now think of the towers in another way and am grateful it has been filmed for posterity.

 

I own the film, if you want to borrow it.