Man on Wire

I've long known that the line between genius and insanity is hazy and grey. The few true geniuses I've witnessed in my life always seemed to move inside a fog between clear-minded thought and irrational action. But in 1974 a Frenchman named Philippe Petit walked through that cloud on a 450-pound cable suspended between the towers of the World Trade Center.

His story, Man on Wire, is now available on DVD (and Netflix streaming, where I saw it today). Petit is a self-taught wire walker whose various highwire stunts are more like performance art. To see a man walking through the air one quarter of a mile above New York City is one thing, but to see the planning, practicing and subterfuge that got him there is quite another. Expertly planned madness is almost a contradiction in terms, and yet, there it was.

The most important thing the film gives you is a sense that humans can do the impossible when they are completely focused and dedicated to something. Petit seems to conquer not only fear but rationality itself. If a man can walk on a wire at such heights, kneeling, lying down, crossing the span eight times, taunting policemen...what can't humans do? Perhaps he's simply an expertly skilled madman, but he nevertheless proves what is possible to the rest of us, which is what great artists and scientists do.

If nothing else, I know that the next time I'm overcome with fear or anxiety, I'll have a new high water mark for how much can be accomplished through the rejection of fear and limitations, and the application of focus, skill, and creative passion.