The Walk (2015)
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 123m
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Charlotte Le Bon, Ben Kingsley
Synopsis:
Flamboyant tightrope artist, Philippe Petit, nurtures a dream of running a line between the tops of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and with the help of his accomplices, realizes it.
Review:
Pretty soon after the excellent Man on Wire told the same story in documentary form, Zemeckis gives it the Hollywood treatment, with Kingsley's presence accentuating reminiscences of Scorsese's Hugo (child's eye view, beauty in insanity, CGI collusion). It's actually not at all bad. For a start it allows its characters to speak a foreign tongue accompanied by subtitles; secondly, it maintains a genuine sense of awe and self-absorption which is entirely in tune with Petit's character (no doubt because the screenplay is based on his book); and Gordon-Levitt makes for the perfect spokesman, capturing the man's mischievous personality with those permanently smiling eyes. There is just a sense of Hollywood bowdlerization and triple underlining in some of the details, but the fact that the film can be made at all now, with the twin towers gone, is a paradox of which we are given constant visual reminder, and a feat as miraculous and sublime as the walk itself.
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 123m
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Charlotte Le Bon, Ben Kingsley
Synopsis:
Flamboyant tightrope artist, Philippe Petit, nurtures a dream of running a line between the tops of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and with the help of his accomplices, realizes it.
Review:
Pretty soon after the excellent Man on Wire told the same story in documentary form, Zemeckis gives it the Hollywood treatment, with Kingsley's presence accentuating reminiscences of Scorsese's Hugo (child's eye view, beauty in insanity, CGI collusion). It's actually not at all bad. For a start it allows its characters to speak a foreign tongue accompanied by subtitles; secondly, it maintains a genuine sense of awe and self-absorption which is entirely in tune with Petit's character (no doubt because the screenplay is based on his book); and Gordon-Levitt makes for the perfect spokesman, capturing the man's mischievous personality with those permanently smiling eyes. There is just a sense of Hollywood bowdlerization and triple underlining in some of the details, but the fact that the film can be made at all now, with the twin towers gone, is a paradox of which we are given constant visual reminder, and a feat as miraculous and sublime as the walk itself.
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 123m
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Charlotte Le Bon, Ben Kingsley
Synopsis:
Flamboyant tightrope artist, Philippe Petit, nurtures a dream of running a line between the tops of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and with the help of his accomplices, realizes it.
Review:
Pretty soon after the excellent Man on Wire told the same story in documentary form, Zemeckis gives it the Hollywood treatment, with Kingsley's presence accentuating reminiscences of Scorsese's Hugo (child's eye view, beauty in insanity, CGI collusion). It's actually not at all bad. For a start it allows its characters to speak a foreign tongue accompanied by subtitles; secondly, it maintains a genuine sense of awe and self-absorption which is entirely in tune with Petit's character (no doubt because the screenplay is based on his book); and Gordon-Levitt makes for the perfect spokesman, capturing the man's mischievous personality with those permanently smiling eyes. There is just a sense of Hollywood bowdlerization and triple underlining in some of the details, but the fact that the film can be made at all now, with the twin towers gone, is a paradox of which we are given constant visual reminder, and a feat as miraculous and sublime as the walk itself.