High Wire

Documents a French high wire performer’s preparation and walk across a high wire between a skyscraper and St. John the Divine Cathedral in NYC.
Sound score by Philip Glass.
Philippe Petit walks a high wire suspended between the towers at New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine and the high-rise building across the street. Perhaps the most fascinating part of the film involves the complex rigging necessary in the preparation. In his vertiginous walk, Petit cautiously tests for wind direction, then daringly kneels and lifts one leg above the wire, high over the street below.