I read that this movie won an Oscar in the documentary category, so I rented it believing that if the academy acclaimed it, it must be good. I feel duped.
The wildness of youth revisited, a time before tragic culture defining events, a feat on a feat.
Please help me out. What makes this film so deserving of its critical acclaim? Possibly, I’m missing a critical perspective that will make my future viewings more fulfilling.
I agree. Heard about all the rave reviews and the Oscar win. Instead Man on Wire was surprisingly dull. And I never really got why I should cheer for a man who illegally and dangerously risked his life to accomplish something that hardly mattered, (beyond some overused platitudes - I mean come on did he save someone's life or raise money for charity?) made it harder for me to really care.
shareCompletely agree with this post. I had a real sense of emperor's new clothes with this film - lots of superlatives about the stunt, but really, what was the point of it? I think it took on more significance because of what subsequently happened to the WTC, which is entirely unconnected to this film or Petit's stunt.
sharewhy would you base anything on what the academy said
on my way to ignoring the entire population of imdb
Funny, I watched this movie in a noisy press room, having to review it, and I was captivated from the first few seconds. I never knew a film about such a trivial event could be so visually stunning. Yes, it was dragged out, but I felt that it was the whole point of the film: he had been dreaming about it for years, and so the film had to show this long-lasting anticipation.
But again, I'm French, so I guess I'm a sucker for the so-called pretentiousness.
it's not the film that deserves acclaim, it's the reality portrayed in the film and the actuality of the events being retold in one place <--on film.
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For me it was two things that struck me most :
1) The " slice of time " shown that was mid-1970's NYC, around the time of the Bicentennial and the arrival of disco. If there was ever a time I'd choose to be in NYC it was during these years. Like one of the interviewees says, the city seemed so alive .
2) The plan and execution of their feat unfolds like a good heist movie.
i agree with you ....
shareI think that a lot of the high ratings are from people who watched and were sad that the WTC is gone, and they mistake that sadness for something that this documentary did. They think... "wow, what a masterpiece, it brings up such emotions" etc... when in reality it wasn't the documentary making them feel that way.
Another reason for the high ratings is that a lot of people obviously rated it based on the stunt, not the actual documentary they watched.
I found both the documentary and the man himself to be pretentious and arrogant.
I think it's the best documentary ever made. Granted, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of documentaries I haven't seen. But of the ones I have, Man on Wire is the most superbly made.
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