MovieChat Forums > Man on Wire (2008) Discussion > To all the haters...

To all the haters...

posted 16 years ago by justkit
9 replies | jump to latest

I know this post is going to be an exercise in futility - like trying to explain the human experience to a pigeon - but here goes...

Please list ten things you have done that you consider achievements.

Now scrub out all the ones that have already been done.

How many are left? What? None? You've clearly not done much with your life! You are only going to be on this amazing little planet for a few precious years, you know. Better hurry up and think of something to do, huh!

Answer this question honestly: when you die, would you like your life to have meant something? Would you like to be remembered for more than merely having breathed for a while, spread your seed, and then departed in a puff of corpse-gas?

Well, one man wanted to walk a tightrope between the world's tallest buildings. And he did it!

Some people want to climb Everest. One of them was even the first to do it! It's a big deal to set out for a goal and achieve it. The tougher the goal, the greater the achievement. That's a thing to be celebrated!

Anyone here walk on the moon?

Man on Wire isn't just celebrating a unique achievement though. It's documenting a piece of living art. For a little while, a man floated 400 meters above the streets. It was beautiful photographically. It was awe-inspiring spiritually. It was thrilling due to the danger involved. And it was also a remarkable technical achievement. That is art. Art on many levels. It is a feat that can be appreciated as a staggeringly dangerous stunt, or a symbolic act - of defiance in every sense - or as a simple expression of freedom and the joy of life. That is art.

The planning alone was staggering, and worthy of immense respect!

And you don't get to achieve this level of greatness without being totally single-minded and a little bit crazy. To put it in context, visit the kitchen of a top hotel and watch the Head Chef at work. He's a ball-buster, right? Arrogant? Unforgiving? Unlikable? - Seem familiar? You probably hate him and think he's a dick, right? But I bet all those poor kitchen workers that he's yelling at love him and respect him.

There are two types of people in the world: Pioneers and Homemakers. The pioneers go off looking for new horizons, while the homemakers sit around bitching about their selfishness and 'thrill-seeking'. (But they're happy enough to move into a bigger cave, once the Pioneer has discovered it, killed all the bears and dinosaurs living nearby, and made everything safe and comfortable.) Then the homemaker sits around in his new cave, bitching and complaining like before. Luckily for the pioneer, he's off pioneering so he doesn't have to listen!

It takes both types to keep things ticking, but I know which one I'd rather be!

Anyway, you can go back to your bitching now. I'm off to hunt a T-rex!

[–] squicker 16 years ago

The dinosaurs were extinct long before man turned up...

However, I believe wholeheartedly in the sentiment of your post :)

Ben

[–] justkit 16 years ago

Thanks for your support. I can't help feeling that we're in the minority though.

As to the dinosaur thing, thanks for the info. There was me, off to hunt that T-rex, having literally no idea that dinosaurs are extinct! It's always nice to receive an education from the folks here at the boards!

[–] take_the_money 16 years ago

Calling this guy a pioneer is a joke. What did he pioneer? Walking on a tight rope? No! The twin towers? No!

What he did was show immense determination and bravery. These characteristics are to be respected. But these are found in people every day. What I think bothers most people is the narcissism shown by the main protagonist and other odious character traits such as betrayal.

Personally I don't think anyone would want to be his friend after watching all that-- bar sycophants that is, like that groupie.

[–] justkit 16 years ago

Yeah, you're right. Being the first (and only) person to do a particular thing doesn't make you a pioneer. What was I thinking!

Like discovering America, for instance. That wasn't a pioneering achievement at all. I mean let's face it, places had been discovered before. People had crossed oceans. America already existed. Hell, people already lived there! The fact of being the first person from, say, Europe to set foot on American soil means nothing whatsoever.

Another classic misuse of the term 'pioneer' relates to the field of manned flight. After all, birds have been doing it waaaaaay longer. And flying machines of one sort or another have been being designed and built for centuries. Why should the Wright brothers be allowed to call themselves pioneers? How dare they!

And you're right about another thing too: the sort of determination and bravery that allowed a man to spend six years planning and executing one of the most dangerous stunts in history is really pretty common. Grab any Joe Schmo off the street and chances are he has 'the right stuff'. You find it in people every day! I bet the only reason the world isn't full of people doing amazing things all the time is simply that they're busy washing their hair, right?

[–] take_the_money 16 years ago

Just because an average Joe doesn't walk a tight rope between the WTC towers and then abandon their friends, doesn't mean they lack courage and determination. The presence of courage, determination do not necessarily result in singular amazing feats like doing a pointless tight rope stunt. But when you sum up the every day experiences and events that occur in a brave individuals life, you will get something amazing. Of course, this doesn't apply to all people. What you want is hero worship, where the classical God is replaced by narcissistic imbeciles like this french guy.

It is perfectly natural and reasonable for me and the other people here to find this guy odious. When you take this guy as the sum of his parts, a contemptible individual emerges that only the superficial will respect. Acknowledging the difficulty of his feat is easy, as is the determination he showed in doing it, but that is as far as I will go. Respecting him as individual is far more difficult, I refuse to fawn over a narcissistic, disloyal man. For me, the most important aspect of a person is their core personality ie whether I would want to be friends with them. I think few here would actually want a friendship with this guy.

Real pioneers actually have a lasting effect on people's lives; great inventors, scientists, politicians etc. The effect this man had was maybe 20 mins. You can get 20 mins exposure by dancing naked in the street.

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] squicker 16 years ago

I think it was good the documentary showed his egocentric side, betrayal and all. It was merely an unbiased view of the endeavour and I liked it for the balance. Pun intended!

[–] FerSure 16 years ago

There are a LOT of haters, but I doubt they bug him that much.

Thanks for posting, but I do have to add something. Don't knock the people whose achievements have been done before. I don't think he did it for this reason. Because people HAD done illegal wirewalking before. Not to that scale, but I think he did it just because he wanted to.

So, in that regard, he's not that different from other highly motivated people that you could find on the street. He may be more poetic, but I don't think he's that fundamentally different.

[–] justkit 16 years ago

Thanks, FerSure. I agree with everything that you said. It wasn't my intention to knock people whose achievements have been done before. That would, after all, include most of the people on the planet! I was just trying to emphasise a point, because I get really annoyed at people who criticise other's achievements and pontificate arrogantly about the fact that the achiever may have one or two character flaws - from a position of cowardly anonymity - whilst having achieved nothing very remarkable themselves. To me this sort of behaviour smacks of jealousy, which is a very ugly thing to observe. I myself have never achieved greatness in any particular field, but I have tried (and will continue to try) to reach my full potential. Along the way I have had some small successes, and even on such a modest scale people were quick to try and tear me down. So I'm somewhat tuned-in to that particular aspect of human nature.

I agree completely that he's not that fundamentally different from other highly motivated people. In a way that was kind of my point. The difference, which you pinpointed perfectly, is that he is more poetic. And that aspect of his work is what 'spoke' to me, and what (I suspect) was completely missed by the people who like to throw sh!t. It's the age-old argument about what constitutes art, which so frequently polarises opinion. I just can't help observing that the sh!t-throwers are nearly always people who simply didn't 'get' it. It's evident from the way they articulate their sh!t. Personally, I try to be a little less judgemental about art. Damian Hurst is an artist I'll never understand. I find his work unattractive, and just not to my taste. It doesn't say anything to me at all - about anything. All I see is dead pickled animals. It has no meaning to me, and thus I don't particularly like it. But I'll argue to the death that it is art. A lot of people disagree. And because they don't consider it art, they become very angry about his success, and pour scorn upon him and anyone foolish enough to buy his work.

All I can say is, I wish I had a form of expression that other people could enjoy and draw inspiration from. I admire those people who have achieved this, and I am envious. But I don't feel jealous and hate them for it. That would only serve to highlight my own inadequacies!