Thursday, February 21, 2013

Man on Wire

Put your notes here as a comment.

3 comments:

  1. Not a complete set, but some of my observations as we watched two weeks ago:

    Man on Wire Notes

    Film opens with combined “talking heads” and action. Shots of his feet to show his nervous tension. Lots of tight close ups. Travel in the van with other characters to show conflicts among the group.

    Introduces the WT building by using split screen. Petit on one side, the building on the other. Then to the dentist sequence to establish character’s motivation. First his girlfriend describes him; shows his practice wire in France. She follows him on the wire.

    Closeup of his feet and how he balances first; then a long shot to show the whole scene.

    Old fashioned movie animation to show the journey from Australia to Paris.
    Lots of still photos used throughout film.
    Story is not told totally chronologically. The “coup” is intermixed with other footage of preparation and interviews.

    Re-enactments are used to show what happened the day before and the night of the preparation.

    Still photos only of the wire walk at World Trade Center; these shots are mixed in with the observer’s comments. Emotion very high at that memory, especially since Petit went on to fame and abandoned them.

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  2. My notes on “Man on Wire”

    First of all I would like to mention a soundtrack. Events in the movie and the music are harmoniously intertwined. When Philippe Petit was on wire, for me it was almost watching a ballet. Also in the documentary were used sounds over the still photos (for example, the moment when Philippe was standing on the roof edge, and we can hear fire siren and gulls).

    Visual part of the documentary impressed me much.
    To show Paris of Philippe’s youth were used classic images of street magicians. I like the parallel display of Philippe’s childhood photos and built towers. Also this method was used to show us moving elevator (on the left) and a car (on the right).
    When they talked about spying, we were like spies ourselves, because of the binoculars.

    I noticed how were introduced members of the team, real people, - on the black background, half-turned.
    I like tension has been shown through the “What if…” question of Philippe and answers of others.
    Their emotions were so sincere!

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  3. The film maker started to tell the story from the middle through: the white and black scenes, pictures, old fashion looking people and stuff. He communicates through the music. He used four kind of music in entire of the movie to stimulate the feeling.

    He used animated map and airplane to show how many times the character did travel. The most powerful and effective was drawing.

    He was approaching us to the main goal, as he was showing some scenes of World Trade Center Towers that was in the process.

    The dolly shot of Notre Dame building at the first time in the movie and the pan shot of Paris were so beautiful. Cut in shot was interesting when Philippe Petit walks on the wire in the end of the movie.

    The important shot was when he was smiled on the middle of the wire on the World Trade Center which tells the dream became true.

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