Hey guys, it’s Ryan here from explained, and today, we’re going to watch the real life story
of French high wire walker Phillippe Petit. The movie “The Walk” is based on his real life story
and was released in 2015. This movie covers how he dared to wire-walk across the twin towers in 1974.
Let’s get started. Turn on the subtitles and spoilers ahead.
The story begins in the year 1973, in the beautiful city of Paris.
We’re introduced to the main character Philippe Petit; a street performer who wows audiences
with his performance; and has been doing so without any legal permit. Phillipoe describes
himself as always in search of a place to hang his wires; to display his speciality of wire-walking.
One day while collecting money from his audience, one of the spectators
drops a hard candy in his hat. Being a performer, Phillipe takes the candy and does tricks with it.
In the end, he takes the candy in his mouth and bites it to damage his teeth.
To take care of the excruciating pain, Phillippe goes to the dentist. While reading a magazine
in the dentist’s waiting room, he comes across something that catches his attention,
so much so he forgets about the pain in his teeth. He sees a photo of the unfinished World Trade
Center Twin Towers, which after it’s construction is set to be the world’s highest building.
Amazed by what he has just seen, Phillippe tears the page off the magazine and takes
it with him. He dreams of hanging a rope in between the two towers and wire-walking on it.
By now, we know that Phillipe is obsessed with wire-walking,
but to understand why that’s the case, we must go to his childhood.
When he was 8 years old, Philippe once snuck into a circus show in his town. There, for the first
time in his life, he saw a man wire-walking. And needless to say, Phillippe was immediately hooked.
Even after the show was over, he kept on staring at the wire, questioning how it was possible.
Determined to learn to wire-walk himself, Phillippe ties 5 ropes between two trees,
and begins to walk on them. Day by day as he grows older and confident in his skills,
the number of wires went down, and soon he was walking on a single wire.
But he still questioned if he could walk on the wires set at a great height. So,
he sneaks into the circus and he tries to walk the wire.
But just before he could take his first step, an old man yells at him and tells him to step down.
The old man’s name is Papa Rudy, who happens to be the head of the circus. After stepping down
the ladder, Phillippe impresses Papa Rudy with his skills, who decides to take him under his wing.
Papa Rudy invites Phillippe to his house and while discussing stage presence and
respect to the audience, Phillippe makes the mistake of labeling himself as an “Artist”
and not a “circus clown”. Needless to say, he gets thrown out by Papa Rudy.
Despite his parent’s protest, Phillippe leaves his house and everything behind to pursue his dreams.
That’s the story of how he came to Paris.
One day while looking for a place to perform, he comes across a girl named Anne performing on
the streets with her guitar. Phillippe decides to showcase his talents then and there. Soon,
all the spectators turn towards him, which leaves Anne with zero audience. Phillippe later gets
confronted by Anne, and defends himself by saying he was just trying to share the audience. After
their argument, it starts to rain. Phillippe takes his bag, takes a restaurant umbrella and walks
with Anne. Phillippe asks her out for a drink in return that he never performs anywhere near her.
While having drinks together, Phillippe tells Anne about his dream of wire-walking on the tallest
building in the world. After sharing more about each other, they fall in love, and Anne invites
him to her art school to practice. Phillippe starts wire-walking at a much taller height.
One day, a photographer named Jean-Louis sees Phillippe and asks to take his photograph.
Phillippe lets Jean-Louis photograph him, and further tells him about his dream of
wire-walking between the twin towers. Jean-Louis gets impressed by Phillippe’s
extraordinary ambition, and Phillippe tells him that he can be his official photographer.
Just when Phillippe is talking about his dream, he gets hit by reality
as the ropes tied to the trees get loose, and Phillippe falls to the ground.
Jean-Louis reminds him that if this happens during his stunt in New York,
he’ll lose his life. To better understand rope tying, Phillippe goes back to Papa Rudy. He
offers to pay money in return for teaching him everything he knows about wire-walking.
Papa Rudy accepts his offer and takes him in. He learns to tie ropes from Papa Rudy
and also travels with him as a helper for his shows. Phillippe isn’t allowed to perform,
but when the show gets over, he is given the chance to practice on the wire.
Impressed by his dedication, Papa Rudy gives him a chance to perform at a small town festival.
Phillippe begins to wire-walk over a lake, but the environment around him isn’t ideal.
The fishermen in the lake start to heckle him which forces him to lose his concentration.
As a result, in front of Anne, Jean-Louis, Papa Rudy and all the people in the festival,
Phillippe falls into the lake and fails.
Embarrassed by his failure and eager to overcome it,
Phillippe decides to wire-walk between the towers of Notre Dame. With the help of Jean-Louis,
Phillippe sneaks into the cathedral and ties steel walk ropes in between the towers. He then performs
his stunt in the early hours, in front of many tourists, and successfully completes the walk.
He gets cheered on by on-lookers but what he just did was illegal,
so he gets caught by the police. Phillippe gets labeled a “vandal” by the newspapers,
but in the same paper he sees the picture of Twin Towers.
Phillippe takes it as a sign and believes that it’s his destiny to wire-walk between
those towers. Together with Anne, he travels to New York to see the towers in person.
Phillippe gets scared of how tall the towers are, and he feels that it’s impossible to hang
the wire on that height. But then, he sneaks in through the construction elevator and makes
it to the unfinished observation deck. He walks over a beam to get a feel for how he can do it,
and almost immediately, he feels confident that he can pull it off.
He returns to France and begins to lay out plans on how exactly he’ll fulfill this feat.
Anne and Jean Louis agree to be his accomplices, but there’s concern on how they will install
walking cables at such height to ensure the rope won’t shake.
For this, Phillippe goes back to Papa Rudy, who instructs him on how he should install the ropes,
and advises him to use a safety harness. Being a wire-walker himself,
Papa Rudy doesn’t want to see him fall to his death. But Phillippe refuses the idea
and says that it’ll defeat the whole purpose. After a short argument between the two,
Papa Rudy decides to support Phillippe and gives him all his money back to fund his plan.
Phillippe begins practicing to accustom himself to strong winds that he’ll encounter on the
twin towers. Jean-Louis then introduces him to a person named Jeff, who wants to be an accomplice
in Phillippe’s plan. Being a mathematician, Jeff will help him with making crucial calculations.
Jean-Louis then demonstrates how they’ll get the ropes in the towers with the help of his archery.
It seems everything is going towards Phillippe’s direction.
He marks August 6, 1974, as the date when he’ll execute his plan.
He flies back to New York with his team. To learn more about the building, the people working on it,
and to get necessary measurements, Phillippe visits the towers in different disguises everyday.
And to get the measurement of exact distance between the two towers,
he disguises himself as a reporter from France and asks the questions directly to
the people in charge of its construction. So far, everything has been going easy for him.
But one day, while in disguise of an architect, Phillippe steps on a nail that impales his feet.
Even with his feet injured and him not being able to walk for a few days,
Phillippe doesn’t let it slowdown his plan. He returns to the towers,
the very next day in crutches, taking every bit of information he can use.
Then one day, he stumbles upon a man who recognizes him as the notorious wire-walker
from France. The man introduces himself as Barry and he works on the 87th floor of the north
tower. Knowing how helpful he could be, Phillippe invites him to dinner and tells him
everything about his plan. After knowing how serious Phillippe was in achieving his dream,
Barry agrees to be the inside man, and help him get access to the north tower roof.
With most of the plan taken care of, Phillippe and his team require a walkie talkie,
through which they can communicate, and not have the police pick up on their conversation.
For that, a person named Jean-Pierre helps them with wired radio, and also introduces
him to two new accomplices; Albert and David, who will help him tie the wires.
With the whole team assembled and plan laid out, Phillippe has just one day
before he tries to live his dream of wire-walking on the twin towers.
The night before, he has trouble falling asleep. He gets up from his
bed and starts nailing the crate with his walk cables, thinking of it as his coffin.
Next day, Phillippe and his team drive to the World Trade Center. With the help of Barry,
Albert and Jean-Louis get access to the north tower along with their equipment.
Phillippe kisses Anne and gets into a delivery van with the rest of his accomplices,
to get into the south tower. Disguising themselves as delivery workers,
they get into an elevator that takes them to the 110th floor.
While unloading the walking cables, they hear the security guards approaching.
David immediately flees out of fear of getting caught. Phillippe and
Jeff hide under a tarp which dangerously happens to be covering an elevator shaft.
The two men hang on to their dear lives, as they wait for the guards to leave.
After hours of waiting, Phillippe starts to hallucinate that Jeff has fallen to his death.
He comes back to his senses and then sees that the guards have left.
They immediately get out of the tarp and carry the walking cables to the top floor.
He signals Jean-Louis on the other tower to shoot the arrow that will help connect the
cables to the two towers. Jean-Louis shoots the arrow, but Phillippe doesn’t find it.
He frantically searches for the arrow and finally sees it hanging over the side of the roof.
Just before the arrow falls to the ground, Phillippe manages to catch it.
With the help of the arrow, they first connect the wired radio and communicate with each other.
Then, they begin to lay the wires between the south and north towers.
It’s almost morning, and they still haven’t finished rigging the wires. Albert,
on the north tower, quits out of fear of getting caught. Jean-Louis informs him that Albert has
also brought a camera with him, and plans to sell pictures of everything that they have been doing.
Even after one of his accomplice bailing out, Phillippe is still hopeful that they can pull it
off before sunrise. He continues the work on his side, while Jean-Louis does his from the other.
Anne and Jean Pierre watch the wires get tied from down below.
Just after finishing setting up the wires, a mysterious man walks up to the roof.
He looks at what Phillippe had set up, and gives him a nod of approval.
Phillippe walks back and Jeff points to him that he was holding a steel pipe. Maybe the man
approved of Phillippe doing the dangerous stunt or maybe he was just scared of him. In his narration,
Phillippe says that he never met that man again, and calls him the “mysterious visitor”.
With everything ready, Phillippe starts to put on his costume, but a part of it falls from the
tower. He gets angry for losing it just before the performance of his life and doesn’t feel like
doing it anymore. But after looking at the face of his accomplice, Phillippe decides to do it.
With the sun just starting to rise, he grabs his balancing pole and starts walking on the wire.
With each step he takes ahead, he gets closer to achieving his dream.
His friends watch him from below and Anne starts to get everyone’s attention to Phillippe.
After getting midway, Phillippe gets confident and even breaks a smile.
He soon gets to the north tower and completes the stunt, as the audience from below applaud him.
But despite achieving what he had dreamt of, Phillippe is discontent. He feels as
if the other tower was calling to him. So, he decides to walk back to the south tower.
Phillippe once again walks on his wire, and this time, he takes more confident steps than before.
He is so full of confidence that he even kneels down on the wire. As he’s about to reach the
south tower, two police officers arrive, ready to arrest him as soon as he steps out of the wire.
But Phillippe decides to turn back and as he walks back to the north tower, he decides to break the
most crucial rule of wire-walking. Phillippe looks down at his audience and enjoys the moment.
Soon, more police officers arrive at the end of both towers. But paying no attention to them,
Phillippe starts to step back and forth on the wire. The officers try to talk him into
getting off the wire, but Phillippe doesn’t feel that it’s time for him to stop his performance.
He starts walking back, and performs all kinds of tricks.
Even a helicopter is sent to have him stop his stunt. Phillippe gets back to the south tower
and finally decides to stop it. He steps off the wire and calmly surrenders to the police.
The huge crowd watching him applaud his feat, and his friends breathe a sigh of relief.
As he’s being taken down by the police, he gets applauded by the construction workers. And even
though he’s being arrested, the police officers are also amazed by what he had just accomplished.
The news of him wire-walking the twin towers becomes international,
which brings Papa Rudy to tears.
After getting out of custody, Phillippe celebrates with his friends.
He thanks them for believing him, and never giving up on his dream.
Sadly for him, Anne decides to go back to France and follow her own dreams.
For his incredible achievement, he was awarded a lifetime entry pass to
the observation deck of the towers; which he visited many times in his
life. And as he shows the pass to the audience, the smile fades from his face.
The movie ends with a final shot of the towers.
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