Even before it won this year’s Academy Award for Best Documentary I was curious to see “Man On Wire.” Movies so often reflect the zeitgeist of the time that a lot can be learned from trying to divine what makes a film speak to its audience.
If you haven’t seen it, “Man On Wire” is an engrossing documentary about the French wirewalker, Philippe Petit who, on August 7, 1974, spent about forty-five minutes balancing on a wire illegally stretched between the two World Trade Center towers. Much of the film is put together out of home movies that Petit, his girlfriend Annie Allix, and a variety of cohorts made of themselves during the six years they plotted and trained for their crime. That’s the first indication that something is very much morally awry with Petit and his pals. Talented circus performer that he may be, Petit fancies himself to be such a “great artiste” that his narcissistic desire to defy death while demonstrating his skill trumps all protestations. He merits his obsession to be so important, that it all had to be documented for posterity. There are numerous episodes showing his friends, desperately trying to talk him out of his insane scheme, and even some thirty years later one of his co-conspirators breaks down in tears recalling the stress from the possibility that he might have been complicit in his friend’s death. Nevertheless, Petit’s insufferable self-importance sweeps away all their objections.
The movie is made to look like a caper film, inter-cutting reenactments of particularly funny or harrowing moments with footage of some of Petit’s other stunts, the most notable being his 1973 tightrope walk across the span of Sydney Harbor Bridge. That event snarled rush-hour traffic for miles and then, after being arrested, Petit proudly admitted to having picked the arresting officer’s pockets.
Once he stepped out onto that wire in 1972, Petit instantly achieved the international celebrity status that he so desperately craved. It never once occurred to him, as he literally danced on that wire almost 1500 feet above the ground, that his actions might have an adverse impact on others. In his words, all he thought about was, “What a beautiful death it would be to die in the exercise of my passion!” Yet, what about the people below? Had he fallen or dropped his 55 pound pole he likely would have killed an innocent gawker. And even if he didn’t injure anyone, what about the psychological trauma his being squashed on impact might have inflicted on all those onlookers? The movie asks no such morally difficult questions. Instead, we listen to Petit’s long-suffering girlfriend, Annie, gush wistfully, “Oh, eet was zo beauteefool to zee heem high above us,” just before telling us that the very first thing Petit did upon his release from custody, even before celebrating with his pals, was to jump into bed with a pretty girl groupie who offered herself to him. Ahhh … such a Frenchman!
But, then, narcissists are never particularly troubled by what impacts other people. I think it is this portrayal of unabashed narcissism that helped make the film so popular – especially among those who choose and vote for the Academy Awards. In a previous article for “Big Hollywood,” I wrote about the intimate connection of Hollywood elites to narcissistic self-importance. In “Man On Wire” we see narcissism writ large, and Hollywood lapped it up.
Beyond that, though, I was struck by the much larger metaphor between Phillipe Petit and our new President. Our country has elected a man who is preternaturally overconfident and totally self-absorbed. Recall the interview before the election in which CBS correspondent Lara Logan asked candidate Obama if he ever had any doubt about his readiness to lead? His grinning answer, given without a moment’s hesitation was, “Never!” So, it is with utter self-righteousness, that President Obama casually rescinds whatever campaign rhetoric has proven to be inconvenient to his Socialist agenda. Remember how all proposed legislation was going to be transparent to the public and posted on the Internet for all to see? (Except for the pork-laden, so-called “Stimulus Bill” which was pushed into law before even the members of Congress had a chance to read it.) Remember how all earmarks were going be stricken line by line from any bills? (Excluding, of course, those earmarks that go to the Democrat special interests.) Remember how special interests were no longer going to hold sway over government decision-making? (Unless those special interests are the teacher’s union, trial lawyer’s, or teamsters.) Certainly, we all know how his well-publicized promises of “bringing government together in bipartisan support” evaporated as soon as he took the oath of office.
Of course, none of this comes as a shock to anyone who spends a couple of minutes thinking through any of what President Obama says in his lofty-sounding but utterly empty speeches. In that sense, Petit and President Obama are very similar. While Petit fancies himself to be a great artist, he really is nothing more than a glorified circus performer. And while President Obama imagines himself to be the new savior of the modern world, in reality he is turning out to be exactly the same kind of political hack that his shallow rhetoric and shady Illinois background would lead us to expect.
Where he differs from Petit is that Petit was unquestionably the best at what he did – whose skill on a tightrope was unparalleled and even justified a certain level of hubris. President Obama, on the other hand, is already demonstrating that on top of being a Socialist ideologue he is an incompetent decision-maker. In some cases it results from his inability to say “no” to the special interests that control him. Witness his staggering decision to start a trade war with Mexico (a country already teetering on the brink of chaos) that will cost the United States billions of dollars in tariffs simply to please the Teamsters demand that we deny access to ninety-seven Mexican trucks. In other cases, his bad decisions seem to stem from naivety and arrogant self-delusion. Example: his warm and fuzzy “Happy New Year” video asking the Mullahs of Iran to make nice so we can all hold hands and sing “Kumbayah” together. I’ll bet that had them chortling all the way to their nuclear bomb facilities.
Unfortunately, Barack Obama seems to be the first ever “New Age” President. Entirely self-invented, he has, through sheer strength of will and astonishing chutzpah, “manifested” himself into the Presidency. Like the wirewalker, Petit, he is charming and glib (so long as the teleprompters are working) and sweeps aside any ideas that don’t comport with his agenda. Also like Petit, he is not a serious man but rather is a man besotted by his own celebrity status. Why else spend an enormous amount of taxpayer dollars to fly himself and his entourage out to Hollywood, just so he could claim to be the first President ever to appear on the “Tonight Show?”
All this would be somewhat entertaining if it didn’t have gravely serious worldwide implications. Petit and his cohorts could jauntily afford to pick the pockets of the police and it would all be seen as an amusing prank. When President Obama and cohorts like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed pick all our pockets to fund their Socialist expansion of Big Government, it is far more serious. There was a lot less likelihood that Petit would fall off his wire than there is that our President and his radically misguided policies will drive our country into an economic ditch from which we may never fully recover.
The ironic metaphor I took away from watching “Man On Wire” came from seeing Petit blithely traversing his wire between the now evaporated World Trade Center towers. Those towers were destroyed a mere 27 years later by the greatest concentrated evil that has yet faced mankind. Sadly, President Obama seems to be dancing on a wire of his own narcissistic construction, oblivious to the maw that gapes below him. I pray that he doesn’t fall off.