ln the middle of the night, I have almost a nightmare.
I wake up and I had forgotten to nail shut the crate.
So I go there, and though it was raining...
... I must have waked up the whole neighbourhood, you know...
...was not closing the box, it was nailing the coffin.
I am nailing the coffin. I see it as that.
Why, why this expression? Why this thought?
Well, maybe death is now looking through the golden frame of this dream,...
...and now reality is going to choke me to death.
Does it make any sense to conduct surveillance when somebody knows about it?
Now, I am Tuesday the 6th of August.
The surveillance involved, not what he was looking for...
It was tense, but we were eager to get going. Everything was ready.
... maintain surveillance, they did so for security reasons,...
...and I will not go beyond that.
I have never obstructed justice,...
...and, I think, too, that I could say that in my years of public life...
...that I welcome this kind of examination,...
...because people have gotta know whether or not their Presidents a crook.
Well, I am not a crook. I have earned everything I have got.
Everybody was getting more and more nervous.
And finally, we were all ready and said, "OK, lets go."
So we jump in the truck...
Were not going to die, were going to live.
I remember the extremely tense silence in the van.
Alan was absolutely sombre,...
...Philippe extremely tense.
Annie As for me I was petrified very worried.
I was disguised as a workman with a helmet, a shirt...
Jean-Francois To look like an American, I had lot of pens in my pocket.
Thats typically American, apparently.
I was gonna be on the crew in the South Tower.
We were gonna go at closing time with a big hamper, with all the gear in it.
There were gonna be some guys in the North Tower,...
...dressed for business with much less gear,...
...an architects tube... and I believe that was holding the bow.
Electricity in the air between Jean-Louis and Albert.
I can read it in Jean-Louis face, he doesnt trust Albert.
I had a bad feeling, er, there is something wrong with this guy.
He is not at all on the same... track that we are.
Fear was in the air.
I assumed that even in the best possible situation...
...that we were all going to be arrested.
There was no doubt of that.
I cant imagine how they didn't feel the same way.
I felt that the horizontality of driving through the streets of Manhattan...
...suddenly became slant.
I was on the ramp. I was being engulfed by the monster.
And Philippe said to me: "I know whats going to happen...
...we are going to go in, and were going to get caught."
It was suddenly not a dream any more. It was tangible.
He could no longer carry on living without having at least tried to...
...to conquer those towers because it felt like those towers belonged to him.
It was as if they had been built especially for him.
"Once upon a time..."
Now, thats how you start fairytales, and actually my story is a fairytale.
Here I am, young, 17 years old, with a bad tooth,...
...in one of those uncolourful waiting rooms of a French dentist,...
...and its really lit with a little 40-watt bulb.
And you have old ladies and people, you know,...
...sheepishly looking at magazines, its quiet, and suddenly I freeze.
Because I have opened a newspaper at a page...
...and I see something magnificent, something that inspires me, I see two towers.
And the article says, "One day those towers will be built."
They're not even there yet.
And when they are, they will become the highest in the world.
Now, I need to have that, this little tangible start of my dream,...
...but everybody is watching and... but I need that page.
So what I do is, under the cover of sneeze... Aaah!
I tear the page, put it under my jacket and go out.
Now, of course, I would have a toothache for a week,...
...but whats the pain, in comparison that now I have acquired my dream?
Usually, when you have a dream, the object of your dream is tangible.
Its there. Its... its quixotic,...
...but its there, nagging you, you know, confronting you.
But the object of my dream doesnt exist yet.
I was twenty years old.
And I was a painfully shy young girl.
I was very surprised by this individual...
...and even more surprised when he began to chase me relentlessly,...
...having just met me.
He would bring me flowers, arrange little dates,...
...send me love letters.
I was completely overwhelmed,...
...bowled over, harpooned, that's what it was.
He introduced me to his wire.
A wire set up at the end of a garden.
I would spend hours watching him walk.
He wasn't that experienced at the time.
He was just beginning his life as a tightrope walker.
We became inseparable.
In fact my life was completely consumed by his.
And he never thought to ask me whether I had my own destiny to follow.
It was quite clear I had to follow his.
Annie, who knows me better than everybody,...
...Annie, who was at my side during my discovery of the wire,...
...whose large, green eyes move me.
When we embrace, we look like two kids...
...plotting our next piece of mischief.
I started as a young, self-taught wirewalker, To dream of... not so much conquering the universe,...
...but as a poet conquering beautiful stages.
One day he said,...
"I really would like to put a wire on Notre Dame."
At first I thought it was a joke, but in the meantime, I knew...
I knew that there was something a little bit real about it,...
...and then we started to talk more and more about it.
And then we started to plan it.
It took about a year to find the right way to do it.
Jean-Louis had told me right away that it was illegal.
Jean-Francois Accomplice So I knew it was illegal, but of course that's what got me a bit excited!
Against the law, but not wicked or mean.
It was wonderful!
Notre Dame Cathedral Paris, June 1971 Can you imagine, you wake up in the morning in the city...
...and all of a sudden you see a high-wirewalker between... Notre Dame? lts a dream.
Thats what really attracts me. lts the challenge of doing something thats supposed to be impossible.
And, in the meantime, doing something thats so beautiful...
...that not only doesnt hurt anybody, but gives something to somebody.
Then Philippe appeared on the wire.
It was amazing.
I went inside, all excited,...
...and I leant over the nave and saw that a huge ceremony was taking place in Notre Dame.
There were a dozen or so priests dressed all in white, arm crossed.
They were lying on the floor, their heads against the floor.
I was staggered, dumbstruck.
The organist asked me: "What are you doing here?"
I said to him: "There's a wirewalker up there on the towers!"
This gentleman looked at me with an expression of wonder...
...and he said; "Oh, really! A wirewalker!
How amazing!"
South Tower 3.58pm We drove the van inside.
We got through the first security barrier.
We presented the company documents and the fake invoices.
Everything was quite carefully planned.
And now we were horizontal again,...
...we were driving in the subterranean garage of the two towers.
And we were going. I knew the plan. Ha ha!
We were going to the freight elevator of the South Tower.
It was... the whole plan was in the making.
North Tower 4.25pm The basic plan was very simple.
We had ID cards, so it was just a matter of kind of pushing our way through.
Once wed gotten in the buildings... it was pretty smooth sailing.
The time had come for us to part.
There was a real madness in his eyes, a real rage.
It was truly: " I'm going to do this, no matter what, now is the time".
And he held me in his arms as if we would never see each other again.
If I die, what a beautiful death.
To die in the... in the exercise of your passion.
Sydney, Australia June 1973
We broke into the Sydney Harbour Bridge pylon one night,...
...carried all this equipment in, put a tightrope up,...
...disappeared in the morning and then sat down on the street
...and watched Philippe walk backwards and forwards.
The fact that the wirewalking activity is framed by death,...
...its great because then you have to take it very seriously. lts a little half a millimetre of mistake...
...or a quarter of a second of inattention, and you lose your life.
This is the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the traffic was backed up.
The police came, of course, within minutes.
When he was taken away,...
...the first thing he did was he picked the policemans watch.
Philippe manages to take the guys watch off his wrist...
...and hide it in his pocket!
These Twin Towers are trotting in my head.
You know, Im galloping in my brain.
As Im back to Paris, slap in the face.
"Paris Match", double page, "The Twin Towers are built."
But right now the picture tells me that those beams are not still covered.
The things are not painted. I see workers.
I imagine maybe for a few more months, or a year, who knows?
Its in construction and I can sneak in.
One day he showed me a photo of two buildings in a magazine.
And then I was a bit frightened.
It was inhuman to want to go and walk up there, 450 meters high.
This was all becoming demonic. I just wanted to say: "Stop!"
Barry Greenhouse "The Inside Man"
The plan was for me to bring all my equipment to the 82nd floor,...
...which was Barrys hiding place.
There was one in each tower, the same floor.
And to put all the equipment there, using the freight elevator,...
...saying, "Delivery for 82nd floor." And Barry will be there to receive, OK.
At the time, I was an Assistant Director of Research...
...at The New York State Insurance Department.
Wed just moved in, and I was on what was then...
...the highest occupied floor in Two World Trade Center.
I knew there was gonna be a team in each tower...
...and that the stuff was gonna be delivered to me.
Then it was gonna be carried up... wouldve been 28 floors.
The operator of the freight elevator had not completely heard the foreman...
...shouting, "82nd floor!"
And it was clearly on our delivery bill and on all the package.
He asked to the group, "What floor again?"
Right there, I think, this is it, and I said clearly, "104!"
"OK, whatever. Watch your hands," and cling, the gate clanked shut.
Now we are in a plywood box, in a temporary freight elevator,...
...going all the way up,...
...and its dark, its a... its a travel towards heaven.
And the darkness becomes grey,...
...and I see a square of grey that becomes lighter.
I see a square of light. It is the sky.
Were getting there and were arriving just a few floors below the roof...
...with all our equipment.
Annie came to my office and told me that they had,...
...by a great stroke of fortune,...
...gotten on the freight elevator and saved themselves 20 floors of carrying up all that equipment.
Now, I find myself in a deserted floor, 104,...
...and the first thing we do is unpack and take equipment out.
Suddenly, I hear a guard coming.
I just look and I see over there a tarp.
So I just grab Jean-François and I throw him underneath,...
...and I hear Jean-François yell, "Argh!"
This beam was over the elevator shaft that had a drop of 400 meters.
"What? Were going under it?" Yeah, we had to hide under a tarp.
Donald starts saying, "Hold on my leg, hold on this, where can I go?"
And I kind of like... right on the spur of the moment said, "You know what, man? I cant do this."
And hes like, "OK, go ahead."
"Go quick!" I think, who was the more happy, Donald or I? Anyway, bye-bye, Donald!
Unbridled glee.
Im so happy to not have to do this.
Im running down the stairs, 110 flights. lts like those dreams where you never touch down.
Itwas so beautiful.
So here we are under the tarp, frozen to death.
I dont have to mumble to Jean-François, "Dont move."
He feels it in our body... connection.
And now the guard comes. Has he seen us?
Has he heard us? Has he seen the tarp move?
But the guard comes and leans against the structure,...
...and he seems to be a foot away.
I hear the cracking of his walkie-talkie, and I hear he takes a cigarette.
The sound close-up now of the lighter and of his first puff,...
...the burning of the extremity of the cigarette and the...
He seems to be almost leaning on my ear.
So, we are, I mean, frozen. We dont breathe.
We wait for 6, 6:30.
So we start to climb.
We saw nobody in the stairway, nobody underneath the roof.
Seems pretty safe.
All of a sudden, we hear somebody coming from the stairway.
So, we are scared like hell.
So we run to the hiding place and we jump in the hiding place.
We hear some steps. We hear the walkie-talkie noise.
And the noises were very confusing.
Sometimes, you dont hear the guy for 10 minutes.
So, you think hes gone. All of a sudden you hear...
You hear him coughing or you hear a talkie-walkie noise,...
...like hes right next to the hiding place, so we could not talk.
We started to write little notes.
We kept saying, "Do you think now Yeah? Lets wait longer."
It was uncomfortable, but... you know Once you understand you dont have a choice, you try to settle in and just wait.
At that point, were in suits. In business suits.
Being in a business suit with heavy equipment,...
...hiding behind a pile of boxes, I mean, there is no explanation. lf we were caught at that time, that was it.
What if the guard is still around, toying with us, waiting for us to make the slightest movement before he pounces on us?
We must wait.
To ease the torment, I return to my memories.
The gold and mud, years of dreaming,...
...months of organising.
I dive back into the past for a long while.
That it will indeed serve the purposes intended and that it will truly promote not only harmony between the states, but harmony and communication between the nations of the world.
Itwas in January of 1974.
I climbed on the roof of my little house and screamed, "Im coming to America!"
And the minute I got out of the subway, climbing the steps, looking at them, I knew that they were no dream.
I knew that it was... My dream was destroyed instantly.
Impossible. Impossible. Impossible. Its clearly impossible.
Not only to walk across this high, I probably hardly thought of it, but to bring almost like a ton of equipment secretly, to rig a wire for hours, to guy-line it, its clearly out of human scale.
But something in me pulls me toward touching it.
Jim Moore Thats when he spoke to me about his project.
He said, "Well, I want to string a wire between the two World Trade Center Towers."
I said, "OK, sounds wild."
I mean, Id never met a high-wirewalker before, so I had no idea what... nor did I even entertain the idea at the time of what the consequences of anything happening would be.
It just sounded like a really fun adventure to get involved in.
So I took it upon myself to say, "Sure, lets... lets work on it."
The first occasion we went up in the elevator, we took the elevator to the 86th floor.
When we got off, there was a guard there.
He said, "What are you doing here?" So, obviously, we couldnt continue.
So we took the elevator back down and then realised, "Well, lets just walk up."
Then we proceeded to climb up the 110 flights to the top.
We are at the top of the world.
I see two slabs of concrete, barely inhabited, with some construction.
No fence, no net, no nothing, and... and I am frozen to death.
I see the other tower and I... I imagine the void.
And if I were to run... on the slab, I will just fall to another life.
And slowly I thought, "OK, its impossible. Thats sure. So lets start working."
We took pictures of all these things, thinking, "Perhaps thats where the cable might be tied, or may be a cable we could use."
He wasnt sure how he was gonna rig it at that particular time.
I decided in the staircase to draw a little fresco,...
...as if I needed some tangible proof...
...to show me that I was going through different steps...
...and approaching the impossible of actually finding myself on that wire.
I even rented a helicopter at some point,...
...and Jim was with me taking pictures of the roof, of the equipment there,...
...for making a model, for measuring.
But I also wanted a little bit to see if it was possible.
He wanted to get higher than where he was gonna be when he walked on the wire.
It was a way of tricking his mind into not feeling fear by being higher than where he was gonna be when he actually did the walk.
One day I received a postcard with a "W - World Trade Center".
I never heard about the WTC at that time, and he had drawn a little wire on top of the towers.
I thought, "Of course, thats why these towers are there: for Philippe!"
So, now I go back to France.
The minute I arrive, I didnt even go home.
I run to Jean-Louis, my old friend, and I said, "I have a new idea."
This, we knew that legally we could not do it.
I mean, nobody knew... knew Philippe Petit.
Nobody knew us, you go there and you ask, "Can I put a wire on top of the World Trade Center?" Theyd say, "Get out."
So I tried to get information from Philippe.
"So you have been there, "you told me you have been ten times on the top, but what did you get as...
"... what do we have as information?"
"But I have pictures, look, and we can put the wire...
"... I dont know where to put it but well find out with the pictures."
This is the best.
A minute ago you said the whole place was swarming with cops.
This is what they'll make you do when you're prison.
They'll make you clean the windows in all the tall towers.
I started to do... er... a little recap in my head,...
...and I found out we had nothing.
Hes not driven by the impetuous feeling of dancing between the towers.
He is driven by, "Im gonna help Philippe. I dont want to help him to k*ll himself.
"I dont want to be caught there, and we want to succeed, we dont want to fail."
So for plenty of reasons that are actually noble and understandable, he becomes almost the... We fight a lot on... on...
"You dont have enough elements, Philippe, to build up a serious plan."
So now I go back and this is the second visit to America.
Now I spend my time spying on the Twin Towers.
With all my might. I go day and night.
I note things and fill the exercise books with all those notes and little doodlings, ...and I look at what commercial vehicles go underneath for freight delivery.
I go in. I find a way at lunch time to disguise myself.
The workers seem to arrive in normal cars...
At some point, I am so much into taking notes as a spy around the Towers, I dont see its a construction site, I dont see one nail sticking out of one plank.
So, right there, the big nail goes through my sole. Three days in bed.
So, here I am with crutches. Thinking I am incapacitated.
No, no, no, no. Its the opposite.
Its wonderful, a human being with crutches. The Universe is his!
The guards, you know, help me, "Can I help you? Let me hold the door."
People, you know, "Sit down, take your time." Nobody asks me for an ID, ...nobody says, "What are you doing here?" I... I have this fabulous...
So then now, even though my foot is about to be repaired,...
...I use the crutches a lot. OK?
And sometimes you would see the man leaving his crutches and running around...
...to measure something and coming back and being with crutches!
One time we went up there, it was very, very windy,...
...and I... I actually wasnt sure why we were going up there.
I barely had the courage to get out of my little trap door,...
...and Jim, hanging on, I dont know how, managed to take a picture of me hanging on to a post...
...at the very roof of the tower, with my body almost horizontally.
The wind was blowing me away.
So, what if...? Very scary.
That was may be one of the first times I realised how crazy it was up there...
...with that kind of condition and the height and what we were involved in.
What happens if Im up there and I rig it and something happens?
I started thinking about those things and when we got closer to the actual event, I basically said, "No, I cant... I cant help you rig.
"I cant be part of that team that goes to the top."
South Tower 8. 10pm Here we are,...
...underneath the top of the World Trade Center, under a tarp.
Each time we would hear a noise, it was very hard to tell...
...if it was a cardboard board flapping in the wind...
...or a guard coming, or a walkie-talkie.
I drilled a little hole with a paperclip, and I enlarged this hole in the canvas with a conical end of a ball-point pen.
And then with one eye I was able to see a little bit of the ambient light...
...going onto the figure of my watch.
What time is it? Is it dark outside?
Oh, I heard noise, lets try to go out of the tarp.
His foot was up my nose...
...and my foot was stuck between his arms,...
...we were completely entwined.
I guess you could say we really got to know each other.
I've rarely known a man that way before!
We kept hearing more and more noise from the roof. Like voices, like machines.
North Tower 9.38pm Sometimes, far away. Sometimes, very close.
But really like somebody was walking on the roof.
Gee, if they are working at night,...
...we are stuck, I mean, there is no chance the coup will happen.
The longer we waited and the longer we hid,...
...the less time wed have to do what we had to do to get up there.
There was tension. I thought that we were both out of our element.
That neither of us really should have been there.
There is something that I dont trust in this guy.
Hes not deeply concerned by anything. Why is he here?
Mark "The Australian"
When I finished university I flew to Paris and I caught up with Philippe,...
...and he showed me this extraordinary sort of diagram
...and this photograph of this building that was being constructed in New York.
This is a big one now. And the wire, a big one.
You know, I looked at this huge tower or towers, and Philippe was just so enthusiastic about doing this.
So, er... I became, I guess, one of the first members of the team.
I intend on a giant meadow, its a giant, giant field, to reproduce, not two roofs of the World Trade Center, I dont have the money for that, but just the outline and practise!
He wanted to set up a wire to correspond exactly to the distance between the two towers.
And to practice on it a much as he could.
Even if I miss, it doesnt matter.
We had, I guess, a little bit of a boot camp or a training camp.
Essentially we spent time there conceiving, er... designing, trying to work out how to make this thing work from every aspect.
Someone had spoken to him about the elasticity of the building and the fact that the wind could cause the towers to sway.
So there was a moment of great concern.
So I asked my friends to make the cable dance.
And here is Mark the Australian, here is Jean-Louis, Annie.
We would jump up and down on these wires.
Wed try and bounce Philippe off of the wire.
The World Trade Center was extraordinary, because it was 200 feet between the towers, so how do you get a tightrope from one tower to the other?
Look what you will see. Like that? Ha ha!
We have to find a way to throw something, then you can pull a little string and then a bigger string and then a rope, and then eventually the wire.
At some point, I mean, I thought even of a little airplane, radio guided.
Football and baseball, we have to learn how to play baseball for two months before we can do that. No, no, no.
At some point, Jean-Louis came up with a really silly idea.
I dont even let him finish his sentence, he says, "Philippe, what about a bow and arrrr...?"
We drilled a very small hole in the... in the end of an arrow, and we attached a monofilament or a fishing line wire to the arrow.
The whole idea would be that Jean-Louis would, you know, send the arrow from one building to another.
Then, of course, whenever we tried it... it just didnt work.
Its pretty useless. Make a proper one.
ln the end we designed a spool that had a conical shape on it, so that the monofilament would unravel and go very freely through the air.
Great! Hey, just right. Exactly!
As a child I loved to climb everywhere.
Ill let the psychiatrist decide why. Maybe I wanted to escape my time.
Maybe I wanted to see the world from a different perspective and I was an explorer at heart.
Who knows and who cares, but I was a little climber, and nobody, not my parents, not the teachers, nobody could stop me.
I heard about wirewalkers, described to me as magnificent men and women walking in thin air.
And I thought, "Well, thats nothing. With my ropes, I do that."
Oh, shit! If only I could control it. Only a few steps are going to be nice.
There was always and still is, this 'bad boy' side to Philippe's character.
He had a very strict upbringing.
And he would never have strayed too far down that illegal road.
But he got great pleasure from taking certain 'liberties'.
He's so excessive, so creative, ...so each day is like a work of art for him.
What excited him most about this adventure...
...aside from being a beautiful show...
...was that it was like a bank robbery.
And that pleased him enormously.
Ah, no. Cos its not...
Gradually things began to get more serious because a proper plan had to be worked out.
And then the arguments between Jean-Louis and Philippe...
...really got started.
Mark said, "lf... somebody opened the door in the stairs
"and see a very serious man, dark, taking big... this is no good."
Now listen, now listen. In the stairway, we can be discovered by anyone,...
...now, so we have to be a combination of a workman and an office man.
I think this is perfect. This is perfect. And this is no good.
Ok, so we get through the main gate, however we decide to do it.
The trick is going to be on the top floor, coming out of the elevator.
It is better to be dressed as office workers.
No! As workers... Wait! Let me finish!
It was almost impossible to imagine them...
...getting into the tower undetected.
They didn't even know how they were going to get in.
And I think right from the start, Jean-Louis felt an enormous responsibility.
And he wouldn't let Philippe have it his way,...
...perhaps because he felt that Philippe wasn't being realistic.
No! We're being complete idiots.
Jean-Louis knew I sided with him...
...and Philippe also knew I was taking Jean-Louis' side.
Since long before Vary, Annie has been angling for an invitation to New York,...
...using tenderness, blackmail, threats, insults and tears.
But I need absolute detachment, complete freedom.
I must be a castaway on a desert island of my dreams.
May 13th 1974
Philippe and I travelled to New York together.
I remember looking out through this hazy aeroplane window
...and seeing in the far distance the Twin Towers.
Wed come all of this way, and this was what we were here for.
Metropolis, Frances number one journal of urban planning.
We are preparing a feature profile of the workers...
...who are presently constructing the World Trade Center in New York.
Our credentialed reporter, Philippe Petit, kindly requests your co-operation for this article.
He told me he was a French journalist, and it was just not normal for me to say, "Show me your credentials, if you would?"
He was gonna write a story about the World Trade Center for the French newspapers and he had two photographers with him, and I thought that was pretty good publicity.
Do you completely trust the building yourself? ls it safe up there? You mean, tumbling down? No, its safe!
Here was this sort of long-haired Australian and this very volatile Frenchman, who couldnt speak great English, saying we were journalists, and we enlisted Jim Moore and he was the cameraman.
It was, er... it was interesting, because, er... you know Here we are, disguising ourselves as someone who were not and perfectly getting away with it, and it was wonderful.
When you are working and the weather changes, you stop because you cannot work any more?
We start doing a day up here and suddenly the weather gets bad?
We have to finish the day.
So you work on the top in very bad conditions...
And you get a bit scared of that? No, not really.
I remember Jim would act like he was taking a photograph of a worker, then hed put the camera down and take a photograph of a pylon or an anchor point or something like that.
The towers were not corners facing corners.
They were askew, which was a problem for me to decide where to put my wire.
So in principle, thats a cable across the two roofs.
I decided to attach the cable to what I believe was the strongest beam at the top of the roof, and then Im going to tie the wire to here, on the South Tower.
A cable between two buildings of very long length, it sways.
It goes up and down, and there is almost an invisible move which is a torsion on itself.
So, what we devised is a... its called a cavaletti in the circus parlance.
Its actually a guy-line that is perpendicular to the axis of the wire and it goes down to the ground.
Even with permission, we couldnt go a quarter of a mile to the ground.
Plus I needed a pair. Heres one and heres two.
We know they cannot go down.
So the solution was asymmetric rigging.
Which is like this. Heres the first attachment.
Each cavaletti had two legs, a short one and a long one.
So, this is what I decided was the best for the situation.
And now I am preparing for le coup May 28th 1974 We are going to do it.
I arrived Saturday and the coup was due on Monday.
He is more and more ready for the coup, but the coup itself is not ready.
And I was very frustrated about that.
I knew we had to act quickly and I knew we had nothing.
Jean-Louis wants to know. "Have you done what I asked you to do?
"What do I say when the guard...?" And I dont satisfy him with my answer.
So he att*cks my non-preparations, when actually I feel that I have prepared immensely.
I think the longer we were there, the longer I was cognisant that...
... it was a very ambitious pursuit, what we were doing.
We just werent ready.
...more suede, we must put the screw...
I never doubted Philippes talent, his prowess on the wire.
Itwas the unforeseen things that really worried me.
...if I need the cavalettis or not...
You know, Americas a very litigious society.
You know, involuntary manslaughter, assisted su1c1de.
...a little bit. Then we put everything down.
I didnt want to be liable for the death of a friend.
We could clearly see that we were not ready.
Everybody could see it but Philippe, and at the time I gave up.
Obviously, with the Australian not there, obviously the whole thing is a total débâcle.
I told him, "Philippe, what do you think now
"lts May 30th, were supposed to go to do the coup today.
"Do you think we can do it like that?"
And he said no.
He said, "No, its clear that its impossible."
I said, "No, its not impossible. It is possible, we are very close to it."
If you want something, nothing is impossible.
He kept repeating, "Ill be back. Well prepare it and well do it."
The first attempt had failed.
He called me and asked me to come over immediately.
Of course my role was to support and encourage him.
It was always a matter of trying to understand what was going on in his head and of encouraging him.
That was my job and it was really exhausting.
He would spend the night watching television.
He only ever watched detective movies, bank robberies, stories about cops and robbers.
I'm convinced he was getting in shape with this.
He was looking for the strength,...
...so he could break into these towers.
So he went back, again and again,...
...to the World Trade Center, to the main entrance hall.
And Philippe observed very carefully...
...how people went in, showing their passes, etc.
I saw him in the lobby.
It was just somebody that didnt belong there,...
...like someone who had come out... It was just... it was just er...
...a wrong juxtaposition. It just was very, very odd.
"Philippe, its wonderful to see you."
And his name is Barry. He has seen me street-juggling in Paris.
He started talking and telling me all this wirewalking that he did.
I think I said at some point, "If youre thinking of doing the World Trade Center, forget it."
But he sort of draws you in to his world.
And I guess I was the kind of guy who was not averse to doing things that were slightly er...
...you know not... not totally legal.
Barry called and said, "Philippe, sorry to tell you, "but the security around the World Trade Center has changed, "and now we all are forced to carry an ID.
"But I happen to have mine freshly unsealed from the envelope.
"It wont be too much trouble to abandon it in your hands for a few hours."
He did this incredibly artistic, perfect job of copying it and getting an ID card with his own picture on it.
David aka "Donald" Rock Singer One day he called me and said, "Ive found two or three American guys.
"They are crazy, they are great and they are ready to help."
I meet two American young men, Donald and Chester.
We met with Petit and I had a friend named Alan Welner who I went to high school with.
He was always up for an adventure. Always.
I think Petit knew also that this guy was a quality guy.
Alan aka "Albert" Quality Guy Certainly smart. Certainly aware of himself and knowing his limits.
The ideal accomplice.
He was pitching it. He was presenting it.
He was desperately sort of proposing it in a way that you would, you know, sell a time share or something.
I knew he was a nut or a con man or something, but he seemed harmless enough.
I didnt really take it seriously at that point.
I need to practise a little bit on the wire, and I need mostly to show my two, three American friends how to hook the cable, how to help Jean-Louis.
Thats when I saw him on a cable.
I had never seen concentration like that.
And I think I never have to this day.
And his face became this... ageless mask of concentration.
I mean, he became like a sphinx. It was amazing.
He did it beautifully and calmly.
He just did it in fact, literally with his eyes closed.
Itwas just what he does. Everything he told me was true.
I was really very worried.
The team included people who were totally unreliable.
I dont remember right now when we fixed the date, but we had fixed the date for August 7th.
Jean-Louis reminded me about Notre Dame, said it would be the same kind of thing, the same adventure, but this time in New York at the World Trade Center.
He didn't tell me much more, just asked whether I wanted to come or not.
Jean-Louis arrives and I go and pick him up at the airport.
Hes with Jean-François, whom of course I remember.
Hes an adorable, little apparition and hes all smiles.
He doesnt have any questions. He will just follow. Hes here to help.
When we arrived in New York on the Boston train, at one point we went past the Empire State Building.
At that moment I looked up, I saw the height of the Empire State Building and I was horrified.
My legs started to shake, it was terrifying!
Especially when I realised the World Trade Center was even higher.
I kept it all to myself, but I was terrified.
♪ When I was a boy
♪ I dreamed of Phillip Marlowe...
When Jean-Louis came back, the tension rose enormously.
It became unbearable.
The problem was the team.
♪... gave me shotgun fever... ♪ I met the first two guys.
One of them was a musician, the other one, I think, was a carpenter.
They really looked liked losers. I mean, Im sorry but...
When I saw these guys, I thought, "Oh, my God!"
The very night before the coup, they arrived at the apartment in a deplorable state.
One of them was stoned.
He was completely gone, lost in a haze of smoke.
Jean-Louis was absolutely dismayed. So was Philippe.
It was likely I probably had been smoking pot.
Yeah, likely as all hell.
I smoked pot every day for 35 years.
Theres no reason to think I didnt smoke that day.
When Jean-Louis meets Albert, he has a little intuition, I can read it in Jean-Louis face. He doesnt trust Albert.
You know you have this feeling with people.
Sometimes its wrong, but you cant help it anyway.
We shook hands, said hello.
They didnt speak English, I spoke no French.
So, there wasnt too much to say.
Just, "Nice to meet you, good luck, lets do what we have to do."
11.08pm, August 6th
When I felt that the whole floor finally was silent and the darkness was there, I ventured out.
Imagine staying three hours on a beam, you cannot walk. You need re-education.
A normal human being staying completely unmoving on a beam for three hours cannot walk.
After a while I said, "We cannot wait any more."
I told Albert, "You know what? You should go, "because if I go, if Im caught, there is no way we can do the rigging.
"Im the only one who knows about Philippes habit and how to do it."
So he goes on the top and comes back five minutes later.
Im sure I just said, "OK, lets go. Lets just get this done".
So he said, "Great, we dont know what this noise comes from, but lets go."
And now we moved and we go for the most important equipment.
I mean a wirewalker needs a cable to walk on.
Now we are walking toward a tiny little construction staircase, very narrow, and hes in front and I am in the back.
I see a nightmare: a policeman.
And the policeman has his eyes open and hes looking at me!
There was someone there that we hadn't expected, sitting at a desk with a little light.
I decide to hold him. But hold on, he is pushing me.
The same way I am holding him, the same way he is pushing me.
What is happening?
There is no way I can get Jean-François to turn around.
So, lets play his game. Lets follow.
We were very silent, because we didnt have shoes on.
When we arrived on the top, I whispered, "Did you see the guard?"
He said, "Of course I saw the guard, and I was trying to alert you by pushing you.
"But why did you resist?"
I said, "I was trying to resist, to have you turn around and for me to explain..."
I remember the vastness of New York! The altitude!
The Statue of Liberty, the UN building, all looking so tiny.
It was magnificent.
And the sounds as well, the police sirens all night long.
It was all so alive!
And we were kings!
The most beautiful moment is when I see a shape,...
...actually, two silhouettes on the other tower.
I recognise immediately in the darkness, it is the silhouette of Jean-Louis and the silhouette of Albert. They made it!
When I saw them on the roof, I was so happy.
And the impression I got, I remember that all the time, you go on the roof, its all dark and there is this red light for the planes, you know, thats turning, and thats like a... like a metronome, giving you an idea of time going by.
There was peace and immensity, and I... I...
In the middle of all this madness, I suddenly had hope and joy.
So I put, like a bat, actually...
I put Jean-François, upside down in that little staircase opening.
Just his head showing.
So imagine what the guard must have seen if he were awake.
He would have seen a human beings head, looking at him upside down!
First thing I did, I prepared my bow.
Prepare the arrow and prepare the fishing line and wait for them.
So, there was this signal for Jean-Louis to say, "I am ready to sh**t."
And there was a signal for me to say, "I saw your signal. I am ready."
And Im going to count till ten and then he will sh**t.
But there were no signal for "I am not ready".
I hadnt thought of that and I was not ready.
Finally, they... they give the big signal. "I am ready."
I have been waiting for so long, that when he finally... gives a signal, instinctively, I took the... the bow, I aim and I aim at him.
And he was almost at the edge of the... of the building.
I go hunting for the arrow.
Nothing!
Out of frustration, I take all my clothes off, and I think that, the line, I will feel... the line on my naked... skin.
With a defeated heart, I climb down to the edge, and I feel a dancing fishing line caressing my thigh.
The arrow was actually balancing... precariously on the very edge of the buildings corner.
A little... ...a little blow, and it was breezy, would have simply made it fall.
The first thing we did after a few ordinaires, a few little ropes getting bigger and bigger and stronger, was to bring a burlap bag.
And this bag was carrying the very important item of the communication, the interphone.
A little tinny toy intercom is connected.
And we hear Philippes voice on the other end.
And that was an important moment.
Now the four of us are together, the work is truly going to begin.
The guard leaves, Jean-François hardly can talk, his head has been upside down for so long.
But we go back, we rush, we get our shoes.
And now we bring the equipment like mad people, and I put a little trap in the staircase.
And that will be like an alarm clock, "Ah, somebodys getting on your roof."
By that time, everything was perfect. I mean, it was not even midnight.
Itwas... normal rigging, that means within three hours everything wouldve been perfect.
Now we are ready to pull the wire. Philippe has a wire ready.
The nylon rope is... in our hand. We are ready.
At some point, I gave probably too much cable.
And all of a sudden, I see the wire going... a tremendous noise.
I thought, "My God, whats going on?"
We almost lost the wire.
So I called Philippe, "Whats going on?" He said, "Yeah, we could not hold it."
Which was... very unfortunate.
The fact that I didnt speak French, so I couldnt hear the details of what was going wrong, was probably just as well.
So we had to pull... er... probably more than 100 metres of wire plus rope.
I dont remember how much we gained with each attempt.
Maybe we worked hard for one minute, two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, and got a tiny bit of this endless cable up there.
Within, I dont know, half an hour it became almost impossible.
Here we are in big trouble.
Somebody is coming on the roof.
Jean-François hears also, and he hides immediately.
And I see him, hes like a dead animal.
As a child, have you ever played hide-and-seek in a park and taken refuge behind a giant tree trunk?
And a policeman comes to the roof.
And then your companion comes. Circles the trunk, he walks, you walk.
He stops, you stop.
The man starts turning around this obstacle in the centre of my tower, and I turn around on the side diametrically opposed.
This little pas de deux could go on forever, until one of you turn around and bump into each other.
Well, this is exactly what happened.
He turns, I turn. He stops, I stop. He goes on, I go on.
Now, of course, if he would have turned around, oops!
Hide-and-seek.
4.48am, August 7th
Albert was starting to... to give up, to argue, to say, "No, I dont want to do this any more. Its not possible. We are not going to do it."
It was clear we werent going to get this job done, but there was no arguing with him.
There was just... you know It was useless.
He was just going to go ahead, regardless. lts impossible, impossible that he thought we were going to be able to rig this before daylight.
Imagine being... after these months of preparation, these months of all that, and finally being on the roof, on the roof and having to stop because the wire is like that.
I mean... phew!
At dawn, I assumed, "Well, the jig is up," you know We... we did the best, and now, you know, lets get outta here.
The streets were deserted.
I found a taxi willing to take me there.
So I waited with the others.
Other members of the team joined us.
And our eyes were absolutely glued to the towers.
I was looking out for the slightest movement, but we couldn't see a thing.
It was absolutely terrifying.
Itwas a misty day, and I thought, "Eegh, that sucks."
And it wasnt windless either. There was a little bit of air that morning.
And you could see when the, erm... when the cable was up there, and it looked very, very slack.
I pulled like crazy, like crazy, like crazy.
Finally, I got the wire.
For some reason, the last metre was the one that came the easiest.
Despite the abandon of... of his co-accomplice, Jean-Louis has his last communication almost, "Philippe, I did it, I did it. Ive got two clamps. We did it, the cable is anchored!"
All of a sudden we see this black spot coming down off the top of the towers,...
...and we didnt know what the hell it was, like, "Oh, my God, what is that?"
Suddenly we saw something, a shape,...
...just for a second, falling down.
I saw this thing falling down,...
...and... I couldnt believe it.
And I said to myself, "Thats it, youve been fooling yourself this whole time.
"He went straight down with the first step off the roof. He might be dead."
There was a huge cry of relief...
...it was only a piece of clothing.
We all thought: " He must have just dropped something, that's ok."
We all thought: "Of course it's possible he could fall."
On the top of... Philippes roof, there was a big wheel of the... the machines.
So as soon as the elevator would move, we would see the wheel starting to... to turn.
I scream, "La roue, la roue!" to Jean-François. "The wheel, the wheel!"
Because I see the giant wheel starting in motion,...
...and I know my fate has been written now, time is no longer smiling at me.
At that time I was really worried. I think, the first time I was really scared.
"Oh, my God, hes exhausted, like I am..."
Maybe not as much, but for what he has to do... Its really not a good thing.
The wire is the worst wire we ever... did,...
...and... er... I was really scared.
We all thought it, but we didn't believe it.
We thought it, but we didn't believe it.
And I had to make a decision
...of shifting my weight from one foot anchored to the building...
...to the foot anchored on the wire.
This is probably... I dont know... probably the end of my life to step on that wire.
And on the other hand, something that I could not resist...
...and I didnt make any effort to resist, called me upon that cable.
And death is very close.
I start walking as a wirewalker who is studying his cable.
And instead of doing an entire study for the whole length,...
...seeing the first cavalettiand keep walking,...
...seeing the middle which is so soft and treacherous,...
...seeing the second cavaletti how it is...
No, I do only go to the first cavaletti and I know enough!
Now Im going to perform.
I saw his face changing. He was very tense.
And all of a sudden there was something... like a relief in him.
And from that time I thought, "Thats it. He is secure. Its good.
"And wow, thats..."
I saw Philippe.
I saw Philippe up there, it was extraordinary.
It was so, so beautiful.
It was like he was walking on a cloud.
And there were such amazing moments.
When he lay down...
...we were thrilled by this image of Philippe lying down up above.
And another very powerful moment was when he...
It was so beautiful.
When he knelt down.
There was a moment when he knelt down and saluted.
I cried out: " Look! Look!"
People started gathering, but they couldn't see.
They asked me: "What is it? What do you see?"
I said: " Look, a wirewalker! He's walking!"
I sat down on the wire on one crossing,...
...and I did something that amazed people.
I actually looked all the way down, to look at something that I will never in my life see again.
So I can tell you, probably its a lie, but to me its not, I heard the crowd. I saw the crowd. I heard them murmur.
Beyond anything you could ever imagine.
Its just... mind-boggling.
The awe of the event...
...and the overwhelming largeness of the scale of the situation...
...took my mind into a place where I really wasnt that concerned about him.
It just... it was... magical. It was just... it was just profound.
Officer Meyers and I observed the... er...
...tightrope dancer, because you couldnt call him a walker, approximately halfway between the two towers.
And upon seeing us, he started to smile and laugh.
They dont know how to react to a daydreaming wirewalker...
...lying down and dialoguing with a seagull, so they were really mad.
Philippe did provoke them, naturally,...
...because that's what he does, that's his character!
He would come close to the guards or the police,...
...who were trying to grab him,...
...then he would turn around and be out of their reach,...
...because they weren't about to get on the wire!
When he got to the building, we asked him to get off the high wire,...
...but instead he turned around and ran back out into the middle.
Everybody was spellbound in the watching of it.
When we observed that he wasnt about to come in...
...because he seemed to be enjoying it so much,...
...we mentioned the fact to his associate that if he did not come in...
...we would have a helicopter pluck him up off the wire.
At which time his associate...
...spoke to him in French, being that hes a Frenchman.
"Philippe!" you know And he said, "The police are going to dislodge you and you should stop."
And I was... I was... I was madly enraged by that, but also it saved my life.
There is somebody out there on a tightrope walk...
...between the two towers of the World Trade Center, right at the tippy-top!
I personally figured I was watching something that somebody else would never see again in the world.
I thought it was once in a lifetime.
I had no reason to stay on that wire any more, and also I felt... huh!...
...humidity in the air and the wind growing.
My friends later told me, "You spent 45 minutes. You know you did eight crossings?"
They grabbed me and they grounded me,...
...handcuffed... actually hands in the back, I was thrown down the staircase,...
...the most dangerous part of this whole adventure.
I almost broke my head on a narrow staircase that led to the elevator.
We got it from the Port Authority that they took about three days to rig it up.
Id say its about $1000 worth of cable,...
...and the rigging outfit itself, its magnificent the way he did it.
Did he say why he was doing it? No.
Why did you do it? I will explain...
You know, "Why? Why?" And that was a very...
...again in my way of seeing America, a very American finger-snapping question.
I did something magnificent and mysterious, and I got a practical "why".
And the beauty of it is that I didnt have any why.
Why did you do this? Thats the thousandth "why" this morning.
There is no why.
I was then taken for a psychiatric examination by a psychiatrist.
The place was a sort of scientific area...
...where lunatics walk round in circles.
So here we were, surrounded by mad people.
But we weren't mad, we were stars!
I kept asking for water, because I was so dehydrated.
He said, "When was the last time you drank?"
I said, "Are you crazy Youre mad! Do you know what I did?
"I danced at the top of the world! I am on the front pages of all the world!
"300 journalists are waiting to talk to me, and you ask when was the last time I drank?
"You're completely mad!"
So he wrote, "The guy is completely normal. Hes just very thirsty."
Police took a humourless view of the act. They took Petit and a companion into custody.
They finally decided to charge them with trespassing and disorderly conduct...
The District Attorney offered me a deal.
He said, "Philippe, if you agree to do a little show, "like juggling three oranges in front of four kids
"but on camera for the news and all that, then well drop all the charges."
So I said, "Sure."
And now I climbed down the steps of the Palais de Justice.
I saw in the crowd an admirer, she was smiling beautifully.
She came to me and she put her hands on my neck in a loving way, and she amorously said, "Philippe, I would like to be the first person
"to... to welcome you and to celebrate with you.
"Lets... lets... I can follow you anywhere."
So yes, it did end up on a waterbed in a loft somewhere, but I went for a very short little moment of... of... of...
I dont know!...of pleasure of the flesh. How disgusting!
But, but, but I am sorry, how beautiful, too!
I mean, my friends were waiting for me. Annie, my girlfriend...
It was a betrayal of my friends.
I remember, I called and said, "I have many interviews to do, so Ill see you soon."
I had this magnificent expl*si*n of pleasure, lets say it,...
...and then I went back... oh, frightened to death, you know, to my friends, thinking Im a really, really guilty guy.
I saw Philippe discover what it meant to be famous,...
...to be recognized, with expressions of friendliness and enthusiasm.
People would cross the street to tell him: "You gave us such a gift!"
"It was so beautiful!
It was a breath of fresh air... thank you!"
It was extraordinary and I think in Philippe's mind,...
...many things were changing.
I am a celebrity in New York. People say, "Are you the guy who walked between the Twin Towers?"
I say, "Yeah, yeah, its me." "This is incredible!"
Then some people say, "Are you the guy who...?" I say, "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"
Then people say, "Are you the guy...? I say, "Yeah! Yeah! Its me!"
So the judge's sentence was pretty harsh, I thought.
I was expelled from the United States.
There was a love story.
We talked about it on the plane. Jean-François was so happy.
He said, "Well, Im ready for the next time." I said, "No, there will not be any more...
"... any more stories like that."
There was something broken, probably, in this friendship.
It doesnt matter, because...
Well, basically because we did it. And... er... basically...
I mean, you cannot take away what happened.
And er...
Yeah, what happened is that... er...
But it was clear...
...that Philippe had gone through an incredible moment in his life...
...and he was starting something else, a new life.
Strangely, I felt the same way.
Our relationship was meant to end here...
...and it was beautiful that way.
To me, its really... its so simple,...
...that life should be lived on the edge of life.
You have to exercise rebellion.
To refuse to taper yourself to rules, to refuse your own success,...
...to refuse to repeat yourself,...
...to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge,...
...and then you are going to live your life on the tightrope.
Man on Wire (2008)
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