The documentary film Man on Wire (2008), by UK director James Marsh, is about Petit and his 1974 WTC performance. It won both the World Cinema Jury and Audience awards at the Sundance Film Festival 2008. It combines historical footage with re-enactment and has the spirit of a heist film. It won awards at the 2008 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina, and the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2008. On stage with Marsh to accept the Oscar award, Petit made a coin vanish in his hands while thanking the Academy "for believing in magic". He balanced the Oscar by its head on his chin to cheers from the audience. [13] Rosenthal, Adam (1 September 2012). "Suspended Reading: Man on Wire, 9/11 and the Logic of the High-Wire." Screening the Past. Best Cover Contest 2007 Winners & Finalists – ASME". Archived from the original on 20 December 2017 . Retrieved 28 October 2016. Petit has made dozens of public high-wire performances in his career. For example, in 1986 he re-enacted the crossing of the Niagara River by Blondin for an IMAX film. In 1989, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, mayor Jacques Chirac invited him to walk an inclined wire strung from the ground at the Place du Trocadéro to the second level of the Eiffel Tower, crossing the Seine.

Petit became known to New Yorkers in the early 1970s for his frequent tightrope-walking performances and magic shows in the city parks, especially Washington Square Park. Petit's most famous performance was in August 1974, conducted on a wire between the roofs of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, New York City, 400 metres (1,312 feet) above the ground. The towers were still under construction and had not yet been fully occupied. He performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire, during which he walked, danced, lay down on the wire, and saluted watchers from a kneeling position. Office workers, construction crews and policemen cheered him on. spectacular walk– for an audience of 250,000– on an inclined 700-metre (2,300-foot) cable linking the Palais de Chaillot with the second story of the Eiffel Tower, commemorating the French Bicentennial and anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, under Parisian Mayor Jacques Chirac IFPI" (in Slovak). Hitparáda – Singles Digital Top 100 Oficiálna. IFPI Czech Republic. Note: Select SINGLES DIGITAL - TOP 100 and insert 201726 into search. Retrieved July 4, 2017. The song, "Sleepwalking," by Danish composer Ste van Holm is a tribute to Petit's World Trade Center walk. [24]Philippe Petit, To Reach The Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between The Twin Towers, (New York, North Point Press, 2002). ASIN B000UDX0JA, ISBN 0-86547-651-9, OCLC 49351784 IFPI" (in Slovak). Hitparáda – Radio Top 100 Oficiálna. IFPI Czech Republic. Note: insert 201747 into search. Retrieved November 28, 2017. MSA – The Man Who Walked Between The Towers. Co-produced by Michael Sporn Animation and Weston Woods Studios Funambulist", a song by American metal band Cormorant, is about his walk between the Twin Towers. [26]

There was extensive news coverage and public appreciation of Petit's high-wire walk. The district attorney dropped all formal charges of trespassing and other items relating to his walk [9] on condition that Petit give a free aerial show for children in Central Park. On Thursday, 29 August, he performed on a high-wire walk in the park above Belvedere Lake (now known as Turtle Pond). [10] What was called the "artistic crime of the century" took Petit six years' planning. During this period, he learned everything he could about the buildings and their construction. In the same period, he began to perform high-wire walking at other famous places. Rigging his wire secretly, he performed as a combination of circus act and public display. In 1971, he performed his first such walk between the towers of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, [1] while priests were being ordained inside the building. In 1973, he walked a wire rigged between the two north pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. [6] inclined walk, fourteen stories high, for the television talk show the Late Show with David Letterman (performed regularly since 1993) Carolinianweb (June 29, 2017). "Imagine Dragon's "Evolve" – Album Review". The Carolinian . Retrieved June 30, 2017.The song "Man On A Wire" by The Script on their fourth album, No Sound Without Silence, is influenced by Petit's high-wire legacy. The reason why Irene Cramer’s death merits an FBI investigation becomes rapidly clear when key questions surface about her mysterious past. Little is known about this school teacher, where she came from or her true identity. She clearly had something to hide. Petit's World Trade Center stunt was the subject of Sandi Sissel's 1984 half-hour documentary, High Wire, which featured music from Philip Glass's Glassworks. Petit conceived his "coup" when he was 18, when he first read about the proposed construction of the Twin Towers and saw drawings of the project in a magazine he read in 1968 while sitting at a dentist's office. [5] Petit was seized by the idea of performing there, and began collecting articles on the Towers whenever he could. We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.