James Ricketson
Philippe Petit between the twin towers, Aug. 7, 1974.
Just as the house lights went down at the New York premiere of James Marsh's remarkable documentary "Man on Wire" at the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday night, the woman sitting next to me reached into her handbag and pulled out something small, white and wiggling. It was her toy poodle. I'm fairly certain that in two decades as a festivalgoer and four as a filmgoer, I've never sat next to a dog at the movies before. (The old Times Square theaters certainly hosted various forms of animal life, but all on a smaller scale.)
Fifi or Daisy or Nicola, or whatever her name was, was quiet and well-behaved, and she got to see what was probably the most exciting single event of Tribeca's opening weekend. (OK, I skipped the premiere of the Madonna-produced documentary about Malawi, "I Am Because We Are." But give me a break.) "Man on Wire" tells the amazing but true story of French wire-walker Philippe Petit's August 1974 conquest of the World Trade Center, a media sensation in its time and for obvious reasons a haunting memory today. For British-born director Marsh and for Petit, both New Yorkers of long standing, screening this film two or three miles north of a certain well-known hole in the ground was clearly a moment of high emotion.