Man on Wire

"We also gain our ability to have ecstatic experiences of truth through the Sublime, through which we are able to elevate ourselves over nature." (Herzog). The documentary Man on Wire primarily focuses on a man, Phillipe Petit, fabricating a reality that was once merely a dream. Herzog speaks on how fiction is so captivating based on impossibilities being implicated into a sense of reality. Upon watching this documentary, Petit's and his team's actions are so outrageous that they almost seem false. But Petit is so determined to follow his passion that he turns an impossible dream into his reality. Petit's reality was difficult for others to grasp at different times throughout his journey. His teammates had concerns for his safety and had doubts of his ability to fulfill his dream without the cost of death. Then, when he was on the wire, spectators were unable to understand what they were looking at when Petit's then girlfriend starts pointing him out in the sky. Like in Allegory of the Cave, these spectators are blind to certain truths or to things they have never experienced and have difficulty figuring out what is happening when a Petit starts his walk. Much to Petit's disappointment, many Americans would ask him why he chose to walk between the Twin Towers. He could think of no fathomable reason because, simply put, performing the walk was Petit's reality. He had internal yearnings to follow through with the walk, knowing that his truth was to fulfill his daring feat. With his determination, he practiced and planned out his walk meticulously until the day came to follow through. His passion led him to overcome nature and overcome his fears to create his reality. He overcame seeming impossibilities and showed an exciting and beautiful new reality to the world by overcoming natural and legal forces to accomplish his walk. And by doing so, Petit opened new possibilities for his future, for his new reality. Like those in Plato's cave, most could only imagine the reality of doom that would overcome Petit if he attempted his walk, but Petit was able to see past that and drive his dream forward through passion. So, when others saw him walking across the wire, they would have looked on with disbelief because they could not envision such a reality where a person could overcome something so implausible. And because of this, everyone looked in awe; they were in the midst of an extreme reality in the making.