Under "details of complaint" on the police report, someone had written: Man on wire.

To be technical, that is who Philippe Petit was on Aug. 7, 1974, when he prompted New Yorkers to peer into the misty sky and cry with delight or terror, "Look! Look!" He was walking, dancing and, at one point, kneeling on a steel cable strung between the roofs of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

"It was like he was walking on a cloud," Petit's then-girlfriend says. Even a Port Authority policeman realized he was witnessing history, telling TV crews: "I personally figured I was watching something that somebody else would never see again in the world. Once in a lifetime."

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'Man on Wire'

3 1/2 stars = Very good
Ratings explained

• Rating: PG-13 for some sexuality and nudity and drug references. Some dialogue in French with English subtitles.
• Web site: 'Man on Wire'

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That spectacular stunt, 45 minutes long but years in the making, is chronicled in a documentary called "Man on Wire," opening today at the Manor Theater. Using archival footage, interviews and some dramatic reconstruction, director James Marsh documents this feat of engineering ingenuity, audacity and derring-do.

The sight of the towers, especially with a plane perilously close, recalls the nightmare of 9/11 when the skyscrapers came down in a tumble of terror, fear and anguish. It's bittersweet to watch the buildings going up and hear Petit recall the precise moment his dream to walk across them was born.

Annie Allix, Petit's onetime companion, often best summarizes the scene. "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," she says.

In fact, Marsh structures the 94-minute film like a heist movie, introducing the main players and oddball cast of supporting characters, detailing the "boot camp" in France, how the crew cased the joint, the ruses they used to gain access and information, the serendipitous ways they avoided apprehension and how their calculations paid off.

As usual, you couldn't make this stuff up, because no one would believe it. It's a given that the world was a far different place in 1974, a time before omnipresent security cameras and alarm systems that might have alerted guards to the trespassers.

Some of the reconstruction is a bit hokey, and Marsh leaves many questions about life and alliances after that fateful day unanswered. But he does dissect the "artistic crime of the century," moving beyond Petit's 2002 book called "To Reach the Clouds" and looking at the accomplices to the acrobatic wire walker.

But it's Petit, the natural-born performer and storyteller, who infuses the movie with his enthusiasm and fearlessness. He thought at the time, "If I die, what a beautiful death, to die in the exercise of your passion."

Even better, though, to live and share that passion with moviegoers who weren't alive in 1974 or who were plummeted back to reality the next day when President Nixon announced he would be resigning. Yes, in both cases, the impossible had become the possible.