Interview Sequence Deconstruction

For my interview sequense deconstruction, I have chosen a scene from the documentary "Man on a wire" from 2008. It depicts the Frenchman Philippe Petit in his successful attempt to walk on a wire set up between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, New York City in 1974. In the 25 minutes he spend on the wire he was walking, dancing, kneeling and lying on the wire, while a flock of horrified people watched him from the street level.

The documentary tells a story about friendship, doubt and taking a chance. With Philippe Petit as the main character, we get a look into the childhood and youth of his life and friends, and how he came to walk a line between the World Trade Centre. The documentary is filled with archive footage, pictures and interview sequences, all nicely stitched together.

The sequence I have chosen depicts the day of the wire walking, just before Philippe steps on to the wire. The sequence start at around 1:14:50 into the documentary and end at 1:19:10.
The interview scene with the male characters are filmed in a hard light. This intensify the situation just before Philippe steps on to the wire. The mood in the documentary completly changes, as a light and easy piano piece is playing in the background, while pictures of Philippe walking on the wire are displayed. Calmness takes over the viewer. Philippe describes the process of his wire walking in a mix of voice-overs and interview scenes. 

As the interview continues, the characters show emotion and determination. They way they are framed in a close shot enables the characters to show both emotions and gesticulation. The framing creates intimate framing to show the emotional state of the characters, and allows the viewer to become more familiar with them.

The hard shadow interview sequences are shot in colour, to distance them from the flash-back sequences. The viewer doesn't doubt what is real-time and what is flash-back. The photographs of Philippe are framed with a balance in the shot to illustrate that he is confident and balanced, while the pictures of the crowds looking at Philippe at the street level are framed in a dutch angle to illustrate their worried state of mind. The dutch angle effect gives the impression that the crowd is about to fall, and not Philippe.