Score Contributes to Man on Wire's Success

Without its ramshackle classical soundtrack, Man on Wire would have struggled to find its balance.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh - Man on Wire would likely hold together fine as a film without its companion score. Available only as a pricey import (Strike One), I had to turn Amazon's download store, which gave me the full 70 minutes for under $10.

What a spectrum of sound and emotion lies among those songs.

Primarily composed by Michael Nyman, they are virtually inseparable from the film, even thought they come from Nyman's past film scores; he wrote the music for The Piano and dozens of art-house features, including a personal oddball Shakespearean favorite (Prospero's Books).

Opening on Fish Beach, the song sounds slightly removed from standard film score fare and a little richer for it. History of the Insipid slows to a crawl after a woodwind beginning, with a tickled piano and restrained strings.

An Eye for Optical Theory thrives on its competing strings and horns, sounding like a Danny Elfman composition stripped of all its excess and eye-rolling silliness. It's easily to most dynamic song here, quite an accomplishment given the competition.

Sadness runs through most of these melodies. The insistent piano of Passage de L'Egalite just grows louder, a pack of ignored enemies demanding to be heard.

Dreams of a Journey defies that tone. Light and soaring, a cello rhythm chugs in the distance like a passenger train. The song suits an airplane flight on a slightly chilly morning ( the image involuntary enters my brain every time I heard those opening notes).

The slow crescendo of Trysting Fields/Sheep 'n' Tides comes with a wonderful surprise, breaking it a speedy waltz tempo that perfectly fits the scene Petit's post-walk escapades with a beautiful stranger in New York.

At the end comes to only track I really needed was the last 3 Gymnopedies -Gymnopedie No. 1 by Pascal Roge. Played over the climax of Petit's walk between the towers, I couldn't imagine anything else but the gentle, lonely piano playing as the rope walker began his long-dreamt task of traversing a rope strung between the world's tallest buildings.

Roge triumphs as well as Nyman, expressing so much emotion to the depiction of a man risking his life for a moment and achievement that no one else will ever known.