I spoke earlier today with Magnolia Pictures president Eammon Bowles about Man on Wire, which has been doing good business since opening on 7.25 because it’s been well reviewed, but mainly — and it really is this simple — because it delivers a genuine spiritual high. And when films that really and truly do this come along, people always pick up on this and go and tell their friends and then it builds and builds and builds.

This combination documentary, elegy and suspense film is opening around the country this weekend. It is absolutely essential to see it, and I don’t mean on DVD
When Sean Connery saw Man on Wire at the Edinburgh Film Festival a little more than a month ago he called it √¢‚Ǩ≈ìone of the best three films I have ever seen.√¢‚Ǩ¬ù (He wouldn’t say what the other two were.) At the Vicky Christina Barcelona party the other night people kept asking me what my favorite recent film is, and over and over I kept on saying Man on Wire. I hadn’t said this to myself in so many words, but I didn’t hesitate in saying it when asked.
Here’s an mp3 of the last two or three minutes of my conversation with Bowles in which I articulate the “spiritual high” high, and here’s an mp3 of our whole discussion.