James Marsh

When the Twin Towers were still new and gleaming, Philippe Petit took an astonishing walk between them — 1,350 feet above the ground, without a net.

All week in the lead up to the Oscars, we're taking a closer look at some of the films that are nominated for best picture. Today: "The Theory of Everything," with director James Marsh.

James Marsh talks about directing “Shadow Dancer,” which stars Clive Owen and Andrea Riseborough. The film is set in 1993 and follows a single mother living in Belfast with her mother and hardliner IRA brothers. When she is arrested for her part in an aborted IRA bomb plot in London, an MI5 officer offers her a choice: lose everything and go to prison or return to Belfast to spy on her own family. “Shadow Dancer” opens May 31 at the Landmark Sunshine, and will be available on iTunes and On Demand in June.

Due to a computer mix-up, we mistakenly reran a 2008 interview with French high wire artist Philippe Petit and filmmaker James Marsh about the documentary "Man on Wire," about Petit's incredible high wire walk between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. The film is available on DVD, and even though we didn't plan to run the interview today, it's a great conversation.

Listen It had all the glamour, conspiracy, and danger of a classic heist movie, but it was real — and the hero was wearing slippers. Long before 9/11, Philippe Petit’s unauthorized w...

James Marsh, director of the documentary “Project Nim,” and Stephanie LaFarge, who is featured in the film, discuss the story of Nim Chimpsky, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. The film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. “Project Nim” opens July 8 at Angelika Film Center and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Philippe Petit's unauthorized walk on a high wire between the World Trade Center towers transfixed the world in 1974. The Oscar-nominated documentary "Man on Wire" depicts how an acrobat and a rag-tag team of friends pulled off this extraordinary feat. Kurt visits the site of the ...

It had all the glamor, conspiracy, and danger of a classic heist movie, but it was real –- and the hero was wearing slippers. Philippe Petit’s unauthorized walk on a high wire between the World Trade Center towers transfixed the world in 1974, and it’s the subject of ...

In 1974, French high wire artist Philippe Petit snuck to the top of the World Trade Center and crossed a wire between the two World Trade Center towers. It’s been called the greatest high wire walk in history. He’s the subject of a new documentary, "Man on Wire," ...

It had all the glamor, conspiracy, and danger of a classic heist movie, but it was real –- and the hero was wearing slippers. Philippe Petit’s unauthorized walk on a high wire between the World Trade Center towers transfixed the world in 1974, and it’s now the ...