Koyaanisqatsi Summary By Godfrey Reggio
Koyaanisqatsi, Reggio’s debut as a film director and producer, is the first film of the QATSI trilogy. The title is a Hopi Indian word meaning “life out of balance.” Created between 1975 and 1982, the film is an apocalyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds — urban life and technology versus the environment. The musical score was composed by Philip Glass.
Koyaanisqatsi attempts to reveal the beauty of the beast! We usually perceive our world, our way of living, as beautiful because there is nothing else to perceive. If one lives in this world, the globalized world of high technology, all one can see is one layer of commodity piled upon another. In our world the “original” is the proliferation of the standardized. Copies are copies of copies. There seems to be no ability to see beyond, to see that we have encased ourselves in an artificial environment that has remarkably replaced the original, nature itself. We do not live with nature any longer; we live above it, off of it as it were. Nature has become the resource to keep this artificial or new nature alive.
That being said, my intention in-other-words, let me describe the bigger picture. Koyaanisqatsi is not so much about something, nor does it have a specific meaning or value. Koyaanisqatsi is, after all, an animated object, an object in moving time, the meaning of which is up to the viewer. Art has no intrinsic meaning. This is its power, its mystery, and hence, its attraction. Art is free. It stimulates the viewer to insert their own meaning, their own value. So while I might have this or that intention in creating this film, I realize fully that any meaning or value Koyaanisqatsi might have comes exclusively from the beholder. The film’s role is to provoke, to raise questions that only the audience can answer. This is the highest value of any work of art, not predetermined meaning, but meaning gleaned from the
experience of the encounter. The encounter is my interest, not the meaning. If meaning is the point, then propaganda and advertising is the form. So in the sense of art, the meaning of Koyaanisqatsi is whatever you wish to make of it.
This is its power.
My favorite movie of all time. Sums up my life path: find and engage to co-create the convergent connections.
hulu says: “currently our video library can only be streamed from within the United States”
Koyaanisqatsi is one of my favourite movies of all time… but what does this have to do with synthesizer or electronic music? Those electronic music videos aren’t really news either, if you ask me. Real new has been substituted with fluff on this website lately, if you ask me….
Also the name of an excellent Reaktor User Library ensemble!
I’m happy to brag that my parents took me to see this in its heyday at the Roxi on South Street in Philthydelphia. Very bizarre thing to see for a 12 year old but hey. 🙂
But it got me into Glass; last concert I saw him do was Monsters of Grace, just outside of Philadelphia. Unfortunately you need to bootleg that album.
I would highly suggest anyone who hasn’t seen it to spend some time and watch the movie.. It’s the best one of that series and would be a GREAT primer on how to best VJ to an electronic music score. The videos aren’t all effects and fractals but is just as intense to watch.
Saw the movie in college in 93 and regularly have gone back to watching it for references on how to best blend music and image together. It’s a timeless classic.
So poweful!
If you like Ron Fricke’s cinematography, my friend Knoll edited a video using Fricke’s work to go with a song I wrote a while back called “Numby Numbs.” Check it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_NsxGKra7M
Yer Pal,
Gel-Sol
A_Synth_Fan_From_BC – I’ve been including more electronic music videos lately because I like to share interesting work. Skip them if you don’t like them. There’s still plenty of synth news – and if you’d like to see more of anything, leave a comment and let me know what you want to see more of.
I’d disagree with you about Koyaanisqatsi not been synth-related, though. If you get the chance to see Glass perform, you’ll see that he frequently layers traditional instruments with synthesizer to create an expanded orchestral palette. He does this pretty heavily through Koyaanisqatsi.
It’s not as obvious as a big synth solo, but he’s done more to move the synth into popular classical music than anybody.
Raines – same here – this and Blade Runner! Both are great to come back to.
BlueBrat, Vergel – I saw it at a midnight showing in Kansas City at the Tivoli in Westport and it blew my mind!
Gel-Sol – thanks for the link; it’s a great pairing.
DHM – sorry, but I can’t control who Hulu lets see the video. That sucks, though. I hope they get the legal rights figured out so everybody can watch videos soon.
How about using Youtube or something that allows the rest of us see the videos too?
JR – Hulu hosts legal official copies of the movies, so they are full length and relatively high quality. YouTube isn’t currently doing this.
Alright, thanks for clarifying.
Also check out the new Watchmen trailer, which uses some choice Koyaanisqatsi music at the beginning, before skillfully segueing into Muse’s apparently Glass-influenced “Take a Bow”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VLA0tg5yI0
Torley – that’s pretty cool.
I wouldn’t want to be the dude that has to score a film after they used that as the temp track, though!
I saw Glass perform the score live with the film in the late 80s at the University of Missouri-Columbia. I had a balcony seat and could watch the group in the pit though out the entire performance. Glass did not sequence the keyboard parts, he sat there and played the piece in real time – an amazing sight, from the perspective of one with fingers of concrete.
dcravens – yes, Glass always has multiple keyboardists, often doubling wind lines. His use of synths is unique within the classical music world.