40 Years of Koyaanisqatsi
thecurb.com.au
thecurb.com.au
It was the first time it saw the film and the live aspect left me a lot of questions whether this is somehow a completely different experience from the actual film.
I've since watched it at home many times and the live-band aspect is obviously immense but the music was pretty close to the film.
I attended the press conference as well and one of his answers really struck me.
He was asked about how he composes film scores and his answer included something along the lines: "I only compose based on the script, I never watch any of the footage before the composition is finished."
There's also a very short video game OST of a game called Splice [0], [1] that coincidentally I'm listening to right now which is very similar to Glass's music. My playcount on each of the tracks is literally over 1000, and my playcount on the first track is over 2000 (getting close to 2500 now) because once I didn't notice I had it on loop(1) rather than loop(all) for several days.
It's the only music I'm able to listen to when I have a mild migraine, although when the headache gets bad I require absolute silence.
[0] https://cipherprime.bandcamp.com/album/flight-of-angels-spli...
[1] https://cipherprime.bandcamp.com/album/algorithms-and-angelo...
I was living in Santa Fe in the '70s and was at that first screening, it was the world premier, at the Lensic Theater. I still have the stub. I was there because Godfrey Reggio came into the sandwich shop I was a partner in and because I was friends of friends of some of the guys on the camera crews shooting footage in the Southwest and working with Alton.
I recall it as a pivotal moment of my 22 year old life. It was like nothing I'd experienced. The lack of 'anything happening' lasted a few minutes. But I recall starting to 'get' the symbolism and the narrative the images convey. Much like the author I was floored by the music. I was a prog rock fan with an appreciation for classical music. Well, Beethoven at least, so the concept of a long form piece was engaging. The epic sweep of the imagery and music gripped me and held my attention throughout. Since then many of those images have come to mind at various times. And the final sequence of the Saturn V leaving the launch pad in slow motion coupled with the beautiful, haunting score to it blew me away in the moment and I can still recall its impact now.
Koyaanisqatsi is a rare work of art. The article brings me hope. The world is quite fucked up right now and while it's completely possible for us, all of us, to change things to mitigate the situations there is little cause to believe that will actually happen. Then I come across someone articulating such a profound resonance with a work actually closer to 50 years old and it sparks that hope.
The movie is powerful enough and the subject relevant enough to still resonate with the younger generation. I do wonder, however, if the older the movie gets, the more distant the imagery from the seventies might intuitively appear to a young viewer. This led me to think about how the movie would look if (re)made today. I keep getting ideas for recent footage / subjects which would work in place of the original shots, whatever the merit of such an undertaking might be.
The overwhelming impression I got from Reggio and Glass was that they didn't so much create the experience as give birth to it. Of course they both intended to create something great, but I think the movie's success as a cultural artifact exceeded their wildest expectations.
There are very few movies I care to watch more than once. There are even fewer that will still be watched and studied 10,000 years from now (assuming we survive that long). Koyaanisqatsi is one of them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baraka_(film)
No narration at all, just amazing visuals and music/sounds. Review by Ebert:
IMHO the best use for Koyaanisqatsi is as an answer when playing charades.
There are two “sequels” to Koyaanisqatsi: Powisqatsi and Naqoyqatsi, both also with Philip Glass soundtracks.
To each his own. I'm not sure I'd call watching Koyaanisqatsi exactly "enjoyable" (that sounds like it's cheapening the experience), but I've seen it at least 5 times.
There is a rare uncropped DVD release of it by a distributor called "IRE" out there. My understanding is that every copy of this release is autographed by the director, if you need some proof of artistic intent. AFAIK there's no definitive proof that this isn't just "open matte", but IMO the superiority of this release is pretty clear. You can find it on public torrent sites.
Some more info here: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Koyaanisqatsi-IRE-Fullscre...
I actually wrote to the linguist listed in the Koyaanisqatsi credits for the original text in Hopi and he said he couldn't find it....
> This episode of [Hopi] existence begins with the extraordinarily cruel act of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 by the United States’ Air Force, near the end of World War II. Among the remote consequences of this attack, one or two years later, a group of Hopi of the Second Mesa at their ceremonial reunions (kivas) started “equating the atomic bomb with a prophetic story about a gourd of ashes which brought destruction when it was cast on the ground,” according to anthropologist Brian D. Haley. By 1948, with the devastation of planet Earth in mind because of human greed, elders and religious leaders of the Second and Third Mesa decided it was urgent to share this prophecy with the “White people” so that everyone could be prepared for Purification Day, the moment when deity of the current fourth world, Maasaw, would come and redeem humanity, creating a new paradise on Earth.
> The effort to spread the word on the ancient prophecies is what anthropologist Richard Clemmer designated the “Hopi Traditionalist Movement.” The Hopi agenda, though, was more than a spiritual calling; it was very political. In 1949 they sent President Truman a letter in which they detailed their prophecies and message of awareness, but also their position about land ownership, mineral extraction permits, the cultural and political rights of indigenous peoples, and pending US policies. With the help of non-Native People, the movement got the attention of conscientious objectors and draft resisters of the Second World War, pacifists, anarchists, spiritual radicals, and, in time, the different counterculture circles of the 1950s, 60s and 70s ...
> It’s the mid 1970s and Godfrey Reggio does not have a name for the film he is shooting. His co-workers are telling him they are not going to get distribution or financial aid if he does not name it. Reggio had resisted to do so until then, because for him the images were the message. Persuaded, he starts searching for a word “with no cultural baggage, a new word to describe the world.” ...
> Living in Santa Fe, Reggio was near the Hopi reservation and had friends that were “Hopi devotees,” as he calls them. They insisted on the connections between his creative project and the Traditional Hopi Movement’s prophecies. He met David Monongye, one of the Hopi spokesmen of Hotevilla, by giving him a ride from the reservation to a doctor’s appointment and they became friends. Reggio liked the idea of naming his film with an originally non-written language to evoke his argument that the literate culture he lived in was no longer a good describer for the insanity he saw all around. Thus, he contacted the linguist Ekkehart Malotki, who knew the Hopi language, and his Hopi co-worker Michael Lomatuway’ma. They introduced him to the word koyaanisqatsi, a concept that nailed his awareness. Reggio went to David Monongye for permission. “David said it’s an ancient word,” recalls Reggio today, “a word that’s not in popular use. He didn’t talk much about it, but he said the definition we had, took the meaning of the word.” ...
> Reggio not only asked for Monongye’s opinion, he also went through two more examinations by clan leaders of other villages: first by Mina Lansa, the traditional leader of Old Oraibi, and her husband John, then by a group of members of the 2nd Mesa. Reggio felt as he had gone through an ecclesiastical interrogation once again, and in a language he couldn’t understand, but with better results. All of them gave him consent.
Christopher Vecsey. The Emergence of the Hopi People, in American Indian Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 3, American Indian Religions, 70 (Summer 1983).
Harold Courlander. The Fourth World of the Hopis: The Epic Story of the Hopi Indians as Preserved in their Legends and Traditions, 201 University of New Mexico Press, 1987
Susan E. James. "Some Aspects of the Aztec Religion in the Hopi Kachina Cult", Journal of the Southwest (2000)
In particular, the wiki article [1] cites the first to claim, “Hopi mythology is not always told consistently and each Hopi mesa, or even each village, may have its own version of a particular story” which would presumably provide ample opportunities to walk in the gray area between quoting and creative translation you mention.
In addition to that angle, the Palo Verde nuclear plant broke ground in 1976 [2] so it’s not ridiculous to think that the public might have been concerned and discussing it around 1972 when some of the first film was taken. No citation there but not would be another avenue to investigate.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopi_mythology
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_...
https://kagi.com/images?q=hopi+spiral+image
This struck me because if one traces star across the night sky it's like a spiral but if you trace a body in are solar system it's an arc.
I think I'm an amateur at everything.
I think of them as audiovisual essays. They're not just a delight for the senses. Each of these films says things. They cut unexpected subjects together in comparisons that speak about the human condition. They use music queues to force new interpretations of familiar settings. The qatsi trilogy uses those hopi sayings to set your mind on rails and then the visuals and music propel you on a roller coaster of emotion, but Fricke's films dispense with the rails and simply let you draw your own meaning. That meaning changes a little every time you watch the films.
These are films that invite you to create your own interpretation. You are invited to watch them with an active mind, always looking for new details, correlations, and how they fit together. This is totally unlike a documentary whose narrator tells you what to think. Here you are not being taught, but invited to teach yourself.
Give these films a chance if you've never watched them. They are uniquely rewarding.
I keep landing on that video rather than the "proper" one and it's disconcerting.
TIL.
Having not watched it the right way round. It does kind of change the narrative.
It kind of felt like society was disassembling itself, regressing which is sad in itself, but it was for a good reason?
Also as an aside it was the clearest look I've seen into what everyday like was like in the 80s having not been alive at the time in a way that hasn't been glossed over like the media we consume.
I just made a small peek and I could find new some visual details, which I was glossing over on the forward version. (e.g. explosions in the windows of the demolished buildings)
The composition of the shots makes me ask, Why are we living this way? Good and bad outcomes, ofc, and the film makes me ask myself questions.
Am happy to see Phillip Glass is on Bandcamp. I found an old cassette copy of Koyaanisqatsi kicking around but also just got a digital copy of the soundtrack there; happy to support a living artist.
The backstory that Philip Glass originally didn’t want to score it is also amazing, as is the reason for Francis Ford Coppola’s name being on the artwork even though he had nothing to do with the film.
absolutely awesome
Sounds like a strange take. From [1]:
> Koyaanisqatsi opens with the words “Presented by Francis Ford Coppola.” This simple endorsement by one of cinema’s most renowned directors solidified the film’s reputation and propelled it into movie theaters around the world.
Not sure if FFC gave them money (I guess yes since he's credited as executive producer), even without money, his name would've been enough to open a lot of doors.
Reminds of how Werner Herzog got involved in "The Act of Killing" [2], watching an 8-minute excerpt at breakfast was enough.
[1] https://culturacolectiva.com/en/movies/francis-ford-coppolas...
Producers, executive or otherwise, are usually involved in financing the film before and during its production. This didn't happen. He saw it after production and felt compelled to help spread the message.
I think it's great that he did, but it's surely one of those weird artefacts of why Koyaanisqatsi is successful.
But the story goes something like this: He turned down the request to score the film, because he didn't consider himself a composer of film scores. So, the director went and got a load of Philip Glass music and overlaid it on the film himself and sent it to Glass. Once he saw it, he was in.
Nothing particularly mind-blowing in terms of a tale of how the film got made, but it could have easily gone in a completely different direction and not be the film we know.
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."Subsequent viewings have always revealed new interpretations as my life and surroundings changed. I think on the dvd director’s commentary the director said something to this effect, how so many people he spoke with had completely takes on what the movie was about.
Also part of the magic of the film was the active collaboration between Glass and Reggio as it was being filmed and re-cut; the music and the cinematography are inseparable.
I watched quite a few experimental films and some can be long after only 5 minutes. Koyaanisqatsi on the other hand feels completely coherent and keeps its tension for 90 minutes even if I couldn’t re-tell the story.
https://www.nonesuch.com/journal/philip-glass-ensemble-la-ph...
The Valhalla published 3 month (or 6 month, I don't remember now) calendars that were about the size of a tabloid double-page spread. They were a common sight on fridge doors.
In Melbourne the Astor did that as well.
Possibly there was one in each Australian capital city.
Now much more is easily available but it was good to go to those places.
Um, what? And I'm sure that was great for the kids who needed their ADHD treated.
I can also recommend Manufactured Landscapes.
I thought the music was particularly effective in those scenes. Clearly there is a Philip Glass fan on that show.
This piece resonates so much with what the movie and soundtrack evoked in me.
I discovered Glass' works from it and love his discography.
What is incredible is that in the four decades since Koyaanisqatsi the imbalance has only gotten worse and there is no evidence that some equilibrium will ever be reached.
While it might appear to be an incongruous choice to open a comedy film, I note that Koyaanisqatsi, Watchmen (book and film) and Alan Partridge are all works primarily concerned with whether it is in our own nature to destroy ourselves, and whether we might deserve it.
No RED or similar camera had came close to this.
As the years passed and more and more we have come around to see the dead-ends of our ways, that original disconnect has been finally resolved: the movie was just way ahead of its time.
Have you tried watching it through—not just clips? Despite it having no dialogue, it tells an enthralling story about society & technology. I always give the caveat "this may not be for everyone" when I recommend it, but people usually follow up gleaming about the movie to me.