Any a' ya'll feelin' KOYAANISQATSI?

Has anyone ever seen this performed live? I believe Glass was doing it with the film as a backdrop.

Glass and Reggio have made another one (note: nothin about the music in this review, cuz yup it sounds like Philip Glass)

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/visitors

https://vimeo.com/162039610

Watched it again recently and had forgotten how KOYANDOYOUSI?? the chanting was.

i mean that's kinda nifty but was Godfrey Reggio srsly the first person who did this? Like is this aesthetic completely his doing?

There were a number of people working with time-lapse in the seventies; Koyaanisqatsi borrows some footage from Hilary Harris's film Organism, which employs the technique. (I think Ron Fricke was probably as responsible for the image manipulations in the film as Reggio was, if not more so.)

Koyaanisqatsi also is in some ways (perhaps unintentionally) a version of the city symphony film that was popular in the 20s and early 30s (Man with a Movie Camera employs a variety of different frame rates).

https://www.monkeon.co.uk/gifaanisqatsi/

good find!

i keep reading commentary online about how this movie is about how 'beautiful' nature is and how ugly and bad humanity/civilization is. way to completely miss the point, although i think including the translation of the name of the film and the translations of the hopi prophecies does the film no favors

the music in this gets stressful

But, once again, man’s destructive force is seen interrupting the majestic natural beauty. [...] Power lines, dams and even an atomic explosion scar the natural imagery as epic minor key arpeggios struggle for dominance.

so fucking bad

Very happy to say that I just saw an actual screening of the film -- first time I've seen it ever, so doing so on a nice screen with a good sound system was quite the experience. And as global said a couple of posts back, stressful indeed.

It’s great to see on a big screen. A few years ago I saw it at the Kennedy Center with Philip Glass present conducting his ensemble doing the soundtrack live.

And maybe I read it here (?) but the city/ industry scenes are as beautiful as the nature shots and a wonderful time capsule of the 70s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6RLCfykoHY

I’ve seen It in a theatre twice, first when it was released, and later at university
Didn’t strike me as stressful either time but I wouldn’t be surprised if I had that impression now
Can’t stand Philip glass these days, I don’t think I’d make it though five minutes

i think this is pg's best work, at least from this era (i still have a v soft spot for music with changing parts)

"Koyaanisqatsi borrows some footage from Hilary Harris's film Organism, which employs the technique"

You learn something every day. Organism was made in 1975, and several of the shots are reused:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dx3Tf5CJRs

That would explain why so much of Koyaanisqatsi looks like the 1970s. I always assumed it was cultural inertia - the film was released in the early 1980s, when 1970s cars would still have been around - but a lot of it actually was filmed in the 1970s. Presumably Reggio had access to the original out-takes and film reels from Organism so I doubt there were any hard feelings.

Given that the Pruitt-Igoe section is all stock footage, plus the rockets, plus the people standing in New York etc, I wonder how much of Koyaanisqatsi was newly-shot. Is it actually an early example of a postmodern found footage film, the equivalent of e.g. Art of Noise's "Close to the Edit", which was way trendy back then?

Reggio filmed things (or at least the things he filmed) over a decade, if Wikipedia is to be believed

The Criterion edition of Koyaanisqatsi has something like an hour's worth of rough footage Fricke shot in NYC, etc.

I love it, and it's even more devasting when you watch it with the film.
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Monday, April 4, 2005 7:50 PM (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

2005 Michael OTM, even if he can't spell "devastating" correctly. I have also loved the Gifaanisqatsi site posted up thread for awhile, and would love to see a rebooted version of the film that keeps the original music but just uses new stop motion/time lapse segments.

nobody's mentioned yet that there is at least one sequel, so i will.

yeah, there is a third, which was a long time after the original two

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/934-the-qatsi-trilogy

Powwaqatsi has a lot of good bits in it but doesn't really gel. Glass' score is pretty unusual and varied for him, with massed percussion, kora interludes, Arabic vocalists and more.

The Naqqoyqatsi score is more traditional style Glass, heavy on the cello (Yo Yo Ma) and melancholy. The movie itself is terrible. I haven't watched it in forever, but what sticks with me is endless rolling collages of symbols and logos run through rudimentary video and computer effects.

Godfrey Reggio and Phillip Glass also did a fourth film, Visitors (2013), which appears to be mainly portraiture in B&W anamorphic widescreen. I've had this on my watchlist for ages, but between the subject matter and Naqqoyqatsi I've put it off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmW7NnW0LFE

Yeah, 90 minutes of people staring at me is not my idea of fun.

I really liked Visitors when I was deep in my Reggio phase (which happened to be around the time it came out) — thought it had real gravity, aided in part by the Brucknerian moments that come later in Glass's score. I should revisit it and see if it holds up.

New Godfrey Reggio/Philip Glass film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDnhl79hpp8

Got a Guy Maddin feel to it, but the quick cuts in the trailer probably won't reflect the actual tempo of the film.

This wasn't on my radar, so cheers. Looks like a wacky counterpart to the decidedly morose Visitors, borrowing some of the latter's images. IMDB gives a runtime of 52 minutes, and I get the feeling a more ambitious project was intended but they had to settle for less (at a Q and A a few years ago Reggio said he wanted to do the next film in 3D).

Some genius or madman has uploaded the film (with the soundtrack) to archive.org backwards:
https://archive.org/details/koyaanisqatsi_20230122

My 16yo invited me to see this on 35mm at Prince Charles a couple of weeks ago; I don’t think I’ve seen it since it was on TV in the mid-‘80s. I’d forgotten how much of it is people photography, I’d also forgotten the ultra long lens compressed runway/freeway heat haze shots. And - all these years I had no idea what Pruit(t)-Igoe meant on the track listing! Anyway, five stars from my kid and she wants the soundtrack on CD.

cd!

This I think is the re-recording, haven't heard it but tread warily!

https://www.highfidelityreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2001/09/philip-glass-koyaanisqatsi.jpg

This is the proper one, although cut down considerably from the film

https://www.discogs.com/master/33014-Philip-Glass-Koyaanisqatsi-Life-Out-Of-Balance-Original-Soundtrack-Album-From-The-Motion-Picture

My first copy was that Nonesuch recording, which I bought before I saw the film. I never did a direct comparison, but my recollection is that the newer recording is really similar to the OST, apart from containing more of the score.

There is a full length soundtrack out there which contains a few droney bits that aren't on the Nonesuch re-recording. Those bits may not even be by Glass (Michael Stearns maybe?)

This one, I assume. I guess that would be the CD version to get (though as an album, I think the original release satisfies).

I had a taped copy of the (Island) 1983 LP. I think it had John Adams' The Chairman Dances on the other side, which didn't all fit.
I mentioned the 2009 expanded release to 16yo and she, weirdly, wants that original fits-on-one-side-of-a-C90 version. Which is pretty easy to find secondhand (the 1994 circuit-board cover re-issue, anyway).

I like the original LP-length program the best. Yes it’s missing some exciting music but it’s the perfect dosage. CD was on Antilles I think

I like having the shorter versions on the original album as an option, but give me the longest version of "Prophecies" always. Even at 13 min. it's too short.

Speaking of uncredited cover versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbdflsJj2BQ

A friend's group does a brand new score to the whole film, it's really beautiful (works best with the movie, of course)
https://petelarson.bandcamp.com/album/score