week 15 KOYAANISQATSI

Koyaanisqatsi is a film by Reggio Godfrey released in 1982. He began filming it in 1975. He didn't set out to make this film with a predetermined script but began to compile and edit the images he acquired as he went. A thesis and formal quality to the film emerged from a pile of footage - I think I found this knowledge a little bit comforting in that it justifies to a certain extent, my own approach to thinking about how to make a film. He created this film with the intention of provoking audiences by providing an experience for them rather than a story. This experience comes from looking at common, everyday images in a new light by enhancing them with editing and varying cadences. Godfrey illuminates how we have moved away from the four primal elements of nature - earth, air, water, fire - by focusing on human technology and how we not only use it but how we now live in it. Technology has replaced the natural elements. To make this comparison he focuses on life in the city and shows a lot of images of tall skyscrapers including a particularly dramatic sequence that shows the Pruitt Igoe housing development just prior to and during its demolition.


This particular clip of the film starts off a long sequence which is called 'The Grid.' It emphasizes the grid-like aesthetic of a city and how our own human interaction with it becomes automated.

Architecturally, I think this film is important because, as Godfrey discusses in the bonus features, he chose to move what is typically considered the foreground of film - characters, narrative, dialogue - to the back and what is typically considered the background of film - place, architecture, the city, climate, thesis - into the front, making that the main focus of the film. Space becomes personified. The terms he uses to discuss this idea - foreground and background - reveal a space-oriented conceptual framework for how he set up the movie.

I have been a big fan of Koyaanisqatsi ever since I first saw it in 2002 due to the power it has in presenting a thesis, which is partly due to Philip Glass's brilliant score. The style of this film has been a big influence on my perception of documentary film making,