"Until now, you've never really seen the world you live in." That is until you've seen Koyaanisqatsi. This experimental film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke. Drawing its title, this renowned documentary examines modern civilisation and technology. From the Hopi language, Koyaanisqatsi means "crazy life", "life in turmoil", "life out of balance", "life disintegrating", and "a state of life that calls for another way of living."
In 1972, Reggio, with Fricke, created a series of short films for the Institute for Regional Education (IRE), communicating the theme of invasion of privacy through a stream of images. With the failure to bring the films to national attention, and $40,000 remaining from the budget, Fricke convinced Reggio to produce a feature film as the next logical step. This led to the production of Koyaanisqatsi, marking Reggio's directorial debut. In 1975, principal photography began, with filming taking place throughout the United States in St. Louis, Los Angeles, New York City, and Santa Fe. Reggio and Fricke chose to shoot unscripted footage and edit it into an hour-long film. Reggio and Fricke used 16 mm film due to budget constraints, despite their preference to shoot with 35 mm film. As there was no formal script, Fricke shot whatever he felt would "look good on film". Reggio and Fricke utilised aerial photography, portrait photography, hand-held photography, and time-lapse photography. The footage was processed with a special chemical to enhance the film's shadows and details, as all footage was shot only with existing lighting. Halfway through filming, the film's budget was exhausted. The unedited footage was screened in Santa Fe to Fricke's dismay. Fricke then edited the footage into a twenty-minute reel, but "without regard for message or political content", whilst he was working in Los Angeles. In 1976, production resumed as the IRE was continuously receiving funding and was able to then shoot on 35 mm film. Additional photography was provided by Hilary Harris and Louis Schwartzberg, with stock footage provided by MacGillivray Freeman Films. The film utilised images and music instead of dialogue and/or vocalised narration. Reggio explained the lack of dialogue by stating "it's not for lack of love of the language that these films have no words. It's because, from my point of view, our language is in a state of vast humiliation. It no longer describes the world in which we live." The film took almost six years to complete, with three years dedicated to the score alone as a continually evolving process. Reggio originally wanted an uninterpretable symbol as the title of the film, but instead settled on Koyaanisqatsi. As he felt it "had no emotional baggage attached to it" due to its obscurity.
Koyaanisqatsi is an exquisite combination of sound and vision. The film shows the consequences of what we have done in the past and the danger of where we are heading. You'd be hard-pressed to find another movie that conveys the contrasts of life in the modern world more effectively.
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