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Koyaanisqatsi

Koyaanisqatsi[b] is a 1982 American non-narrative documentary film directed and produced by Godfrey Reggio, featuring music composed by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke.[5]

Koyaanisqatsi

Godfrey Reggio

Ron Fricke

  • Alton Walpole
  • Ron Fricke

  • September 5, 1982 (1982-09-05) (TFF)
  • October 4, 1982 (1982-10-04) (NYFF)
  • April 27, 1983 (1983-04-27) (limited release)

86 minutes[2]

United States

$2.5 million[1]

$3.2 million[3]

The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse footage (some of it in reverse) of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and music. 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."[6] In the Hopi language, the word koyaanisqatsi means "life out of balance".[7]


It is the first film in The Qatsi Trilogy, which was followed by Powaqqatsi (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002).[8] The trilogy depicts different aspects of the relationship between humans, nature and technology. Koyaanisqatsi is the best known of the trilogy and is considered a cult film.[9][10] However, because of copyright issues, the film was out of print for most of the 1990s.[11] In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, aesthetically, or historically significant".[12][13]

Production[edit]

Background[edit]

In 1972, Godfrey Reggio, of the Institute for Regional Education (IRE), was working on a media campaign in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which was sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The campaign involved invasions of privacy and the use of technology to control behavior. Instead of making public service announcements, which Reggio felt "had no visibility", advertising spots were purchased for television, radio, newspapers, and billboards.[15] Over thirty billboards were used for the campaign, and one design featured a close-up of the human eye, which Reggio described as a "horrifying image",[16] To produce the television commercials the IRE hired cinematographer Ron Fricke, who worked on the project for two years. The television advertisements aired during prime-time programming and became so popular that viewers would call the television stations to learn when the next advertisement would be aired.[15] Godfrey described the two-year campaign as "extraordinarily successful", and as a result, Ritalin (methylphenidate) was eliminated as a behavior-modifying drug in many New Mexico school districts.[16] But after the campaign ended, the ACLU eventually withdrew its sponsorship, and the IRE unsuccessfully attempted to raise millions of dollars at a fundraiser in Washington, D.C. The institute only had $40,000 left in its budget, and Reggio was unsure how to use the small amount of funds. Fricke insisted to Reggio that the money could be used to produce a film, which led to the production of Koyaanisqatsi.[17]

Koyaanisqatsi

Releases[edit]

Theatrical distribution[edit]

Koyaanisqatsi was first publicly screened as a workprint at the Santa Fe Film Festival on April 27, 1982.[37] Later that year, the film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on September 5.[1] It was screened again at the New York Film Festival (NYFF) on October 4, which was promoted as the film's "world premiere", despite its previous screening in September.[38] While the NYFF was based in the Lincoln Center, an exception was made to screen Koyaanisqatsi at the larger Radio City Music Hall due to the film's "spectacular visual and sound quality".[39]


Triumph Films offered to distribute the film, but Reggio turned down the offer as he wanted to work with a smaller company so he could be more involved with the release. He chose Island Alive as the distributor, a company newly formed in 1983 by Chris Blackwell of Island Records,[40] and Koyaanisqatsi was the company's first release. Select theaters distributed a pamphlet that defined the title and the Hopi prophecies sung in the film, as well as a copy of the soundtrack from Island Records. The first theatrical run featured four-track Dolby Stereo sound, while later runs featured monaural sound.


The film's initial limited release began in San Francisco at the Castro Theatre on April 27, 1983.[41] The producers spent $6,500 on marketing the initial release, which grossed $46,000 throughout its one-week run, and was the highest-grossing film in the San Francisco Bay Area that week. It was released in Los Angeles a month later where it grossed $300,000 at two theaters within 15 weeks. Additional releases in select cities throughout the United States continued in September 1983, beginning with a release in New York City on September 15. In mid-October, Koyaanisqatsi was released onto 40 to 50 screens throughout the country.[42] It was a surprise arthouse hit as well as a popular presentation at colleges and universities.[43][44][45]

Home media[edit]

Koyaanisqatsi was originally released on VHS and laserdisc by Michael Nesmith's Pacific Arts Video.[46][47]


The rights to Koyaanisqatsi were passed through various multinational entertainment companies, which eventually prevented a home video release. IRE enforced their legal and contractual rights by creating a federal court lawsuit. IRE distributed a privately issued release of the film on DVD. The release was available to those who made a donation of at least $180 to IRE, and was distributed in a sleeve that was signed by Reggio.[48]


Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) eventually received the rights to the film, and Koyaanisqatsi was released on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment on September 18, 2002, coinciding with the release of Naqoyqatsi (2002). Both films were available in a two-disc box set. Each DVD includes a documentary with interviews by Reggio and Glass and trailers for the Qatsi trilogy.[49] Unlike the IRE release, which featured the film in the open matte format in which it was filmed, the MGM release was cropped into a widescreen aspect as it originally was presented in theaters.[50]


On January 13, 2012, a Blu-ray version (screen ratio 16:9) was released in Germany.[51] The Blu-ray was also released in Australia by Umbrella Entertainment on March 22, 2012.[52] In December 2012, Criterion released a remastered DVD and Blu-ray of Koyaanisqatsi, as part of a box set containing the Qatsi Trilogy. The release features 5.1 surround sound audio and a restored digital transfer of the film in 1.85:1 aspect ratio, approved by director Godfrey Reggio.[53]

Reception[edit]

On Rotten Tomatoes, Koyaanisqatsi has an approval rating of 91% based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The website's critical consensus reads "Koyaanisqatsi combines striking visuals and a brilliant score to produce a viewing experience that manages to be formally daring as well as purely entertaining."[54] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generaly favourable reviews".[55] In 1983, the film was entered into the 33rd Berlin International Film Festival.[56] Czech pedagogue Rudolf Adler, in his textbook for film educators, describes Koyaanisqatsi as "formulated with absolute precision and congenial expression."[57]: 60  It has also been described as a postmodernist film.[58]


Koyaanisqatsi is followed by the sequels Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi and the shorts Anima Mundi and Evidence. Naqoyqatsi was completed after a lengthy delay caused by funding problems and premiered in the United States on October 18, 2002. The film's cinematographer Ron Fricke went on to direct Baraka, a pure cinema movie that is often compared to Koyaanisqatsi.

A clip of this film was featured in the 2016 film .[59][60][61]

20th Century Women

The trailer for resembles the style of the film, featuring different shots of the fictional Liberty City, with the track "Pruit Igoe" in the background. This track also appears in the final cutscene of the missions "Out of Commission" and "A Revenger's Tragedy" alongside the in-game radio station The Journey.[62]

Grand Theft Auto IV

The 2009 film accompanies the origin story of its character Doctor Manhattan with a montage of the pieces "Prophecies" and "Pruit Igoe", and features the same tracks in its trailer.[63]

Watchmen

The film inspired the album Music to Films by Dr. Atmo and , released on the record label FAX +49-69/450464. The music is completely synchronized to the film.

Oliver Lieb

The band Cows covered a version of the title track, "Koyaanisqatsi" on their 1987 debut album, Taint Pluribus Taint Unum.

noise rock

The chanted "koyaanisqatsi" lyric from the film's title song was parodied in 's "Prelude to Einstein on the Fritz" (itself a pun on the title of the opera Einstein on the Beach composed by Philip Glass), replaced with the lyric "coy hotsy-totsy".[64]

P. D. Q. Bach

This film also inspired RaMell Ross's 2018 Oscar-nominated documentary .[65][66]

Hale County This Morning, This Evening

A 1999 Episode of , "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder", opens with a 26-hour time lapse of Homer's bedroom while he oversleeps.

The Simpsons

The , a month long public residential academic program offered by the Clinton Foundation to rising seniors in the state of Arkansas, screens Koyaanisqatsi to every incoming class to prompt discussion regarding philosophy, political science, and English.

Arkansas Governor's School

A 2010 episode of , "Stealing First Base", features a parody Itchy & Scratchy film titled Koyaanis-Scratchy: Death Out of Balance.[67]

The Simpsons

Two episodes feature the main title music with intense staring (the janitor giving JD the 'evil eye'): Season 5, episode 5 My New God[68] and episode 17 My Chopped Liver.[69]

Scrubs

The music video for 's song "Ray of Light" was heavily inspired by the "Grid" sequence from the movie.[70]

Madonna

A 2005 episode of features the title music during a scene featuring a character performing an interpretive dance.[71]

Gilmore Girls

The of the Netflix original series Stranger Things features the track "Prophecies" in its seventh episode.[72][73]

fourth season

Koyaanisqatsi was performed live at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, on July 23, 2009.

[74]

Koyaanisqatsi was again performed live, in Montreal at the Place des Arts, on September 14, 2019.

[75]

Dutch-Korean Lavinia Meijer included excerpts from the film's score on her 2017 album The Glass Effect.[76]

harpist

(1985)

Chronos

(1992)

Baraka

(2011)

Samsara

Official website

at IMDb

Koyaanisqatsi

at the TCM Movie Database

Koyaanisqatsi

at Rotten Tomatoes

Koyaanisqatsi

an essay by John Rockwell at the Criterion Collection

The Qatsi Trilogy: Counterpoint and Harmony

on MUBI

Koyaanisqatsi

Koyaanisqatsi essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, Bloomsbury Academic, 2010  0826429777, pages 778-780 [1]

ISBN