The Qatsi Trilogy consists of the 1982 film “Koyaanisqatsi,” which means “Life out of Balance” in the language of the Hopi tribe of Native Americans. It is scheduled for Sep. 23. “Naqoyqatsi” (“Life as War,” 2002) will be screened on Sep. 24. Curiously, the middle installment, “Powaqqatsi” (“Life in Transformation,” 1988), does not appear due for an airing.
The accompanying music will be a new arrangement of the original by Philip Glass, which was created especially for this occasion and commissioned by the Ravenna Festival, Ireland’s National Concert Hall, the Barbican Center and Müpa Budapest. The cello soloist will be Dániel Helecz of the Dohnányi Orchestra.
Looking back from the vantage point of 2024, it’s easy to forget just how influential “Koyaanisqatsi” was on the culture. Its influence certainly seeped into advertising, and that is always a good barometer of these things.
The other day, I talked with a friend who had been a creative director at a big-name London ad agency for many years. He said he’d found a commercial he made in 1987 on YouTube, which prompted him to recall, “I think nearly every creative person had some kind of reference to ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ or script in the draw that was an idea in the style of the film.”
Directed and produced by Godfrey Reggio, a former monk turned social activist, the film is mainly composed of time-lapse and slow-motion footage of natural landscapes and cities across the United States. There is no dialogue or narration. This is because, as Reggio explained, “From my point of view, our language is in a state of vast humiliation. It no longer describes the world in which we live.”
Beginning with footage of an ancient cave painting, the film goes on to show images of humanity, buildings and nature. One sequence shows sunbathers on a beach next to a power plant. Others show large buildings being demolished. Towards the end, we see a rocket in flight exploding, and the camera follows one of its engines as it drifts back to Earth.
Just before the closing credits, the titles show five translations of the word koyaanisqatsi, including “crazy life,” “life disintegrating,” and “a state of life that calls for another way of living.” The next screen shows a translation of three Hopi prophecies, the last being “A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans.”
The idea for the film, which took seven years to make, came about when Reggio was working for the U.S. Institute for Regional Education (IRE) on a media campaign in Albuquerque, New Mexico, sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union. When the campaign finished, the cinematographer of its TV commercials, Ron Fricke, suggested that Reggio use what was left in the budget (USD 40,000) to make a film. This became “Koyaanisqatsi.”
When the IRE’s budget was exhausted, Fricke, who had been doing the filming, realized that the footage he’d shot was “boring as hell.” He edited it into a 20-minute reel “without regard for message or political content,” according to an interview he gave to American Cinematographer magazine.
In 1976, the IRE decided to continue with the film. They rehired Fricke, who’d been working as a waiter in Los Angeles, to shoot more footage.
When Reggio began working on the film’s post-production at the Samuel Goldwyn Studio in 1981, he met director Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola saw “Koyaanisqatsi” at a private screening before he shot 1983’s thematically paired movies “The Outsiders” and “Rumble Fish.” Telling Reggio that it was “important for people to see” the film, he added his name to the credits and helped distribute and present it to a much wider audience than it would otherwise have received, including eagle-eyed advertising creatives.
“Rumble Fish” shows the influence of “Koyaanisqatsi” in its use of time-lapse photography.
Coppola’s championing of the movie also resulted in its music by minimalist composer Philip Glass becoming so popular, although it is a superb piece in its own right. The score has been released three times. Island Records put out a version in 1983 that only featured some of the music. Glass re-recorded the score for Nonesuch Records in 1998 for a 73-minute version. “Koyaanisqatsi: Complete Original Soundtrack,” a remastered version, was released in 2009. Since then, the Philip Glass Ensemble has toured the world, playing the score in front of the screen while the movie is being shown.
Today, “Koyaanisqatsi” is a cult movie, helped by the fact that it was out of print and impossible to see throughout the 1980s because of copyright issues. I remember watching a bootleg of the movie on video cassette sometime towards the end of that decade. Probably in a room filled with fragrant smoke. It’s also regarded by many as what arts website The Quietus calls “The first example of environmentalist cinema.” In 2000, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry for being “culturally, aesthetically, or historically significant.”
It’s unsurprising but still richly ironic that the advertising industry, which values style way over substance, co-opted “Koyaanisqatsi.” The film’s message is that life is out of balance because modern society has turned away from nature and the ancient order of things. Advertising is a prime cause or reflection of that imbalance.
As The Quietus put it, the film is “An exercise in cinematic expression above all else. Despite this, the climate crisis reveals in greater clarity just how vital such an expression was, and still remains.”
You can learn more about the screenings and all the other shows at Müpa Budapest via its Hungarian and English-language website: mupa.hu
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of September 20, 2024.
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