Fellini and Rota, Lynch and Badalamenti, Kieslowski and Preisner, Polanski and Komeda. There are several famous collaborations between a director and a composer in the history of cinema. Among the most atypical and successful is undoubtedly that between Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass, which began in 1983 and continued until 2002. Koyaanisqatsi is its creative peak and at the same time its most emblematic result, all spent in the construction of a visual and sound litany that, abandoning the structures of traditional cinematographic language, returns an emotionally intense planetary vision. When the Hopi – an ancient tribe from Arizona – pronounce the word Koyaanisqatsi (life without balance), they mean to refer to the imbalances and follies of a life in decay that requires a new order. Inspired by this idea, the film (which took three years to shoot, four to edit and post-production) aims to compare the majesty of nature - lands, seas, skies - where it is still uncontaminated, with the precarious and often absurd creations of humanity today, unmoored from the most essential and natural values, launched into a demented race. Natural and urban images follow one another in an editing that is sometimes accelerated, sometimes slowed down, punctuated by Glass's enveloping music. The live performance of the music with the screening of the film makes it one of the most successful multimedia operations, involving the audience in a visual and sound journey of great charm.
“Since its presentation in 1983, Koyaanisqatsi has assumed the dignity of a modern cinematic classic. Godfrey and I worked for a period of three years to assemble the images and music of Koyaanisqatsi. It is a collaboration between cinema and music that is unprecedented in its intensity. My music interacts with the images, accelerating the plot and confusing increasingly faster sequence shots, thanks to scores with increasingly tight rhythms, and focuses above all on the four main natural elements, Air, Earth, Water, Fire, visually evoked in an extraordinary way”. Philip Glass
“Koyaanisqatsi does not dwell on a particular theme, just as it does not contain a specific meaning or value. Koyaanisqatsi represents, in effect, an animated object, an object in time that advances, whose meaning depends on the interpretation that the viewer gives to it. Art has no intrinsic meaning: therein lies its power, its mystery and, consequently, its charm. So, regardless of my personal intention in creating this film, I am aware that any meaning or value that Koyaanisqatsi assumes is due solely to the viewer. The role of the film is to provoke, to raise questions that only the audience can answer. This is the greatest value of any work of art: not a predetermined meaning, but a meaning deduced from the experience of the encounter. The encounter is the center of my interest, not the meaning. If the goal is the meaning, then propaganda and advertising are its proper form. So, in the artistic perspective, the meaning of Koyaanisqatsi coincides with whatever one wants to read into it: this is its greatness.” Godfrey Reggio
