Koyaanisqatsi / Powaqqatsi Streaming
Jeudi, septembre 9th, 2010 |
Koyaanisqatsi / Powaqqatsi Streaming.
Movie Title: Koyaanisqatsi / Powaqqatsi Koyaanisqatsi / Powaqqatsi is available for streaming or downloading. |
When someone asks me what my favorite movies are, I usually give them a fairly predictable list: 2001, Citizen Kane, The Seven Samurai, and so on. By the time I get to #10 or so, I add, “Oh, and ‘Koyaanisqatsi.’”
That stops them cold. Most people, even folks who consider themselves film buffs, have never heard of “Koyaanisqatsi.” Most of them can’t even pronounce it. (No foul there; I get tripped up on Ukranian names myself. No reason to expect them to get a Hopi word perfectly the first time.) When I tell them about it, though, my own eyes light up and my hands move and my face twists in all different ways. And they see that, and they get curious, and then they too want to see this amazing movie that has no plot, no dialogue and no characters. It is one of the most extraordinary movies ever made.
“Koyaanisqatsi” is one of the very few truly experimental movies in which the experiment is a success. It has, as I have said, nothing resembling a conventional plot. There are no main characters, or supporting ones, for that matter. There is not a single word spoken during the film, except for songs in the Hopi language. It is entirely images of nature, mankind, and the artifacts of mankind — sometimes speeded up, sometimes slowed down, sometimes in real time, but always seen in a curiously wide-eyed and totally undiluted way.
The film may not have a plot, but it has a story. It opens in the American desert, where the hand of man rarely intrudes, and them moves by degrees into man’s world. What I find most interesting is that the movie’s editing and camerawork often seem to be doing two things at once: we look at these things man has made, and in some cases we are repelled, but in many cases we are hypnotized or fascinated. When the camera sits at the foot of a giant glass skyscraper, reflecting the clouds around it, should we be repelled? The skyscraper has a beauty to it that is as valid as the buttes in the desert, and one of the movie’s treasures is that it makes this argument almost despite itself.
The late sections of the film grow faster in editing and in presentation. Philip Glass’s score - sometimes slow, sometimes fast, always mesmerizing - both illuminates and stands aside from the movie; it can be heard on its own, as something quite apart from the images, or it can be seen as the Greek chorus for the film’s “narrative.” This kind of duality runs through the film: we can see it as a relatively straight “visual poem” in which the movie’s title — “life out of balance” — is depicted in a relatively straightforward way. Or we can look beyond that and see a complex case: As saddening as the world may be, is it not the only one we have?
The director of “Koyaanisqatsi,” Godfrey Reggio, has made it clear that he considers the film to be both polemical and non-polemical: “KOYAANISQATSI is not so much about something, nor does it have a specific meaning or value … So while I might have this or that intention in creating this film, I realize fully that any meaning or value KOYAANISQATSI might have comes exclusively from the beholder. The film’s role is to provoke, to raise questions that only the audience can answer. This is the highest value of any work of art, not predetermined meaning, but meaning gleaned from the experience of the encounter. The encounter is my interest, not the meaning. If meaning is the point, then propaganda and advertising is the form. So in the sense of art, the meaning of KOYAANISQATSI is whatever you wish to make of it. This is its power.”
“Koyaanisqatsi” currently exists in a legal limbo which has not been properly resolved. Copies of the movie on DVD are available directly from the movie’s web site…, and the funds from purchases of the film help Reggio and his cohorts free the movie from its grave. They will also go towards the production of another film in the “Koyaanisqatsi” cycle, which I imagine will be at least as eye-opening as this one is — if lacking in the total newness of form that “Koyaanisqatsi” brought with it.
….as another reviewer has said, KOYAANISQATSI is CROPPED. I own the limited edition DVD that was sold as a fundraiser around a year ago by the Institute for Regional Education (IRE) and it is in 4:3. The new MGM so-called “widescreen” release simply adds black bars to the top and bottom of the screen, with NO extra width shown- the other reviewer is 100% correct! I compared the IRE DVD with the new MGM commercial release on two DVD players at the same time, and the size of each picture is exactly the same, but the MGM release has black bars blocking Ron Fricke’s cinematography. The bars take away 2 inches from the top and bottom of the screen of my 32″ TV, or 4 inches of picture height total. I love widescreen movies, but purposely blocking out what was originally filmed is RIDICULOUS. KOY was originally filmed in 4:3, not widescreen.
These films are the two greatest combinations of music and film ever made- it’s just a shame to see KOY treated so poorly. Nice interviews with Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass and cheap price still makes it a must-buy. All we can hope for is maybe a “special edition” in the future that’s done right as this release is apparently selling pretty well.
Right now, the best KOY sound is found on the laserdisc, and the best picture is found on the limited edition IRE DVD which is no longer available. I’m so happy I didn’t sell it! It’s a priceless collector’s item now!
I haven’t yet checked the new MGM DVD of POWAQQATSI compared to my VHS POW videotape as far as the black bars taking away picture from the original- but the new POW DVD indeed has an incredible picture quality and the soundtrack fared very well in the conversion to Dolby Digital- it sounds excellent. KOY sounds muffled and too rolled off in the highs.
Steve Glassfan
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