As an English major, I often find myself writing essays and examining literature. Since middle school at Hunter campus schools I have heard the words of my eighth grade teacher Ms. Fink every time I write a paper or read a book: “show, don’t tell.” In terms of writing, what Ms. Fink meant, is that it is more interesting for a reader to be led to a conclusion rather than for the author to directly and clearly express the message. For instance, in Ms. Fink’s English literature class, we read Hamlet. Shakespeare’s work, as old as it is, is still relevant in the classroom in part because instead of writing explicitly that Hamlet has or has not gone mad, Shakespeare leaves it up for further interpretation and debate for the future readers. This is the type of stylistic decision I was looking for in Koyaanisqatsi. While watching the film, I heard Ms. Fink’s voice in my head yet again, this time in reference to Godfrey Reggio’s stylistic decisions. After watching it for the first time, I did not care for it. The film seems to be, on first review, an environmentalist piece preaching the director’s ideals. Without any writing or narrative, the movie is eccentric and goes outside the cultural norm for films. The reason I had trouble digesting the movie is due to the barriers it breaks; it is almost avant-garde, and because of this I felt that it was forcibly pushing a message out, because it forced me to think. I did not like the movie, because Reggio seemed to go against everything Ms. Fink had taught me. I understand that is an idea that is hard to wrap one’s head around: a film without words, telling rather than showing makes no sense. Alas, that is how I felt.
The beginning of Reggio’s film highlights the beauty of nature. Each shot another landscape, untouched by human tampering. A major theme throughout the movie is vastness, seen in the shots Reggio highlights. Reggio selects parts of the country that lend themselves to large sweeping shots. Without obstructions, Reggio is capable of setting the tone without language by capturing so much space into each shot; sometimes miles at a time. Another tool that Reggio uses to highlight the beauty of the natural world is his use of time-lapse video editing. By speeding up shots of slow moving nature, like clouds, Reggio is showing his audience an everyday sight in a new way. This brings a newfound attention, or awareness to the audience’s surroundings in the natural world. Reggio spends so much of the film with shots dedicated to the beauty of nature, that the initial tone of the film is environmentalist. Reggio’s choice to start the film with those shots leads the audience to believe the intention of the film is to educate, or inform. The reason this upset me, was because it goes against what Ms. Fink had taught me years ago. Reggio gains no power in expressly telling the audience what it is he wants them to get out of his film. As opposed to so obviously tipping off the viewers of the overall message, or telling them the message, a wiser decision is to show the audience by driving them to think deeply about subtle hints that draw out the greater moral.
As a direct result of having to write a paper on the film, I chose to do further research instead of write off the movie as a well executed, but preachy couple of hours. While discussing the movie with James, we came to a fundamental disagreement. While I was arguing that the movie tried too hard to portray a “green” message, James provided a useful alternative perspective. I will leave James’s thoughts on the movie to his assignment, but the conversation sparked some research that left me reconsidering my first impression of the film. Found on the film’s website (http://koyaanisqatsi.org/films/koyaanisqatsi.php), Reggio spoke about the intentions in making the film:
KOYAANISQATSI is not so much about something, nor does it have a specific meaning or value…It stimulates the viewer to insert their own meaning, their own 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
This idea that Reggio expressed, that he may have had his own intentions behind making the movie, but its power is that it is whatever the audience chooses to make of it. I had trouble buying into what Reggio said, because after all, the movie had not changed since hearing Reggio’s intentions. I re-watched portions of the film again to gain a better sense of what Reggio had written on the website. The beginning portion of the film remained unchanged in my eyes, but as I continued to skip through the film I noted the turbines of oil in a desert, contrasted with the barren desert beforehand. Reggio uses the same technique of sweeping the view of the camera from far away to give a better understanding of the scale of the landscape. When watching the oil turbines for the second time I was impressed by the magnitude of the scenario and realized that even though mankind’s hands had touched the previously barren desert, it was not necessarily a bad thing. This had me thinking that I may have judged the film too early on, before taking the shots in at face value. I sought so intently for some sort of message with the lack of dialogue, that I neglected to watch the film in the only way Reggio had intended – at face value, to be absorbed before overthinking.
After accepting that I may have read too much into the intentions behind the film, I bought into Reggio’s website. While reassessing the film, I noticed that the first shot and the final shot were bookending the experience, were of rockets. In the first shot, we see the rocket propel into the atmosphere, while in the final one the rocket fails. By changing my scope of my viewing it seemed that the repetition was not a coincidence. The film depicts growth. The film begins in media res, Earth at the peak of its growth. Shots of the desert open the film, but later we see deserts occupied by mankind. At first I saw this as an invasion of the natural world for selfish, instrumental means. After reconsidering, I saw the beauty not only in nature untouched, but also in the accomplishments of mankind. The turbines, which at first seemed to be an eyesore, plaguing the otherwise beautiful desert, now looked impressive. The time-lapse was used at first to slow down the passing clouds, and later to speed up the headlights of cars on a highway. The movie gains a new meaning with a different perspective, showing mankind flourishing and expanding through nature to take control of the Earth, but not necessarily in a negative way. The final shot is of the rocket failing to make the same trip the first one accomplished, which sparked a question for me. The film shows the power of nature, followed by mankind overpowering nature, finally showing man’s weakness, failing to fly the rocket. The film seems almost to end on a cliffhanger, implying that mankind has plateaued, requiring further evolution to overcome the stopping point and make way for further growth. In forgetting Reggio’s influence on the film, and taking a meaning that was purely my own, I was able to take a greater point from the film. Perhaps we are now due yet again for a paradigm shift, yet this time to find a happy medium between the beauties in the first and second half of the film.
“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.” – Godfrey Reggio
“For when a work is finished it has, as it were, an independent life of its own, and may deliver a message far other than that which was put in its lips to say” – Oscar Wilde
