Koyaanisqatsi

The first image in the film is of the Great Gallery pictograph in Horseshoe Canyon, in Canyonlands National Park, Utah. The section shown depicts several tall, shadowed figures standing near a taller figure adorned with a crown. The next image is a close-up of a Saturn V rocket during its launch (Apollo 11). The film fades into a shot of a desolate desert landscape. From there, it progresses to footage of various natural phenomena such as waves and clouds.

The film's introduction to human involvement in the environment is a low aerial shot of choppy water, cutting to a similar shot of rows of cultivated flowers. After aerial views of monumental rock formations partly drowned by the artificial Lake Powell, we see a large mining truck causing billows of black dust. This is followed by shots of power lines in the desert. Man's continued involvement in the environment is depicted through images of mining operations, oil fields, the Navajo Generating Station, the Glen Canyon Dam, and atomic bomb detonations in a desert. Following the atomic bomb detonations, the next sequence begins with a shot of sunbathers on a beach, then pans to the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in the background. Shots of taxiing United Airlines Boeing 747 aircraft and traffic patterns during rush hour are seen on a freeway and a shot of a large parking lot. This is followed with stock footage of Soviet tanks lined up in rows and a military aircraft, and an aircraft carrier.

Time-lapse photography of shadows of clouds are seen moving across the skyscrapers, followed by shots of various housing projects in disrepair, including footage of the decay and demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis. The sequence ends with footage of the destruction of large buildings. A time-lapse shot of a crowd of people who appear to be waiting in a line. This is followed by shots of people walking along streets in slow motion.

The next sequence begins with shots of buildings and a shot of a sunset reflected in the glass of a skyscraper. The sequence uses time-lapse photography of the activity of modern life. The events captured in this sequence involve people interacting with modern technology. The first shots are traffic patterns as seen from skyscrapers at night. This is followed by an extreme time-lapse close-up of the moon passing behind a skyscraper. The next shots are closer shots of cars on a highway. The sun rises over the city and we see people hurrying to work. The film shows at regular speed the operation of machines packaging food. People are shown sorting mail, sewing jeans, manufacturing televisions and doing other jobs with the use of modern technology. A shot of hot dogs being sent down rows of conveyors is followed by a shot of people moving up escalators. The frenetic speed and pace of the cuts and music do not slow as shots of modern leisure are shown. People eat, play, shop and work at the same speed. The sequence begins to come full circle as the manufacture of cars in an assembly-line factory is shown.

More shots of highway traffic are shown, this time in daylight. The film shows the movement of cars, shopping carts, and televisions on an assembly line, and elevators moving from first-person perspective. The film then shows clips from various television shows being channel surfed in fast motion. The film, in slow motion, then shows several people reacting to being candidly filmed on the street. The camera stays on them until the moment when they acknowledge its presence by looking directly at it. The sequence then shows cars moving much faster than they were moving before.

Pictures of microchips and satellite photography of metropolitan cities are shown, comparing the lay of each of them. Various shots of people are seen from all walks of modern life, from beggars to debutantes. The final sequence shows footage of a rocket lifting off, only to end up exploding after a few seconds. Editing suggests that there is only one rocket, while in fact two different events were used: The first batch of footage shows a Saturn V lifting off (Apollo 11), followed by footage of the May 1962 explosion of the first Atlas-Centaur.

The camera follows a flaming rocket engine and a white vapor trail or smoke against a blue sky as the debris plummets toward the ground. The film concludes with another shot of desert rock art similar to the image at the beginning. Epilogue shows the translation of the titular Hopi word and of the prophecies sung in the last part of the soundtrack. As the credits roll, multiple sounds from news programs and telephone calls are played.

The film's soundtrack by Philip Glass was released in 1983, after the release of the film. Even though the amount of music in the film was almost as long as the film itself, the soundtrack release was only 46 minutes long and featured only samples of the film's pieces. In 1998, Glass rerecorded the album through Nonesuch Records with a length of 73 minutes, 21 seconds. The rerecording of the album featured two additional tracks from the film, as well as extended versions of previous tracks from the original album. The album was released as a Philip Glass album titled Koyaanisqatsi, rather than a soundtrack to the film. The music has become so popular that the Philip Glass Ensemble has toured the world, playing the music for Koyaanisqatsi live in front of the movie screen.

The opening for "The Grid" begins with slow sustained notes on brass instruments. The music builds in speed and dynamics throughout the piece's 21 minutes. When the piece is at its fastest, it is characterized by a synthesizer playing the piece's bass line ostinato.

Glass's music for the film is a highly recognizable example of the minimalist school of composition, which is characterized by heavily repeated figures, simple structures, and a tonal (although not in the traditional common practice sense of the word) harmonic language. Glass was one of the first composers to employ minimalism in film scoring, paving the way for many future composers of that style.[25]

The complete original soundtrack recording was released on CD in 2009 on Glass's own label Orange Mountain Music.[26]

One piece written for the film, "Façades", was intended to be played over a montage of scenes from New York's Wall Street. It ultimately was not used in the film; Glass released it as part of his album Glassworks in 1982.[27]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[28]

Godfrey Reggio, director of Koyaanisqatsi and the other films in the Qatsi trilogy

Reggio stated that the Qatsi films are intended to simply create an experience and that "it is up [to] the viewer to take for himself/herself what it is that [the film] means." He also said that "these films have never been about the effect of technology, of industry on people. It's been that everyone: politics, education, things of the financial structure, the nation state structure, language, the culture, religion, all of that exists within the host of technology. So it's not the effect of, it's that everything exists within [technology]. It's not that we use technology, we live technology. Technology has become as ubiquitous as the air we breathe ..."[3]

According to Hopi Dictionary: Hopìikwa Lavàytutuveni, the Hopi word koyaanisqatsi (Hopi pronunciation: [kojɑːnisˈkɑtsi])[29] is defined as "life of moral corruption and turmoil" or "life out of balance".[30] The prefix koyaanis– means "corrupted" or "chaotic", and the word qatsi means "life" or "existence",[31] literally translating koyaanisqatsi as "chaotic life".[30] The film also defines the word as "crazy life", "life out of balance, "life in turmoil", "life disintegrating", and "a state of life that calls for another way of living."[32]

In the score by Philip Glass, the word "Koyaanisqatsi" is chanted at the beginning and end of the film in an "otherworldly"[33] dark, sepulchral basso profondo by singer Albert de Ruiter over a solemn, four-bar organ-passacaglia bassline. Three Hopi prophecies sung by a choral ensemble during the latter part of the "Prophecies" movement are translated just prior to the end credits:

• "If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
• "Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
• "A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

During the end titles, the film gives Jacques Ellul, Ivan Illich, David Monongye, Guy Debord, and Leopold Kohr credit for inspiration. Moreover, amongst the consultants to the director are listed such names as Jeffrey Lew, T.A. Price, Belle Carpenter, Cybelle Carpenter, Langdon Winner, and Barbara Pecarich.

On Rotten Tomatoes, Koyaanisqatsi has an approval rating of 90% based on 20 reviews, with an average rating of 8.01/10. 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."[46] In 1983, the film was entered into the 33rd Berlin International Film Festival.[47] Czech pedagogue Rudolf Adler, in his textbook for film educators, describes Koyaanisqatsi as "formulated with absolute precision and congenial expression."[48]^:60

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 20th Century Women.[49][50][51]
• The trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV resembles the style of the film, featuring different shots of the fictional Liberty City, with the track "Pruit Igoe" in the background.[52] This track also appeared in the final custscene of the missions "Out of Commission" and "A Revenger's Tragedy".
• The 2009 film Watchmen 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.[53]
• The film inspired the album Music to Films by Dr. Atmo and Oliver Lieb, released on the record label FAX +49-69/450464. The music is completely synchronized to the film.
• The chanted "koyaanisqatsi" lyric from the film's title song was parodied in P.D.Q. Bach'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".[54]
• This film also inspired RaMell Ross's 2018 Oscar-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening.[55][56]
• A 2010 episode of The Simpsons, "Stealing First Base", features a parody Itchy & Scratchy film titled Koyaanis-Scratchy: Death Out of Balance.[57]
• Two Scrubs episodes feature the main title music with intense staring (the janitor giving JD the 'evil eye'): Season 5, episode 5 My New God[58] and episode 17 My Chopped Liver.[59]
• The music video for Madonna's song "Ray of Light" was heavily inspired by the "Grid" sequence from the movie.[60]

• Chronos (1985)
• Samsara (2011)

• Official website
• Koyaanisqatsi at IMDb
• Koyaanisqatsi at the TCM Movie Database
• Koyaanisqatsi at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Qatsi Trilogy: Counterpoint and Harmony an essay by John Rockwell at the Criterion Collection
• Koyaanisqatsi on MUBI
• 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 ISBN 0826429777, pages 778-780