Ron Fricke, Godfrey Reggio, Qatsi trilogy, time lapse films

I've recently watched the unbelievable Qatsi trilogy by Godfrey Reggio (Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi), filmed by Ron Fricke and scored by Philip Glass, as well as the films Baraka and Chronos filmed by Ron Fricke.

These are not really movies -- there is no narrative and no actors. They're stunning, arresting images and sequences filmed in slow motion and time lapse from all over the world, and brilliantly scored.

They seem to encompass a lot of the aesthetic debates we have about "truth" and "message" in photography -- and in a way they seem to have more continuity with photography than they do with filmmaking.

It almost feels like the future of the photographic art -- like it takes photography to its logical next step, which is creating narrative through image alone.

It makes me want to create the same kind of images with my still photography -- and in a couple cases I feel like I have -- but it challenges me to look through things rather than at things. It sort of subverts the 'transparency' discussion and applies it to the world itself rather than the images.

Anyone else seen them, or have similar feelings?

I've not seen those but at Arles I saw an amazing dissolve sequence, to music, by Didier Conchonnet, of bilaterally symmetrical images of the natural world: mirrored by a vertical central line. I saw statues, faces, demons, gods... As I said to M. Conchonnet afterwards, if anyone had described it to me, I'd not have gone to see it; but happening upon it by chance, it was stunning, completely different from anything else I have ever seen. It sounds like a similar experience to yours, not in detail, but in emotional content.

Paul how old were you in 1983 ? I was 16, went to see Koyaanisqatsi and stayed in a dreamlike state for a few weeks after... It's the only film that I stayed in the theater to watch for a second time in a row...

I was a little disapointed by Powaqatsi and a bit more by Naqoyqatsi. I thought they made the third one just to get the extra cash...

Baraka was nothing like the other ones. Interesting, but a bit too "catchy" (I hope I got the right word for it). The images were nice, but they didn't really make sense.

What's funny is that even today you see commercials copying Koyaanisqatsi, probably made by young directors that have just discovered it on DVD...

PS some advice to the young (and old, dear Roger) who have never watched the films in question: don't rent and watch them on a TV screen. You won't get the whole image. It'll be like watching fine prints on a PC monitor...

I first saw Koyaanisqatsi at the local arthouse theater a few years ago, and to me the most powerful things were the theme music and the time lapse shots of the space capsule falling to the ground.

I think they're a good example of the "hyper" approach to realism: by using acceleration, decelerations, rewinding and forwarding the image, by mixing static with movement, they show another reality, another way of conceptualizing the world. I find it actually has scientific overtones: Marey, Muybridges, and countless other scientists who use these cinematographic/photographic techniques to study nature.

It's as if they can render visually the thought process of abstraction. When you see a flower bloom a few minutes after having seeing it closed, you have to make the mental jump to connect the two. With time-lapse, you are actually seeing it, and you experience this continuity rather than positing it.

George Papantoniou said:

PS some advice to the young (and old, dear Roger) who have never watched the films in question: don't rent and watch them on a TV screen. You won't get the whole image. It'll be like watching fine prints on a PC monitor...

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Point fully taken, young George. Now I'll probably spend YEARS trying to find the damn' things, with recommendations like this from you and Paul.

Cheers,

Roger

I think I've watched Koyaanisqatsi no fewer than 50 times....and perhaps a good deal more. I first saw it on public TV when my younger son (25 now) was a very little guy of 3 or 4. He used to sing: Skatsiiiiiiii with the film which was both charming and hilarious (he was totally unaware of himself doing it.). I now own a DVD of that and Powaaqatsi; I've never encountered the third film at all.

I think Koyaanisqatsi is the most singularly successful, organic blend of music and film I've ever seen. It was also my introduction to minimalism and the music of Philip Glass. I soon learned to appreciate Steve Reich and John Adams as well.

It's so utterly dynamic and temporal that that it 'controls' the way time unfolds, and that is a wonderful accomplishment. What it doesn't do is inform the way I see as a still photographer.

I saw Koyaanisqatsi when I was in my early teens and Baraka later on. Both great films. Ron Fricke is a master at images and I would hire him to do a film. I heard he was used in Star Wars 3 to shoot the volcano shots used in the movie.

Those three movies live by their Philip Glass score, I think Koyaanisqatsi was the first one to be cut to music very strictly. That's not to diminish their visual impact, though.
I see a progression of the zeitgeist in them, the first one is about angst in the fully industrialized western society, the second one about eastern societies moving into a globalized world, the third about the parallel world of the internet and media.

George Papantoniou said:

Paul how old were you in 1983 ?

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I turned 9 that year. My film world was all about Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones.

I was a little disapointed by Powaqatsi and a bit more by Naqoyqatsi.

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Powaqatsi is really striking to me -- there is so much humanity in it.

Baraka was nothing like the other ones. Interesting, but a bit too "catchy" (I hope I got the right word for it). The images were nice, but they didn't really make sense.

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I think it's about beauty, and all the myriad forms it can take. It's a bit less polemical than the qatsi movies (if that's possible for something with no words). The images and cinematography in Baraka are jaw-dropping. Chronos is another Ron Fricke one, only about 45 minutes. It's a bit more frenetic and there are clearly some sequences made from the cutting room floor of the qatsi movies, but some of the scenes, especially in cathedrals, are memorable.

PS some advice to the young (and old, dear Roger) who have never watched the films in question: don't rent and watch them on a TV screen. You won't get the whole image. It'll be like watching fine prints on a PC monitor...

Click to expand...

I've had the DVDs for all 5 of these for a few years, but I didn't watch them until now -- now that we have a 50 inch plasma TV with surround sound. That was good enough.

jovo said:

I think Koyaanisqatsi is the most singularly successful, organic blend of music and film I've ever seen. It was also my introduction to minimalism and the music of Philip Glass. I soon learned to appreciate Steve Reich and John Adams as well.

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Yes, I agree. In one of the bonus features Philip Glass talks about how in TV commercials music is perfectly timed with events in the commercial -- and that perfect unity prevents the viewer from disengaging, from inserting themselves.

Glass' arpeggios can sometimes get a little repetitive for me, but in the qatsi movies they're masterful. His operas are amazing (esp Akhnaten), and his CD Aguas da Amazonia (scored for the Brazilian group Uakti) is brilliant.

What it doesn't do is inform the way I see as a still photographer.

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I see some commonality with how I try to visualize and present certain subjects in still photography. These are my two best examples.

Paul, your second picture made me think of this one by Vincent Laforet:

Roger Hicks said:

Point fully taken, young George. Now I'll probably spend YEARS trying to find the damn' things, with recommendations like this from you and Paul.

Cheers,

Roger

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Roger, it took me 3 years after seeing one film first time to finally see it again (and get copy of it).

George, now you and Paul are sending me to simillar journey...

Hello- I'm new on the forum and I sincerely sorry if this is off-topic but I truly do not know where to ask this. I'm looking for the title of a Ron Fricke-like movie (no dialog, very nice photography) that goes through the human history starting from pre-historic time, to present time, showing all relevant milestones for human kind and then way into the future. Many Thanks.

Alvaro89 said:

Hello- I'm new on the forum and I sincerely sorry if this is off-topic but I truly do not know where to ask this. I'm looking for the title of a Ron Fricke-like movie (no dialog, very nice photography) that goes through the human history starting from pre-historic time, to present time, showing all relevant milestones for human kind and then way into the future. Many Thanks.

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That indeed look's like you saw the first half-hour of Odyssee in space ! Stanley Kubric presented in 1969 and you are missing the end of the movie ?

with regards...

PS : Sorry I have no idea what it could be - but perhaps we can find out later ?

Unfortunately, it is not. In each take it is shown the year and a brief explanation of the relevant deeds of the year. The particular thing is than once it has reached present time it goes forward showing the breakthroughs humanity has to endure. I bet is a french / french speaker director...

DrPablo said:

I've recently watched the unbelievable Qatsi trilogy by Godfrey Reggio (Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi), filmed by Ron Fricke and scored by Philip Glass, as well as the films Baraka and Chronos filmed by Ron Fricke.

These are not really movies -- there is no narrative and no actors. They're stunning, arresting images and sequences filmed in slow motion and time lapse from all over the world, and brilliantly scored.

They seem to encompass a lot of the aesthetic debates we have about "truth" and "message" in photography -- and in a way they seem to have more continuity with photography than they do with filmmaking.

It almost feels like the future of the photographic art -- like it takes photography to its logical next step, which is creating narrative through image alone.

It makes me want to create the same kind of images with my still photography -- and in a couple cases I feel like I have -- but it challenges me to look through things rather than at things. It sort of subverts the 'transparency' discussion and applies it to the world itself rather than the images.

Anyone else seen them, or have similar feelings?

Click to expand...

Yes that are films wich are popular althought they are time lapse. For the technical side there is established a "standard" wich was never reached again for many many years!
From the aesthtics of photograpical (filming) concerns it is definitivly inspired from easthetic of "New
Color Photography". Many see this different because of the production date of the first Film
(Kojaanisqatsi) - it was just a couple of years after " New Color Photography " was born.
To me there is a quite comparable aesthetic - indeed!

Well many years later beginning with digital - time lapse was "reborn" ! The today's technology allows to come to higher quality as during the early 70th.

But that isn't self-evidently.

A time lapse filming today means : Some weeks of filming in different locations to reach just 4:30 min.
Most of time lapse "motives" are not that extraordinary enough. So a slogan : " Let us film timlapse now" is very easy to say but the resulting shots are often not extraordinary enough.

The same is to state in regard of camera - moving during time lapse. The modern technology makes it comfortable to use movings in all kinds one may imagine.

(without moving in timelapse is is a No Go any longer by the way).

But if EVERYTHING is coming together : Superb photography from outstanding aesthtics, a good feeling in regard of the right camera movement, the right "cut" on the scenes, enough budget
(min. 45.000,-) you are able to find modern time lapse from better quality today.

Unreachable is at last the "philosophy" wich is behind that old masters of timelapse.

So the intention of today's time lapse shootings is very simple - too much simple in my eyes :
ADVERTISING !

If you have more interest to see what is possible today in time lapse shootings LOOK :



Well that is one of the best ever made time lapse shootings out of 2013 and it is still standing for
outstanding framing. Don't try to copy that workflow because it will cost you highliest budget AND at last such production will ruin you!

But it is "just" advertising for Vancouver City ! Not to compare with the classic Masters.
Pls. notice the intention of movements and the outstanding music synchronisation.

with regards

Great thread !