Filmmaker Ron Fricke is well-known for his time-lapse photography such as in his film "Chronos" (1985). In the mid-seventies, he began the production with the non-narrative feature film "Koyaanisqatsi" (1982) together with Godfrey Reggio who directed. The film's music was created by composer Philip Glass and later released as a soundtrack in '83.
The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse footage of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and music. Reggio explained the lack of dialogue by stating "it's not for lack of love of the language that these films have no words. It's because, from my point of view, our language is in a state of vast humiliation. It no longer describes the world in which we live." In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means "unbalanced life". The film is the first in the Qatsi trilogy of films: it is followed by "Powaqqatsi" (1988) and "Naqoyqatsi" (2002). The trilogy depicts different aspects of the relationship between humans, nature, and technology. "Koyaanisqatsi" is the best known of the trilogy and is considered a cult film. However, because of copyright issues, the film was out of print for most of the 1990s
Watch the full film:
"Koyaanisqatsi" is also up on The Internet Archive.
