Filmed and edited over the six years from 1978–1983, Koyaanisqatsi is an exceptionally beautiful piece of poetry, visual and musical. The DVD contains an "extra" called "Essence of Life" (2002), which features extended discussion by the directory, Godfrey Reggio, and the composer, Philip Glass. It is well worth watching — far more instructive than most director commentaries or "making of" documentaries. Here are a few comments from the director:
In my life, I entered a religious community of men at the age of 14, stayed till the age of 28, grew up in effect in the middle ages, which was remarkably insane and beautiful all at the same time — in other words, it wasn't bad or good; it was bad and good at the same time, this and that. And I felt it gave me a special preparation for life. The part of it I was in prepared me to live a life of humility and service and prayer, and that certainly goes against the grain of, say, 1950s New Orleans culture...
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I've always been, I guess, interested and motivated in what stands behind the surface of things. And when you're religious and doing meditation and mental prayer, and trying to go beyond words into some deep feeling with something that's willful, then it helps you prepare. I guess I had a great preparation for discipline and focus in that mad time.
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What I tried to show is that the main event today is not seen by those of us that live in it. We see the surface of the newspapers, the obviousness of conflict, of social injustice, of the market, welling up of culture. But to me the greatest event, the most important event of perhaps our entire history — nothing comparable in the past — this event has fundamentally gone unnoticed. And this event is the following: the transiting from old nature, or the natural environment, as our host of life for human habitation, into a technological milieu, into mass technology as the environment of life.
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It's not that we use technology; we live technology. Technology has become as ubiquitous as the air we breathe.
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Life unquestioned is life lived in a religious state.
There is plenty more of interest in the interview extra, and the movie itself was a superb experience.