Silent Words
Tarvis Watson
Sometimes
I wonder what was going through Godfrey Reggio’s mind during those fourteen
years he was silent. I read somewhere that the average male speaks two thousand
words a day. Two thousand words times three hundred and sixty five days times
fourteen years equals ten million, two-hundred and twenty thousand words, all
unspoken by Mr. Reggio. He took this vow of silence starting at the age of
fourteen, usually a time when there is no shortage of nervous phone calls with
girls, angst-ridden arguments with parents and teachers, locker-room talk and
late-night chatter sessions in dorm rooms. If one were able to take the young
Mr. Reggio, transpose him to say—a sci-fi B-movie, attach diodes to his
forehead to project his thoughts onto a large screen, would that collection of
images, sounds, music and prayers, would it in any way at all anticipate The
QATSI Trilogy? If that’s the case those fourteen years of silence was a
bargain; The QATSI Trilogy is worth those ten million words many times over. It
is the purest example of cinema, it is power, it is poeticism, it is grandeur.
