So much
has been written and said about artist/filmmaker Godfrey Reggio, especially
since the release of NAQOYQATSI, his long-awaited grand finale to the QATSI
trilogy. The outcry of joys and disappointments, amazing how much passion a
gentle ex-monk can arouse.
I first
met Godfrey at a series of dinner parties. I was one of the uninitiated, I knew
him before I knew his art. He had just finished KOYAANISQATSI, celebration was
in progress. Subsequently he offered me an occasional sneak-peek into his
working process. POWAQQATSI was part two of the Hopi Based Trilogy, then ANIMA
MUNDI for the World Wide Fund for Nature, cut and pasted from PAL, film stock,
as well as digital video. The first viewing was from edit station to edit
station, moviola to computer to projector. Extraordinary activity going on
right under the noses of tourists strolling by in the West Village.
Early
October 2000, Godfrey popped up unexpectedly in a teeny Italian restaurant on
Magazine St. in New Orleans, his hometown. He gave me an update on the
painstaking progress of fundraising for part three of the trilogy. A few months
later he called to ask about getting a large loft space in the Soho or Tribeca
area. In early May 2002 I stopped by the production studio a few blocks from
here, they had just finished NAQOYQATSI.
Godfrey
gave me a glass of red wine, took me to dark viewing room with a HDTV, started
up the film, grinned, told me that he would be back. He stopped by once to
refill my glass during the screening.
I was
taken for a ride! First one way then another, slippery speeds and indescribable
vectors, XYZs, infusions of boiling classics, a physical spectacle beyond
kaleidoscopic proportions. Spherical thought, marinating in its own
“thereness”. Yes, non-narrative art, no Hollywood endings, no presumptions, no
nothing, just like the Buddha said. The ride was delicious for the brain! Check
out the trilogy, with the Phillip Glass score and the divine cinematography.
See www.koyaanisqatsi.org for all the details.
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