Godfrey Reggio is best known for his Qatsi trilogy of films which include Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi. These film titles are taken from the Hopi language, and mean “life out of balance”, “life in transformation”, and “life as war”, respectively. Philip Glass composed the soundtracks. Before making these films, Reggio spent fourteen years in fasting, silence and prayer, training to be a monk.
Here is a link to the Qatsi website
Here is a link to Mr. Reggios’ new film: VisitorsFilm.com.
Louis Leray: I’m scared of this idea, “If you love your life you will lose it.” I’m afraid that I’m going to lose all of what I love, because I want so badly to hang on to it.
Godfrey Reggio: Yes, it’s attributed to Jesus. He says, “If you wish to save your life, you’ll have to lose your life.” He says, “Be in the world and not of the world.” It’s dealing with paradox or contradiction … ideas that can hold two contradictory points of view and yet give you a breakthrough. Because language is not fixed. If it’s fixed, it becomes like an ideology or an “ism”. Language is predicated on the unknown. So when someone makes a statement that if you want to find your life you must lose it, it’s not saying you must lose everything you love, it’s saying, “lose that which is your own pursuit of self.” Like when you make art, it’s not about self-expression. We could expose ourselves to do that. It’s about discovering something. It’s about going to a place you haven’t been before. It’s about being a medium for something else to work through you. If you’re fortunate enough to create a piece of art, it always has a meaning beyond what those who made it intended it to have. That’s its signature. It has multiple meanings and therefore a life of its own. If it’s propaganda or social realism then the message is unmistakable. It’s one way. You either agree with it or you don’t. But with art, the power of art is not that it has a particular meaning, but that it is meaning-full. In that sense, Art and Religion speak about the same dimensionality — that which is meaningful in our life. Art is not just an indulgent event.
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