Koyaanisquatsi (1983)

Life in Clouds and Waterfalls

2:56-6:25

Objective Review:

  The series of scenes which caught my eye in Koyaanisquatsi was the brief series featuring clouds and water. First, great, fluffy clouds roll through the sky without barrier, their only limit each other. Then the scene shifts, giving us a foreground of mountains to hem in the clouds, before switching to a cloud growing like a smokestack. After the clouds, we see water pouring over a cliff side, no moment ever quite the same as another, producing smoke at the bottom of the falls. We then go to the ocean, the end result of the falls, first filmed from shore, then from above, where it resembles clouds. Then we go back to actual clouds, floating past quickly on a sunny day, followed by what seems to be a sea made of clouds. Like waves, they curl over each other and mountains alike, producing a water-like spray. Again, we return to water, waves crashing against the shore, rolling and bucking and crashing almost violently. Returning to clouds, they, like the water before them, roll against mountains, producing a water-like foam from their edges and crashing back into each other. They flow over the earth and brush against the mountains.

Reaction:

  I had watched the movie on YouTube Monday in hopes of having more time to formulate an opinion. I like the producer's manner of organization, particularly the ways the scenes are subtly linked. I feel that the movie is an interesting example of a popular film with a very unusual stage. Although I myself found it somewhat boring, I can easily see why the viewer might find such a film intriguing.

Interpretation:

  Deleuze’s theory of rhizomes is a useful concept for postmodernist thinking. In nature, a rhizome is a horizontal stem of a plant. In philosophy, the rhizome spreads horizontally as well. Almost without structure, it is a way to think in a non-linear and a non-hierarchical manner. Its beginnings are difficult, if not impossible, to find and it has no end. It defies retrospective categorization, and so frees the mind to make new connections to ally with the old. Deleuze says that “The rhizome itself assumes very diverse forms, from ramified surface extension in all directions to concretion into bulbs and tubers.” Koyaanisquatsi is best viewed with this concept in mind.

ginger rhizome

  Rather than focusing on the beginning and end of the film, the viewer is best served by looking for non-linear developments (Gregoriou). Multiple associations can stem from one scene, the cause-and-effect reactions of the usual three-arc book is gone (Deleuze). In order to understand Koyaanisquatsi, we must understand that no part of the film comes first or last. None of it is confined to a singular explanation or association. We must see it as a whole. Even the very first scene relates to the ending scene.

  This is how I viewed the scene which caught my attention. I had previously associated clouds with good: heaven, angels, and religion. Clouds brought to mind things that were higher than humanity. Water, however, was an earthbound force, associated with rivers, streams, and drinking. The first association which stemmed from this scene was the newfound correlation between clouds and water. Deleuze says that “there are no points or positions in a rhizome” and with that in mind, I began to see the clouds and water as the same substance. Water crashed into the shore and turned back on itself, unique and beginning anew in every moment of its experience. The clouds were no different, pouring over the mountains and ridges, splashing against one another and spilling over the earth. Clouds are associated with air in nature, and so a new correlation between water and air was born. It was not the clouds alone which created such unique patterns, but the air which carried them.

  The movie as a whole brings together man and nature. Great sweeping landscapes are interrupted by roads and buildings, the scenes themselves are filmed from a helicopter. People break into the landscape with factories and cities, polluting the air with chemicals and rivers with dams. Yet they are all connected, for people find homes snuggled against the great factories and barren deserts. In an increasingly horizontal movement, humanity is spreading over the earth, finding foothold in even the most desolate areas.

  Perhaps a unique association the film makes is between different types of nature. Between air and water, between earth and sky. Many animals now reside in cities, hidden, but surviving in the environment humanity has given them. In many ways, everything is associated. Humans cannot live without the animals they are driving out, yet the animals find it increasingly difficult to live without the plenty provided by human society. The rhizome is not limited to clouds and water, air and earth. It is spread throughout the film, throughout the world itself. Life does not begin and does not end, we can only see the centers of it.

Deleuze and Guattari Intro-Rhizome

Gregoriou, Z. (2004), Commencing the Rhizome: Towards a minor philosophy of education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36: 233–251. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2004.00065.x
Koyaanisqatsi -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Dsv8E_ALo

RSA ANIMATE: The Power of Networks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJmGrNdJ5Gw

Three Minute Theory: What is the Rhizome? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnteiRO-XfU