film
Naqoyqatsi
Life As War
2002

Info

Written and Directed by Godfrey Reggio.
Music by Philip Glass.

Credits

Music: Philip Glass.
Editor and Visual Designer: Jon Kane.
Producers: Joe Beirne, Godfrey Reggio, Lawrence Taub.
Executive Producer: Steven Soderbergh.
Cello Solos: Yo-yo Ma.
Music and Soundtrack Producer: Kurt Munkacsi.
Conductor: Michael Riesman.
Executive Music Producer: Jim Keller.
Technologist: Joe Beirne.
Image Research Director: Ray Hemenez.
Dramaturgical / Editorial Continuity : Miroslav Janek.
Director Of Qatsi Music / Sound Studio: Francis Kuipers.
Additional Editing: Bill Morrison.
Dramaturgical Shaping: Philip Glass, Ray Hemenez, Miroslav Janek, Jon Kane, Francis Kuipers, Godfrey Reggio.
Creative Consultant: Jeffrey Lew.
First Assistant Editor: Karla P. Henwood.
Visual Fx / Image Re-animation: Manuel Gaulot.
Original CGI Animation: Manuel Gaulot, Cameron Hickey, Zachary David Medow.
Assistant Editor: David Abelson.
Image Assistant To Jon Kane: Bulent Bas.
Co-Producer: Mel Lawrence.
Line Producer: Federico Negri.
Associate Producer: Steve Goldin.
Qatsi Productions Coordinator: Lauren Feeney.
Director Of Photography: Russell Lee Fine.
Additional Photography: Timothy Housel.
Guest Cinematographer: John Bailey, A.S.C.
Sound Designer: Steven Boeddeker.
Music Engineer: Hector Castillo.
Re-recording Mixer: Martin Czembor.
Post Production Supervisor: Susan Lazarus.
Conforming Editors: David Abelson, Karla P. Henwood.
Film Research: Lewanne Jones, Andrew Noren.
Title Linguistic Research: Ekkehart Malotki.
Image Assistant to the Director: Marion Wasserman.
Assistant to Qatsi Music / Sound Studio Director: Nathaniel Reichman.
Project Realization: Karen Hopkins, John Rockwell, Ty Burr, Pat Dollard, Mayra Langdon Riesman, Rick Wysocki.
Production Accountant: Judy Haas Kiphart.
Assistants to Lawrence Taub: Rhonda Avidon, Lesley North.
Legal Counsel: David G. Lubell, Jeff Jaffe.
Sound Studio Assistant: Patrick Inverso.
Apprentice Picture Editor: Harold Lee Yen.
Sound Apprentice: Matthew Griffin.
Rotoscoping and Image Preparation: Benjamin Fine, Lauren Feeney.
Additional Editing: Caleb Oglesby.
Qatsi Chef: Laurie Olinder.
Studio Kitchen: Brian O’Leary, Jasmine Lee, Mikako Niino.
Studio Feng Shui: Marti Lovell.
Original New York City Photography:
Second Unit Director: Jon Kane.
Production Managers: Christine Mcandrews, Sophia Lin.
Locations Manager: Elizabeth Scheflow.
Real People Services: Caroline Sinclair.
First Assistant Camera Operators: John Clemens, John Mcaleer, Jr., James R. Belletier, Chris Bottoms.
Second Assistant Camera Operators: Daniel Keck, Kathleen Corgan, Jason Vandermer.
Steadicam Operator: Brant Fagan.
Steadicam Ac: Rob Salviotti.
Photosonics Technicians: Don Cornett, Anthony Pisciotta.
Additional Photography: Bill Morrison.
Gaffer: Jon Hokanson, Robert Omer.
Best Boy Electric: Donald Peifer, Nicole Corre.
Electric: Haroun Ibn-mock, Kira Kelly.
Key Grip: Jon Mintz. Grips: Jesse Cory, Chris Dino, Heidi Grunwald, Sam Kretschmer, Timothy Reilly, Tim Spellman, Matthew Witgenstein.
Grip Assistant: Wayne Watson.
Video Assist: Dean Snyder.
Sound Services: Nathaniel Reichman, Patrick Inverso.
Prop Master: Ellen Nylen.
Prop Assistants: Bert Cooper, Kenny Urbina, Jesse Levin.
Makeup: Sanja Milic.
Production Coordinators: Meryl Stavitz, Jeffrey Brown.
Second Assistant Director: Annie Tan.

This Motion Picture Was Created by Qatsi Productions, LLC and Miramax Film Corp.

Notes

Na-qoy-qatsi: (nah koy’ kahtsee) N. From the Hopi Language. <eachother-kill many-life> 1. A life of killing each other. 2. War as a way of life. 3. (Interpreted) Civilized violence.

A motion picture experience beyond words, Naqoyqatsi merges the power of image and music to plunge into the heart of the hyper-accelerated, globally wired 21st century. Mesmerizing images plucked from everyday reality, then visually altered with state-of-the-art digital techniques, stream across the screen in synch with a hypnotic score by Philip Glass, featuring the passionate cello work of Yo-Yo Ma.

Despite the film’s nonverbal nature, the ultimate effect of its starkly futuristic, computer-enhanced visual fabric is to get people talking about how technology is altering everything: media, art, entertainment, sports, politics, medicine, warfare, ethics, nature, culture and the very face of the human future.

Naqoyqatsi is presented by Academy Award winner Steven Soderbergh, who was drawn to the film’s vision of a brave new globalized world in which the coming battles include humans versus computers, money versus values and life versus its simulation. “Godfrey Reggio has created yet another landmark film,” says Soderbergh. “Naqoyqatsi is an explosion of ideas and imagery; a riveting, rigorous, provocative, and breathtaking exploration of how we’ve allowed technology to infiltrate our everyday lives.”

Nearly every image in Naqoyqatsi is a special visual effect. Some 80 percent of the film’s footage is culled from stock footage (from such sources as scientific and military films, newsreels, corporate videos, sports documentaries, cartoons, television shows and commercials), most of which has been radically altered with digital technology. Images have been colorized or de-colorized, stretched, slowed or speeded up, re-patterned, re-textured and “re-animated,” turning the familiar into something startlingly new. By using the cutting edge in filmmaking technology, Naqoyqatsi provides a dizzying view of today’s world as seen through the lens of the very machinery that has created it.

Naqoyqatsi is the third and final feature film in “The Qatsi Trilogy” which began with the groundbreaking Koyaanisqatsi, a revelatory, kaleidoscopic view of clashing urban and natural landscapes in North America, and continued with Powaqqatsi, a journey around the world unfolding primal traditions and the influx of new technology. The films have been described as cinematic “head trips” that take audiences into a realm of pure sensory experience.

Together, they have also become a rare artistic chronicle of the turbulent transition between the 20th and 21st centuries and its as-yet-unseen consequences. Naqoyqatsi now leaps ahead to capture the essence of globalization as barrier-breaking advances in robotics, quantization and digital communications spread like wildfire across the planet. This final part of the “Qatsi” series presents one man’s vision of what we are hurtling towards in a world where technology reigns: unprecedented extremes of promise, spectacle, tragedy and finally, hope.

Like a concert, Naqoyqatsi unfolds in three movements. Movement One explores the newly wired world and the ongoing evolution from human language to numerical code. Movement Two delves into the realms of sports, competition and gaming, which have become worldwide addictions. Movement Three takes off on a journey into sheer speed and the breakneck acceleration of 21st century life — pondering what it is like to remember the future and truly experience the present.

Naqoyqatsi is written and directed by Godfrey Reggio, with an original score by Philip Glass featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Jon Kane is the editor and visual designer. The executive producer is Steven Soderbergh and the producers are Lawrence Taub and Joe Beirne. The co-producer is Mel Lawrence, and the director of photography is Russell Lee Fine.

Related

COMPOSITIONS:
Naqoyqatsi

RECORDINGS:
Naqoyqatsi on Sony Classical
Philip Glass Soundtracks – Michael Riesman

FILMS:
Koyaanisqatsi by Godfrey Reggio
Powaqqatsi by Godfrey Reggio

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