I love Baraka. Of course, see post #3 by Beware of Doug.
How in the FUCK did this thread come back?
I just watched the movie, and was too overcome by ennui to start a new one.
Nice language, Argent Towers.
Could someone explain this joke to me? I don’t get it.
The music of Philip Glass often repeats the same music phrase over and over again, before making a slight change, then repeating that phrase over and over again, etc. To some like me it’s hypnotically beautiful, but to others it’s just annoying.
Listen to “Resource” from his score for Koyaanisquatsi.
Wow, that sounds a lot like Ministry … but quieter.
I love Ministry. I usually like P. Glass. But Ministry has emotion & energy. This P. Glass soundtrack in like going to the dentist, getting anesthetized, and then the dentist just walks out of the room.
Koyaanisqatsi has a very special place in my heart, as this was the first movie I saw while tripping on acid.
It made the movie much more poignant.
I was completely blown away by the part where the music slows down and you get all these close-up shots of people looking into the camera.
I have never felt such “welt-schmerz” as during that scene.
I didn’t like *Powaqqatsi * very much as the music was too up-beat.
*Naqoyqatsi * looks really bad for the most part because of the inverted color-crap, but there are some beautiful, hypnotic scenes in it.
The music of *Naqoyqatsi * is one of the best Glass scores, I feel, which I largely contribute to Yoyo Ma’s beautiful, haunting Cello sound.
Koyaanisqatsi is a welcome relief after a semester of Stan Brakhage and his wife’s genitals.
I’ve heard that Philip Glass thinks that knock-knock joke is hilarious.
Since this thread has reappeared, I get a chance to hate “Koyaanisgatsi” too.
It is the most technophobist piece of rubbish I’ve seen. Imagine if a film contrasted America with Asia in such a one sided way this film contrasted the manmade with the natural. It would be completely offensive.
Had time lapse photography only just been invented when it came out? That would seem to be the only reason for producing such a work.
Saw it, hated it, found it to be the very definition of “pretentious crap”.
But this put me on the flloor! 
This statement only demonstrates that you are sick in the head.
Consciously or not, you make astraw man fallacy with these two points. Let’s imagine that all of Earth’s natural beauty were completely destroyed. But, say, Mars remained untouched. Would that mean that Earth’s natural state had not really been destroyed? Of course not. The fact that a few parts of the Earth have not been polluted & destroyed does not mean that no parts of the Earth have been polluted & destroyed.
That’s a little strong, isn’t it? I haven’t seen the film (although I own the soundtrack), but I googled around looking for images from it, and mostly I’m seeing stills from time-lapsed shots of citiscapes, some shots of assembly lines, and one shot of a bridge being demolished. The cityscapes are quite breathtaking, the assembly line shots are technically interesting, and the bridge blowing up is frankly awesome. The nature shots are quite good, too, but I don’t see how preference for one over the other makes someone “sick in the head.” Are there other shots of, say, concentration camps or murder scenes or something that would warrant such a stinging denouncement?
That’s not a strawman. A strawman is when you create an argument that is not what your opponent is actually trying to say, and argue that instead of his actual point. Unless you’re arguing that Glass and Reggio were not trying to present a statement against anti-industrialization? Maybe they aren’t: I haven’t seen the film, like I said, but most sources agree that this was the intent of the film makers.
Of course, many of the sources I looked at pointed out that the film is very ambiguous, and it is possible to take multiple, mutually exclusive interpretations away from it. I understand the film is almost totally non-narrative and non-verbal, which makes such ambiguity almost inescapable. As such, I do not know that it is possible to make a straw man argument about the films intent, when the film’s intent is not explicit within the film itself.
Now this is a strawman argument, as jackelope never argued that no part of Earth had been polluted or destroyed. Rather, he was pointing out that parts of the Earth have been polluted, and parts are still pristine and untouched. Which, arguably, represents a kind of balance in and of itself.
Um, if the film is ambiguous, then putting specific words in its makers’ mouths is ambiguous.
The film does not say this. Jackelope inferred it, then complained about it. Straw man. Calling something “straw man” is not about who’s right or wrong in an absolute sense. It’s about bad logic.
Eh?
In what ways is his inference incorrect? What in the film contradicts his interpretation? What do you think the film is saying? Can you prove, relying only on the film itself, that your interpretation is the only one that is appliable? It seems to me that accusing someone of making a straw man fallacy is nonsensical when the subject is as non-objective as this film.
I’m still curious about your “sick in the head” comment, as well.
The film is called “life out of balance.” That’s not ambiguous. The fact that the creator goes on to say
Sounds like cop out drivel to me. Why call it “life out of balance” if it’s just art, and art has no specific meaning? The creator had a message he’s trying to send, then backs out of it by calling it “art.”
What a pussy.
“Life out of balance” does not necessarily mean it’s technophobic. Far from it. Shoot, even if what you take from the movie is that technology is creating lots of pain and ugliness in the world, that’s not necessarily technophobic. The movie is more subtle than that. It does show some of the beauty of technology. It sure as hell isn’t painting a black and white “tech is evil” picture.