Koyaanisqatsi - Meaning

Meaning

Reggio stated that the Qatsi films are intended to simply create an experience and that "it is up the viewer to take for himself/herself what it is that means." He also said that "these films have never been about the effect of technology, of industry on people. It's been that everyone: politics, education, things of the financial structure, the nation state structure, language, the culture, religion, all of that exists within the host of technology. So it's not the effect of, it's that everything exists within . It's not that we use technology, we live technology. Technology has become as ubiquitous as the air we breathe..."

According to Hopi Dictionary: Hopìikwa Lavàytutuveni, the Hopi word koyaanisqatsi is defined as "life of moral corruption and turmoil" or "life out of balance". The prefix koyaanis– means "corrupted" or "chaotic", and the word qatsi means "life" or "existence", literally translating koyaanisqatsi as "chaotic life". The film also defines the word as "crazy life", "life in turmoil", "life disintegrating", and "a state of life that calls for another way of living".

In the score by Philip Glass, the word "Koyaanisqatsi" is chanted at the beginning and end of the film in a dark, sepulchral basso profundo by singer Albert de Ruiter over a solemn, four-bar organ-passacaglia bassline. Three Hopi prophecies are sung by a choral ensemble during the latter part of the "Prophecies" movement are translated just prior to the end credits:

• "If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
• "Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
• "A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

At the end of the film, the movie credits for inspiration Jacques Ellul, Ivan Illich, David Monongye, Guy Debord and Leopold Kohr. Moreover, amongst the consultants to the director are listed such names as Jeffrey Lew, T.A. Price, Belle Carpenter, Langdon Winner, Cybelle Carpenter and Barbara Pecarich.