IMAX: ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] [2002 / 2012] [Blu-ray] [UK Release] A Film By Godfrey Reggio! Original Score by Philip Glass and Featuring Yo-Yo Ma! Test Drive The Future!
Academy Award® winning director Steven Soderbergh (Best Director for ‘Traffic’ 2000) presents ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] from filmmaker Godfrey Reggio, in collaboration with composer Philip Glass, whose original score features renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. In this cinematic concert – a follow-up to the critically acclaimed ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ [Life out of Balance], and ‘Powaqqatsi’ [Life in Transformation] – mesmerising images are plucked from everyday reality, then visually altered to chronicle the shift from a world organised by the principals of nature to one dominated by technology, the synthetic and the virtual. Extremes of intimacy and spectacle, tragedy and hope fuse in a tidal wave of visuals and music, giving rise to a unique artistic experience that reflects Godfrey Reggio’s vision of a brave new globalised world.
FILM FACT: ‘NAQOYQATSI’ (/nÉ‘ËÂkɔɪˈkÉ‘ËÂtsi/ NAH-koy-KAH-tsee), also known as ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War], is a 2002 American film directed by Godfrey Reggio and edited by Jon Kane, with music composed by Philip Glass. It is the third and final film in the Qatsi trilogy. ‘NAQOYQATSI’ is a Hopi word (more correctly written naqöÌ€yqatsi) meaning “life as war.” The September 11 attacks against the World Trade Center in New York took place very close to the film's production studio, impacting the content of the film and further convincing the crew of the importance of its subject.
Contributors: Belladonna [Deadly nightshade], Marlon Brando (archive footage), Sir Elton John (archive footage), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (archive footage), Madonna (archive footage), Bhagwan Mirchandani (Business Man), Jack Shamblin (Atomic Adam), Steven Soderbergh (Man Reflected in Digital Screens) (3rd segment), Troy Aikman (Super Bowl XXX) (archive footage) (uncredited), The Beatles (archive footage) (uncredited), Osama bin Laden (archive footage) (uncredited), Fidel Castro (archive footage) (uncredited), Warren Christopher (archive footage) (uncredited), Bill Clinton (archive footage) (uncredited), The Dalai Lama (archive footage) (uncredited), Thomas A. Edison (archive footage) (uncredited), Albert Einstein (archive footage) (uncredited), Adolf Hitler (archive footage) (uncredited), Nikita Khrushchev (archive footage) (uncredited), Martin Luther King (archive footage) (uncredited), Henry Kissinger (archive footage) (uncredited), V.I. Lenin (archive footage) (uncredited), Greg Louganis (archive footage) (uncredited), Jeff Maksym (archive footage) (uncredited), Zedong Mao (archive footage) (uncredited), Pope John Paul II (archive footage) (uncredited), Ronald Reagan (Assassination Attempt) (archive footage) (uncredited) and Jimmy Swaggart (archive footage) (uncredited)
Director: Godfrey Reggio
Producers: Federico Negri, Godfrey Reggio, Joe Beirne, Lauren Feeney, Lawrence Taub, Mel Lawrence, Steve Goldin and Steven Soderbergh
Screenplay: Godfrey Reggio
Composer: Philip Glass
Cinematography: Russell Lee Fine (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
2.0 LPCM Stereo Audio
Subtitles: None
Running Time: 89 minutes
Number of discs: 1
Studio: MIRAMAX / STUDIOCANAL
Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: IMAX: ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] [2002] Uses montage image techniques, where ‘NAQOYQATSI’ combines all forms of mass media that has been altered with digital techniques to create a swirling chronicle of the influence of technology, reflecting the ever-increasing globalisation of the world and the societies contained within it. ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] is a bold and irreverent non-narrative film that speaks its truths with spellbinding images and awesome entrancing music by composer Philip Glass.
Another poetic fusion of flooding metaphorical imagery and powerful music from the mind of experimental director Godfrey Reggio, this follow-up to ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ [Life Out of Balance] and ‘Powaqqatsi’ [Life In Transition] is translated from the Hopi Indian language as “Life As War” and it eventually provides chilling, voiceless commentary on man's inhumanity to man.
In this cinematic concert with music composed by Philip Glass, mesmerizing images are reanimated from everyday reality, and then altered with digital techniques, chronicling the shift from a world organized by the principles of nature to one dominated by technology. The Hopi term naqoy means war, qatsi means life, but this is not the war of the battlefield, it is the war of ordinary daily living in a brave new globalized world.
Director Godfrey Reggio film ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War],’ set to a glorious, sure fired classic Philip Glass composed score and accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma on Cello Soloist.
Despite the lofty credentials, especially with Steven Soderbergh as executive produced, MIRAMAX who handled the distribution rights, this 89 minute visual global communication which is a mostly minimalist pastiche built on various modes of repetition to great effect.
Director Godfrey Reggio has fashioned a counter-cultural document using extensive footage from scientific and military films, newsreels, corporate videos, sports documentaries, cartoons, television shows, and commercials. Many pictures have been altered with digital effects — with colour added or removed or the whole image stretched to appear flat and lifeless. With great creativity, the director has used familiar and unsettling imagery to attack the deification of technology in our lives.
But before climaxing with a tense cacophony of sight and indicative juxtapositions of technological advances with primitive human nature and sound of Composer Philip Glass and Cello Soloist Yo-Yo Ma in a goose bumps crescendo of orchestral intensity, the film weaves almost intuitively though a blur of cultural and universal symbolism, ironic equations of consumerism to religion and politics, and sometimes beautiful, sometimes beautifully horrible footage of war, pleasure and other human endeavours.
The three movements of ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] charts the multiple inroads of technology, speed, advertising, and militarism into every nook and cranny of our everyday lives. In the first section, human language and the nuances of place give way to numerical code and virtual reality. Our reality is diminished in a thousand different ways. In the second section, we are plunged into a swirl of vignettes and images that present life as a game in which only the winners count, whether in sports, business, gambling, or war. The final movement depicts the acceleration of life where speed is everything and the body, mind and soul can't keep up. Here is the ultimate violation and the violence that blears and smears the human spirit. If anything, the Philip Glass piece “Intensive Time” could be the best techno song of the new millennium.
Please Note: ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] has been dedicated to Tony Price, Walter Chappell, Gregory Corso.
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Blu-ray Image Quality – MIRAMAX and STUDIOCANAL presents ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] in a stunning 1080p image and is enhanced with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio and was scanned for 2K resolution from the original camera negative, with a 2002 image transfer supervised by Godfrey Reggio used as a grading reference throughout the IMAX film. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, and torn or damaged frames, image flicker and instability were fixed or improved on both using a combination of restoration tools and techniques and looks amazing. Given that there is a mix of newly shot 35mm, 16mm blow-ups and archive footage, some variance in the image quality is to be expected, but even the weakest archive material looks good and especially the 35mm footage shot by Ron Fricke. The level of detail really does take your breath away at times, the colours are nicely rendered and the contrast range is perfectly judged, with solid black levels are very well achieved. Some small instances of dirt remain on the archive footage and the film grain is more prominent here, but given the range of imagery employed in both films this just feels part of the overall aesthetic. A lovely job that does the mesmerising imagery of both films full justice. So well done MIRAMAX and STUDIOCANAL for their sterling work on this impressive IMAX film. Please Note: Playback Region B/2: This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Learn more about Blu-ray region specifications.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – MIRAMAX and STUDIOCANAL brings us ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] with two audio experiences and one of them is 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio experience and was remastered at 24-bit from the original Dolby LTRT magnetic tracks, as well as some rediscovered original outtakes, that was created by Philip Glass and the other audio experience is 2.0 LPCM Stereo Audio. Audio issues such as clicks, thumps and dropouts were manually removed from this audio sound track and it is a wonderful treat for the ears and displaying no age-related audio range restrictions, that boast a strong dynamic range, chest-punching bass and a round-the-room inclusivity, this is the sort of audio accompaniment that the films really deserve. On top of all that you should crank up the volume, apologise profusely to the neighbours in advance and let this unique audio-visual experience wash over and envelope you. So once again, well done MIRAMAX and STUDIOCANAL for their sterling work on the audio sound experience of this IMAX film.
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Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
Special Feature: LIFE IS WAR: Behind The Scenes [2002] [1080p] [1.37:1] [1:34] With this featurette, Steven Soderbergh [Executive Producer] and Godfrey Reggio [Director] both give an in-depth analysis on the epic film ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] in saying that they tried to show all aspects of the World with the fact it is not all to do with technology,, but is about society, on economics, on religion, on war, on culture etc., on art, but mainly on a featured life and society, but it is the price we pay in the pursuit of technological happiness and they also say that is what warfare is all about. They also say that we have movies like ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] that is available for people, and they feel that is why they wanted to make this movie, to show all aspects of life on this spinning world we call Earth.
Special Feature: Music of ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [2002] [1080p] [1.37:1] [7:05] With this featurette, we get to view an intimate in-depth conversation with Philip Glass [Composer] and Yo-Yo Ma [Cello Soloist] discussing why they wanted produce the composed music score for the epic film ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] and because Philip Glass composed the two previous movies of the same genre, but this time Philip Glass wanted to produce something really special for the epic film ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War]. Now Yo-Yo Ma says to Philip Glass, that he felt he composed the music especially for the movie with the Cello Soloist in mind and felt the movie was so ideal for the Cello Soloist. Philip Glass also feels when composing music for films, especially for ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] it really depends on the string instruments a lot and figured that out a long time ago, and also again feels the string instrument is the body of the orchestra, and also feels the string section of the orchestra benefited for the composed score greatly and really gave the film a voice, as well as the image and the movement of the movie. On top of all that, Yo-Yo Ma comments about the movie, in that it gave great structure as well as movement and to me it was a great joy, because to me a good work has all those component’s, and that is why it was a joy to listen to this great composed film score. But Philip Glass sums up by saying that you have to be writing for the future and not the present, but if you aren’t writing for what is going to happen, then you are too late, and again you have to compose music for the future, and at that point this featurette comes to an end.
Special Feature: NYU Panel Discussion [2002] [1080p] [1.37:1] [54:28] With this featurette, we have a panel on stage with a discussion held at the New York University before the film opened in front an invited audience and featuring Jon Kane [Editor], John Rockwell [Arts & Entertainment editor of the NY Times], Godfrey Reggio [Director], and Phillip Glass [Composer] and they are here to talk in-depth about the film ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War]. The discussion covered such things like the naming of the trilogy of films and how it is linked and connected to the Hopi Native American tribe and its language and saying that basically it means “Life” and also means “A way of life,” and they feel the film is also about life in turmoil, life in conflict, life out of balance, in summing it up, they said that it calls for another way of living and feel they are heavily laden words that are extraordinary descriptive. They also say that when they conceived the trilogy films, they felt that a picture is worth a thousand words, whereas with our film ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] we tried to take a thousand pictures towards the power of these words, so it is in the power of the eye of the beholder. They talk about how Godfrey Reggio and Phillip Glass worked together collaboratively and the themes addressed in each of the 3 films. Director Godfrey Reggio admits that this film ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] was the most difficult of the three to direct so far. John Rockwell says that most of the audience are here, are interested in these type of IMAX film genre, and there is no basic drill, but they are films with images with musical accompaniment, but of course there is no story, no dialogue, yeh, that kind of thing. Now they want to talk about the technology aspect that makes ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] from the two previous IMAX films of the same genre, and that the two previous films were ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ [Life Out of Balance] and ‘Powaqqatsi’ [Life In Transition] and they say both of those films have extraordinary beautiful picture imagery, but where the IMAX film ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ [Life Out of Balance] you get to view images of North America and they contrast between the natural world and the civilised world, and the second IMAX film ‘Powaqqatsi’ [Life In Transition] is all about the Southern hemisphere and the Third World people and their interaction with the modern world. Finally, to sum up this featurette, this would certainly be of special interest to fans of the film trilogy; however it was a bit dull visually and they come out with some really pompous rhetoric and the worst offender was Godfrey Reggio [Director], but the more interesting and intelligent person on the stage out of the four of them was John Rockwell who asked most of the questions towards the other three on the stage.
Finally, the IMAX film ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] to some critics feels it is a very subversive film that cuts across the grain of what is popular and powerful in this high-tech age. Godfrey Reggio is a resistance fighter who sees much of the world that is dehumanizing and dangerous to the human soul in the so called progress of science and technology. Of course, this is not surprising when one learns that the director spent 14 years in silence and prayer as a member of a contemplative religious order before coming up with the idea of the Qatsi trilogy. The mesmerizing music of Philip Glass and the melodic cello playing by Yo Yo Ma provide the emotional undertow for the many messages of ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War]. In this amazing ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] film, director Godfrey Reggio combined film of jaw-dropping scenes from around the world with unforgettable music to build up an epic portrait of a natural world that was careering towards being off balance. In the third part of the series, ‘NAQOYQATSI’ [Life As War] film, where director Godfrey Reggio turns his attention to the modern age of technology, machinery, and virtual reality. The results is visually stunning as they often are equally frightening. Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
