Philip Glass, I love you! Since the days of Koyaanisqatsi.. *sigh*

Yeah, some minimalism doesn't really go anywhere, like a lot of Philip Glass' music, although I like Philip Glass quite a bit. You might want to check out John Adam's 'The Chairman Dances" and Steve Reich's 'Sextet'. Those are two of my favorite minimalist pieces, and they aren't static like PG or some of the other minimalists you might have heard. If you don't like either one of those, then yes, you don't like minimalism.

Wow, lot of work to morph all those by hand. Suprising how much trippy stuff they had.

I love this movie.

Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance is a 1982 documentary film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by minimalist composer Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke. The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and natural landscapes across the United States. The documentary contains neither dialog nor narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the music that accompanies them. In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means 'life of moral corruption and turmoil, life out of balance', and the film implies that modern humanity is living in such a way.

Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble have toured with the film, playing music live in front of the film screen.

The film is the first in the Qatsi trilogy of films: it is followed by Powaqqatsi (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002). The trilogy depicts different aspects of the relationship between man and technology. Koyaanisqatsi is the best known of the trilogy and is considered a cult film. Still, due to copyright issues, the film was out of print for most of the 1990s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisqatsi

Wikipedia:

"Heroes" (the quotation marks are part of the title, for reasons of irony)[1] is an album by David Bowie, released in 1977. Serving as the second installment of Bowie and Eno's "Berlin Trilogy" (the other two being Low and Lodger) "Heroes" is similar in sound to Low but more robust and visceral. Of the three albums, it was the most befitting of the appellation "Berlin", being the only one wholly recorded and mixed there. The mood of the record reflected the zeitgeist of the Cold War, symbolised by the divided city.

The title track remains one of Bowie's best known, a classic story of two lovers who meet at the Berlin Wall. The album is considered one of Bowie's best by critics, notably for the contributions of guitarist Robert Fripp (for which he flew in from the U.S. to record in one day).[2] It was marketed by RCA with the catch phrase, "There’s Old Wave. There’s New Wave. And there's David Bowie…"[3] The album made #3 in the UK and stayed in the charts for 26 weeks, but was less successful in the U.S. where it peaked at #35.

With "Heroes", Bowie again paid tribute to his Krautrock influences: the title is a nod to the track "Hero" on the album NEU! '75 by the German band Neu! while "V-2 Schneider" is inspired by and named for Kraftwerk's Florian Schneider; earlier in 1977, Kraftwerk had name-checked Bowie on the title track of Trans-Europe Express. The cover photo was inspired by Erich Heckel's Roquairol, as was that of The Idiot, one of Bowie's collaborations with Iggy Pop that was released the same year.[4]

Though "Heroes" included its share of dark and atmospheric instrumentals such as "Sense of Doubt" and "Neuköln", as well as the sprawling confessional "Blackout", after the melancholy and inward-looking Low it was regarded as a highly passionate and positive artistic statement.[5][6] This was evident not simply through "Heroes" the song but in the rocking opener "Beauty and the Beast" (released as the second single in January 1978), the raucous "Joe the Lion" and the light-hearted closer "The Secret Life of Arabia".

A number of the album's tracks were played live at Bowie's concerts the following year, captured on record as Stage (1978). Philip Glass adapted a classical suite, "Heroes" Symphony, based on this album, a companion to his earlier Low Symphony. The title track has been covered by numerous artists, whilst "The Secret Life of Arabia" was sung by Billy Mackenzie in 1982 on the British Electric Foundation LP Music of Quality and Distinction."

This is my favorite part of the critically acclaimed film Baraka by Ron Fricke, the cinematographer for Koyaanisqatsi.

In addition to making comparisons between natural and technological phenomena, such as in Koyaanisqatsi, Baraka searches for a universal cultural perspective: for instance, following a shot of an elaborate tattoo on a Japanese bather with one of Native Australian tribal paint.

The title Baraka is a word which means blessing in many different languages. The score provided by Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard (from Dead Can Dance) and Michael Stearns is noticeably different from the minimalist one provided by Philip Glass for Koyaanisqatsi. Notable music was also contributed by the band Brother.

I urge people to watch the film in it's entirety in the links provided here.

Thank you, Plastique for the heads up on Philip Glass. That's a bonus!

so beautiful...

*music is the philip glass violin concerto. glass re-used some of the themes from his electronic scores for koyaanisqatsi and thin blue line in the concerto.

...if you dig this, you'd like philip glass'pawaaqatsi and koyannisquatsi...SP-lotsa' breathtaking timelapse...

Eisenhower's farewell address to the american people from "Why We Fight" (Documentary 2005). Eisenhower foreshadows current events, and coins the term "Military-Industrial Complex". Re-edit to Philip Glass' Fog of War music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Fight_%282005_film%29

And wow, 2 upvotes just seconds after I posted. I salute you.

If anyone hasnt seen Koyaanisqatsi...highly recommended. The changed sountrack puts a very different feel to the footage. The Philip Glass soundtrack eventually makes you nauseated (which I believe was the intended effect). Actually I found it funny that just as soon as I felt I couldn't take any more in the original film, they cut to the slower clouds sequence.

I find this a bit off-putting; the video is nothing but long segments from Koyaanisquatsi rearranged with different music. You could put almost any high-tempo music to that video and it'd work, but the original Philip Glass soundtrack fit a lot better... and the movie's pacing, its ebb and flow, was lost in this recut, which just stays at exactly the same pace from start to finish.

I'm normally a big fan of mashups and fanvids and such, but only when they add to or change or improve upon or at least *do something new* to the original material. This just seems like less, rather than more.