Pioneering filmmakers that have expanded the image vocabulary of documentaries, Mark Magidson and Ron Fricke join BYOD to discuss Chronos, Baraka, and their new creation, Samsara. Discussing the difficulties of capturing stunning images in remote locations, and the signature filming techniques that have blown millions of minds, Ron and Mark key us into their inspiration behind Koyaanisqatsi, Chronos, Baraka, and Samsara.
In his early work as director of photography, co-editor and co-writer for «Koyaanisqatsi», a renowned nonverbal art film, Ron Fricke experimented with many previously obscure film techniques. He used time-lapse, slow motion and optical phase printing to present familiar images from a new perspective.»Koyaanisqatsi» won a 1983 Filex Audience Award.
Indulging his passion for 70mm, and determined to make life affirming films, Fricke proceeded to direct and co-produce «Chronos», an innovative, nonverbal, IMAX film that won the Grand prix du jury Award at the first Festival International Omnimax de Paris (1987). For «Chronos» Fricke designed an IMAX compatible camera with the capacity to shoot motion controlled images, a revolutionary concept in the IMAX industry. Fricke gained experience on several other IMAX films including «Sacred Site» (1986) which he directed and photographed.
Developing the themes of interconnection and transcendence, which Fricke began to explore in «Chronos», «Baraka» is a journey of rediscovery that plunges into nature, into history, into the human spirit and finally into the realm of the infinite». In order to capture the exquisite rotating star fields in the film’s finale, Fricke designed and built a more flexible and complex version of the (65mm) 70mm time-lapse camera he designed for «Chronos». Fricke directed, photographed, co-edited and co-wrote «Baraka» (1992).
«Samsara» will be a visual quest that explores the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. «I feel that my work has evolved through «Koyaanisqatsi», «Chronos» and «Baraka», says Fricke. «Both technically and philosophically I am ready to delve even deeper into my favorite theme: humanity’s relationship to the eternal».
♦ → ‘Chronos’ ⇐(1985)
Taking the familiar conventions of time-lapse cinematography to a transcendent level of artistic achievement, filmmaker Ron Fricke circled the globe to make Chronos, a stunning 70-millimeter time-lapse tour of natural and man-made wonders. The entire film has the enhanced, hyper-realistic quality of a laser-etched photograph, and by using special cameras and motion-control photographic techniques, Fricke and his technically expert crew were able to create mesmerizing images guaranteed to spark any viewer’s sense of awe and wonder.
This visual journey takes the viewer on a tour of over 50 locations on nearly every continent of the world, including explorations of Paris, the Vatican, the Egyptian pyramids, the African veldt, and many more stunning vistas. The cumulative effect is the feeling that the world–from the busiest metropolis to the most serenely remote wilderness landscape–is dictated by «chronos,» the rhythm of time to which all living things must submit. –Jeff Shannon
◊ Baraka ↓ [1992]
A collection of expertly photographed scenes of human life and religion.
Filmed at 152 locations in 24 countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Nepal, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, and the United States. It contains no dialogue. Instead of a story or plot, the film uses themes to present new perspectives and evoke emotion purely through cinema ↓ [clips]
♦ Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance ↓ [Godfrey Reggio]
Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi Indian word meaning «life out of balance.» Created between 1975 and 1982, this film was the debut of Godfrey Reggio as a film director and producer. The film is an apocalyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds: urban life and technology versus the environment. The musical score was composed by Philip Glass.
This full length documentary is visually arresting and possesses a clear, pro-environmental stance. Koyaanisqatsi is composed of nature imagery, manipulated in slow motion, double exposure or time lapse, juxtaposed with footage of humans’ devastating environmental impact on the planet. The message of director Godfrey Reggio is clear: humans are destroying the planet, and all of human progress is pointlessly foolish.
KOYAANISQATSI attempts to reveal the beauty of the beast! We usually perceive our world, our way of living, as beautiful because there is nothing else to perceive. If one lives in this world, the globalized world of high technology, all one can see is one layer of commodity piled upon another. In our world the «original» is the proliferation of the standardized. Copies are copies of copies. There seems to be no ability to see beyond, to see that we have encased ourselves in an artificial environment that has remarkably replaced the original, nature itself. We do not live with nature any longer; we live above it, off of it as it were. Nature has become the resource to keep this artificial or new nature alive.
KOYAANISQATSI is not so much about something, nor does it have a specific meaning or value… The film’s role is to provoke, to raise questions that only the audience can answer. This is the highest value of any work of art, not predetermined meaning, but meaning gleaned from the experience of the encounter. The encounter is the interest, not the meaning. If meaning is the point, then propaganda and advertising is the form. So in the sense of art, the meaning of KOYAANISQATSI is whatever you wish to make of it.
♦ → Samsara ↓ 2012
SAMSARA is a Sanskrit word that means “the ever turning wheel of life” and is the point of departure for the filmmakers as they search for the elusive current of interconnection that runs through our lives. Filmed over a period of almost five years and in twenty-five countries, SAMSARA transports us to sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial sites, and natural wonders…
Expanding on the themes they developed in BARAKA (1992) and CHRONOS (1985), SAMSARA explores the wonders of our world from the mundane to the miraculous, looking into the unfathomable reaches of man’s spirituality and the human experience. Neither a traditional documentary nor a travelogue, SAMSARA takes the form of a nonverbal, guided meditation. Through powerful images, the film illuminates the links between humanity and the rest of nature, showing how our life cycle mirrors the rhythm of the planet.
Samsara’s 102 minutes of nonverbal film is carried by original →music ←composed by Michael Stearns, Lisa Gerrard, and Marcello De Francisci, as well as several contributed compositions. Mark Magidson, Ron Fricke, and Michael Stearns, renowned for his groundbreaking score for Baraka, reunited again with with well loved musician, singer, and composer Lisa Gerrard. Gerrard previously contributed the track Host of Seraphim to Baraka.
SAMSARA food sequence ↑ from Baraka & Samsara on Vimeo.
•→Lisa Gerrard & Brendan Perry = DEAD CAN DANCEDirector Mark Magidson (producer of BARAKA) helmed this ecstatic, trance-inducing concert film of the famed band performing their unusual blend of Celtic folk and New Age Gothic music at Santa Monica’s.
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