KoyaanisqatsiKoyaanisqatsi, sometimes titled Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance, was directed by American director Godfrey Reggio. The film is entirely about the relationship between humans and nature through the contrast between music and visuals. The tone of each scene relies solely on composer Philip Glass' score to facilitate what is shown on screen and make sense of what is happening. Because there are no conventional story ideas or dialogue, the film draws its message from the tone set by the music and visuals. Glass uses tonality, tempo and instrumentation to great effect, using instruments to imitate everyday city things like car horns and using tonality to subtly change how the viewer interprets the cinematography . The vast majority of sound used in the film is non-diegetic, particularly the musical ideas, which is reasonable to assume, do not take place in the realm of cinema. In a film where music is necessary to denote the messages it dictates, there's obviously a lot of music to analyze - in fact, the music works almost constantly. throughout the film, without very little extraneous noise - so I have chosen what I consider to be the key and most important scenes of the film and I will provide my own interpretation of the film, writing a detailed conclusion on what I believe the film is saying, and what effect the music had on projecting the overall message of the film.ThemesThe main/opening theme – “Koyannisqatsi” The opening theme consists of a descending organ phrase at the sinister sound composed of the notes A, A#, B#, D, E, E#. The notes are played in the lower register and sound similar to Gothic church music. The phrase sets the initial tone of the film as heartbreaking and depressing. The descent...... middle of paper...... captivating music and scenes of human creations are accompanied by almost biblical-sounding rhapsodies. Ultimately, it's difficult to draw a conclusion from the film's overall message. On the one hand, the film seems to be praising the man's achievements, and on the other, one could view the ending of the film as something negative. The inevitable failure of man. A conclusion that almost undoes the man's greatest achievements, praised earlier in the film. Personally, I think the film ends on a negative note. The credits strangely force the viewer to connect the destruction seen in the film to their own life, using familiar, mundane sounds that make a film that is anything but that much more real. Bibliography: Books: Chion, Michel. (1994) Audio Vision: sound on screen. Dickinson, Kay. Film music The Film Reader. Websites: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085809/board