The Cinematic Mash-Up Project, part 2.
Koyaanisqatsi (1982) vs. Daft Punk: Fight!
Those familiar with Godfrey Reggio's seminal anti-film probably know it as much for its haunting Philip Glass score as its stark imagery. In fact, it could be argued that the minimalist's repetitive canon represents the core of the documentary and removing or substituting it would alter the overall impact of the film. However, the end-goal of this project is not necessarily to replace or improve upon the original scores, nor to achieve perfect synchronization, but rather to create a challenging experience from an established form of media by swapping out a familiar element, the sound track, and inserting a new one; similar, skewed, or totally disparite.
In this sense, Koyaanisqatsi's pastische of images depicting the industrialized world rubbing up against the natural one should make an appropriate canvas upon which to set Daft Punk's mind-bending Alive, where the line between man and his machines is blurred and torn at with an eraser.
But first, let's do the numbers:
The combined result is, to say the least, jarring; almost to the point of exhaustion, certainly to disorientation, with periods of exhilaration. Both Daft Punk's exceedingly positive electronic music and the film's decidedly organic editing suffer from flashes of panic-inducing hyperactivity(most notably in Koyaanisqatsi's centerpiece chapter "The Grid," featuring all manner of time-lapse photography) and languid dry spells(like when Daft Punk break down the vocals from a Discovery track so it sounds like Aphex Twin).
Notable syncs:
Koyaanisqatsi is not the world's cheeriest film, and Daft Punk are not known for being too serious, despite their weird telepathic relationship with the machines they employ. If we are supposed to, as Reggio suggests, interpret the images of the Qatsi films in our own way, then one could do worse than to upgrade the accompanying soundtrack from the brilliant and beautiful, yet admittedly depressing Glass dirges to something divergent yet similar. Where Glass' music employs human voices, brass, and minimal synthesizer, the canon of Daft Punk is almost completely artificial, processed, and remixed. Which would be the more appropriate soundtrack depends on how the viewer feels about technology against the rest of the world.
Next: Fantastic Planet versus...?
Previously.
⎋
Those familiar with Godfrey Reggio's seminal anti-film probably know it as much for its haunting Philip Glass score as its stark imagery. In fact, it could be argued that the minimalist's repetitive canon represents the core of the documentary and removing or substituting it would alter the overall impact of the film. However, the end-goal of this project is not necessarily to replace or improve upon the original scores, nor to achieve perfect synchronization, but rather to create a challenging experience from an established form of media by swapping out a familiar element, the sound track, and inserting a new one; similar, skewed, or totally disparite.
In this sense, Koyaanisqatsi's pastische of images depicting the industrialized world rubbing up against the natural one should make an appropriate canvas upon which to set Daft Punk's mind-bending Alive, where the line between man and his machines is blurred and torn at with an eraser.
But first, let's do the numbers:
- Koyaanisqatsi: ~87 minutes.
- Daft Punk's Alive(2007): plus encore, one hour twenty-four minutes.
- Synchronization deficit: approximately three minutes against the record, which will presumably be eaten up by the film's credits.
The combined result is, to say the least, jarring; almost to the point of exhaustion, certainly to disorientation, with periods of exhilaration. Both Daft Punk's exceedingly positive electronic music and the film's decidedly organic editing suffer from flashes of panic-inducing hyperactivity(most notably in Koyaanisqatsi's centerpiece chapter "The Grid," featuring all manner of time-lapse photography) and languid dry spells(like when Daft Punk break down the vocals from a Discovery track so it sounds like Aphex Twin).
Notable syncs:
- "Clouds" to "Television Rules The Nation/Crescendolls." After the slow-motion landscapes of the first two chapters, the languid movement of massive blocks of water vapor is disco in comparison.
- "Vessels" to "Around The World" juxtaposes the film's longest single take of commercial airliners in a balletic taxiing sequence with Daft Punk's most heroically annoying song with the high end dropped out.
- "Slow People" to "One More Time." This supposedly slow chapter is the prologue to the epilepsy of "The Grid," and is just as adrenalized as its new house theme.
- "The Grid" features lots of time-lapse photography of modern urban life. The trails of sped-up nite traffic nicely visualizes the acid guitar loops of "Aerodynamic," scenes of chomping assembly lines make the cramming together of "The Prime Time Of Your Life" with "The Brainwasher" sound that much more evil. And what shows up when the first strains of "Alive" peek thru the low end but spinning scenes of food and the people who eat it.
- "Prophecies" returns to the real-time filming of the first chapters, and even slows things down a bit, with longing shots of everyday citizens while, as luck would have it, "Human After All" plays.
- The final chapter of the film has little but an Atlas rocket launching over the "Human After All" reprise, exploding on the second downbeat, and as the camera follows a spinning piece of wreckage down, looking like a flaming cow skull, the vocal loop of "Together" provides an authentically trance conclusion.
Koyaanisqatsi is not the world's cheeriest film, and Daft Punk are not known for being too serious, despite their weird telepathic relationship with the machines they employ. If we are supposed to, as Reggio suggests, interpret the images of the Qatsi films in our own way, then one could do worse than to upgrade the accompanying soundtrack from the brilliant and beautiful, yet admittedly depressing Glass dirges to something divergent yet similar. Where Glass' music employs human voices, brass, and minimal synthesizer, the canon of Daft Punk is almost completely artificial, processed, and remixed. Which would be the more appropriate soundtrack depends on how the viewer feels about technology against the rest of the world.
Next: Fantastic Planet versus...?
Previously.
⎋