Sightlines · reception
How Koyaanisqatsi was received
1983 · Godfrey Reggio · Koyaanisqatsi on Sightlines
The arc
Dismissed by some 1983 critics as a gorgeous but empty 'coffee-table movie', it steadily climbed to landmark status — inducted into the National Film Registry in 2000 and now treated as the definitive work of non-narrative cinema.
What’s debated
The forever-debate: is it a profound statement or a feature-length screensaver — and does making industrial sprawl look this beautiful accidentally undercut its own warning?
Its footprint
Its Philip Glass score and time-lapse cityscapes have been borrowed and parodied so relentlessly — in ads, music videos, and films like Watchmen and the first GTA IV trailer using 'Pruit Igoe' — that the movie can now feel like a copy of its own imitators.
Where it stands
A cinephile rite of passage and Letterboxd staple — the 'you must see it big, loud, and preferably once in your life' entry in the experimental canon.
Did you know? Francis Ford Coppola lent his name as 'presenter' to get the film a proper release — and Reggio came to filmmaking after spending 14 years in a Catholic religious order, having never made a movie before.
Named by the director
- Los Olvidados (1950) — Reggio has repeatedly said Buñuel's film — which he screened for street-gang kids he worked with in New Mexico — was the film that turned him toward cinema.
- Luis Buñuel — Reggio cites Buñuel as the filmmaker whose work awakened him to the power of film as a medium.