He may be the tallest film director ever at 6' 11"…or so reads the imdb.com biography of Godfrey Reggio. As large in intellectual discourse as in physical stature, Mr. Reggio has been at the forefront of the ethical influence of technology on the trajectory of our planet since the release of 1983’s Koyaanisqatsi, the first film of his pioneering QATSI trilogy and a Telluride Film Festival premiere. By melding old school collage methods and emerging montage technologies, the films serve as self-reflexive commentaries on man’s role in the zero sum relationship between technological advancement and environmental and societal decay.

A resident curator specializing in the student filmmakers section of the prestigious Telluride Film Festival, Mr. Reggio sat with Barry Jenkins to speak about technology and its influence on both his work and the work of others.

SM: Talk some about the things you said when you introduced the Student Prints Program at this year’s festival, about it being important to show these films because these are the filmmakers speaking primarily with voice at this point in their careers.

GR: Well, I think I told that audience that most films written are never finished; most films that are finished being written are never produced; most films that start production never finish production; most films that finish production never go into distribution; those that get seen maybe get seen for a week—so it’s a very tough road.

Having said that, when I first started doing this, I could count on two fingers the amount of film schools in the United States. Today, I would need about a thousand people and all their hands to indicate all the schools—more, ten thousand people because every community college, college, university, institute, even library has some kind of film or image program; let me be more precise, more than film image because we’re now in the time of the image, not necessarily the film image. And film is, you know, disappearing into the digital domain.

Also, the people that I curate now and present, most of these people were born in the digital domain. They have it in their nervous systems; they have the impulses of the computer. I have a granddaughter who’s thirteen years old. She’s made more films than I have.

Barry cracks up.

I’m not kidding you! So it’s in her nervous system, like yours, you’re a young man—

SM: I am indeed.

GR: What year were you born?

SM: 1979.

GR: There you go. You’re a young guy. It’s in your nervous system.

SM: When were you born?

GR: I was born in 1940 so I come from a different era, a different time. So it’s not like I’m a few years older than you; it’s like I’m a few thousand years older than you because we live in a world where everything is accelerated. The world has become one place, one thought, one idea, and it’s a techno-fascistic environment. So while there’s all of this enormous plethora of people studying image, and while it’s the most desirable profession in the world now, I don’t know if it produces anything better in terms of what you look at. Because for one thing, technology has a thumbprint that is almost unmistakable, so it takes a lot of the form of the struggle of the filmmaker and makes it automatic, so things tend to look a little alike.

I mean, everybody edits in digital, I don’t think young people know how to edit on film anymore.

Barry raises his hand.

You do? You’re an exception man—

Barry laughs.

—because I used to edit with a Kem and a Steinbeck. The Kem used to cost about a $160,000. I could buy a Kem as good as the one I had then for a thousand dollars now.

SM: Yeah, I went to film school at Florida State and the first semester we shot on Bolex and edited on Steinbecks.

GR: Bolex, one of the best cameras there ever was.

SM: Indeed, indeed. But let’s get back to the shorts, specifically the shorts that are here at this year’s festival, because that’s a wide range. There are some that are very, I wouldn’t say commercial, but you could walk into a multiplex and see that film. And there are others in the same program that are very, I would say “tough” films. I don’t want to put a term on it, but I think you understand what I’m getting at. How do you program those to exist harmoniously in the same screening?

GR: Look, when a kid comes up (to Telluride) with a film, they probably hocked their lives to get here, to be truthful, most of them. Some of them may get grants, but then they’re taking out student loans, maxing out their credit cards, driving their family crazy, their friends, stealing sometimes, so I don’t judge that.

I don’t get involved with the subject matter either, with censorship. I have to see whether the story’s well told, that’s the first thing. Then I have to look at the medium through which they tell the story; do they understand what they’re doing?

Now many of the films that I see are like—trying to get into the business. And that, I think, is a mistake for the filmmaker. It’s not about business.

SM: What’s it about?

GR: It’s about passion. It’s about finding your voice. It’s about realizing that none of this is necessary, that this is freedom, it’s a gift, it’s not a business. But unfortunately, it’s the business that many people want to get into. And, of course, that means it’s under the complete control of lawyers and accountants and the stock market at the end of the day. So film I think has been captured by the theatrical medium, and the theatrical medium has been captured by business.

There’s a whole other universe of what film or image-making can do. It portends art, and that means it can change our perceptions, inform them and color them.

Did you see the (Telluride tributee) Shyam Benegal film?

SM: No. Was that a short?

GR: No, it was his first feature film. It’s long, it’s off another planet, so, it’s not American sensibilities. But the actors! Everything is so subtle; you know they live in a world where the mudras, the hand motions, it’s like sign language. The slightest turn of the head, the move of the eye, the coming up of the lip, you know it’s something almost non-present in our cinema.

SM: You know, I felt the same way about Death of Shula, which was probably my favorite film here, feature, short, student or otherwise.

GR: Ah! Unbelievable, that one had a special panache to it. It was great filmmaking, and you could feel, you could taste the story. That’s what I look for. That’s why I programmed it last.

SM: So you do set the order?

GR: Yes I do—though sometimes they argue with me, so when I can!

SM: Understood. So…ShortEnd Magazine’s focus is conversations with and dialogues between filmmakers, specifically independent and student filmmakers. Is there anything you’d like to say directly to that audience?

GR: I would say that—it’s gonna be hard for me to say but—if you could act as IF you know what you’re doing. And, I mean that not in a silly way; I mean that in a way that: with due diligence and really finding a voice and commitment and not with grace and gratuity but like to an insane asylum, then you can do whatever you want to do, as long as you commit yourself to do it.

Goethe has that great quote, “Once you commit yourself—

SM: —all things transpire in your favor.”

GR: That’s right, “Genius has boldness—

SM: —and magic in it.”

GR: There you go! You know it!

SM: I do.

GR: And it’s real! It’s real. Chinese say, “If you really intend something, you can manifest it.” And that’s what people have to do rather than looking for a job. They have to find their passion, which is where their voice is. And their voice is tied to their commodity. And I would tell most filmmakers don’t become filmmakers unless you can’t help yourself. Because those are the only people that are gonna make it, the ones that can’t help themselves. The ones that aren’t sure, they’re looking for a career, don’t make it because nine out of eight films never get seen. And that’s plenty!

Barry and Godfrey laugh their asses off as festival patrons look on in puzzlement.

SM: That’s some funny math my friend.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form