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Monument Valley as seen in Reggio's
Koyaanisqatsi
(1983).
terms of what they already know. In that sense, I saw myself, if I may be so bold, as a cultural kamikaze, as a Trojan horse, using the coinage of the time in order to raise a question about that very coinage.
My films are based on the premise that the question is the mother of the answer. Giving people answers does them no service; I found out as a pedagogue that the intrinsic principle of learning is the
learner,
not the teacher. All the teacher can do is set the environment. I believe in the Socratic method, that basically the best you can do for a personif you're interested in
them
learningis to raise questions. Through that process of questioning, they can come to an answer. I felt it was important to create an experience of the subject from which conceptualization could start to take place. I'm not interested, during the course of the one hundred or eighty-seven minutes that one sits and watches these films, in creating an intellectual dialogue. I'm hoping that people can let go of themselves, forget about time, and have an experience. Once the experience is had, and held, which is certainly not going to happen for everyonethese films are not for everyone, but they are for some people
then
the process of reflection can start to take place. I feel these images can keep coming back to people.
Obviously, I can't (and don't want to) control people's reactions. I've been criticized severely for both films. In fact, I was spat upon in Berlin when
Powaqqatsi
was shown there, for aestheticizing poverty.