Oddly, perhaps, there were moments during the screening of Godfrey Reggio's brilliant and influential-beyond-measure 1983 masterpiece when I had to consciously drag my eyes back to the ravishing images on the big screen.
I was mesmerised by the activity among the 12 on-stage musicians, led from one of four keyboards by Michael Riesman and including the composer, Philip Glass.
Often their busy-ness was – to use an overloaded term – minimal, and Glass and vocalist Lisa Bielawa spent much of the evening watching the screen, but it was fascinating to watch the familiar score with its mechanical pulse and alternating currents being performed by flesh-and-blood musicians. The execution of the music was, as near as makes no odds, flawless, and the sound quality in the Playhouse was superb.
The images, on the other hand, are perhaps showing their age in these days of high-definition and 3D and that is a bit of shame. It eventually ceased to matter, but initially I wanted to screen to be bigger and sharper. Remarkably the content has hardly dated at all, beyond a few hairstyles and fashions. Cars, cityscapes, transport systems and industrial processes are all very familiar, set against natural landscapes that still take the breath away.
What is different is the experience and attitude we bring to looking at them, which is why Reggio has been down-playing the political intent of his work. It is how the viewer thinks about the world that colours these pictures and the soundtrack. That universality will never date a piece of work that, beyond doubt, deserves the label “masterpiece”.
HHHH
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article