Like Dawn to Dusk

Vivienne Dick 1983 Like Dawn to Dust takes up the exploration of the rural landscape initiated in Visibility Moderate but it is characterized by a very different mode of address Instead of appropriating from radio television or film Dick develops a more overtly poetic aesthetic through performance cinematography and sound The opening shots of a decaying Big House bearing the scorch marks of a fire are accompanied by an offkey piano recalling stage melodrama or early cinema The house most likely a remnant of AngloIrish society is abandoned but for the figure of Lydia Lunch wearing her signature New York Goth makeup and clothes Lunch delivers a poetic monologue both on screen and in voiceover over a traditional soundtrack and her final words emphasize the circularity of Irish narratives the past never dies it just continually repeats itself