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Hatsu-Yume (First Dream) is Bill Viola’s masterpiece, the greatest work by one of the most important video artists in the world. A spiritual allegory equating light and dark with life and death. Hatsu-Yume was produced in Japan in 1981 while Viola was artist-in-residence at the Sony Corporation. The title refers to Japanese folklore, wherein things done on the first day of a new year are significant. But the tape is not to be taken literally as a dream. For Viola, it’s more like the aboriginal concept of dreamtime, the creation of the world. That’s why, as a whole and in its parts, Hatsu-Yume progresses from darkness to light, stillness to motion, silence to sound, simplicity to complexity, nature to civilization. There are two interwoven themes: the dark water world of fish, and Buddhist rituals invoking the souls of dead ancestors. As in a dream, we frequently can’t tell if these wordless streams of image and sound are unfolding in real time, slow-motion or time-lapse. A work of extravagant pictorial beauty, Hatsu-Yume represents the most painterly use of light in the history of video. Form is content: the light that lures fish to their death protects human life. At once ominous majestic, and deeply spiritual, Hatsu-Yume is the work of a visionary poet of image and sound.
| Catalog Number: MC-592 |
Type: Feature |
Genre: Video Art / Film Art |
| Copyright: 1981 |
Length: 56 minutes |
Format:
DVD Region: 0 (All) |
| TV System: NTSC |
ISBN: |
UPC: 880198059291 |
| Label: Editions a Voir |
This title is available in Europe for Wholesale - List Prices: £33.99 / 50.00€
Wholesale Purchasing:
Program MC-592 is available for wholesale from Microcinema DVD. Contact info[at]microcinema.com or call at +1-415-447-9750
Exhibition:
Microcinema is not authorized to represent this title for exhibition. Write us for this contact information.
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Bill Viola: I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like
MC-593, 2006
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An epic journey in five chapters, I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like is a personal investigation into the inner states and connections to animal consciousness we all possess. In a stream of images of striking clarity, depth and beauty, woven within... more >
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Bill Viola: The Passing
MC-594, 1997
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The Passing is not only among Viola’s best works, it is arguably the most important video art work of the late 20th century. It inhabits a penumbral world between consciousness and subconsciousness, dreams and reality. These fleeting thoughts are... more >
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