Spike Lee Debuts New Short Film Paying Tribute To New York As It Faces Coronavirus Crisis
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Spike Lee debuted a new film short on CNN Thursday, a “valentine” to New York as it faces the coronavirus crisis.
New York, New York, set to the Frank Sinatra classic, features scenes of empty streets and landmarks, including subway stations, Broadway theaters, Yankee Stadium and Wall Street, as well as scenes of hospital workers. Lee said he got permission to use the song from Sinatra’s daughter, Tina Sinatra, and Sony ATV.
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“It’s painful when you see there is nobody there,” Lee told CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, during one of their weekly coronavirus town halls. “But at the end of the film, that is when we see New Yorkers.”
He added, “You know what? I wouldn’t want to be any other place than here, the epicenter.”
Lee also asked about his views on why the coronavirus has had a disproportionate impact on the African American community.
“There’s a whole bunch of reasons,” he said, later adding, “I think that after we get into AC – after corona – we have to change things top to bottom. We cannot go back to doing this stuff that happened before — healthcare, education, the environment. We got to just, hopefully with the new president, that we got to go back to the chalkboard and just really rethink everything in America from top to bottom.”
He added, “The epidemic has really pulled, like the Wizard of Oz, pulled back the veil. Now we see what is really here. That is what corona has done.”
The video is below:
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