Lovely Day is a series of clips—it opens with the American flag around Manhattan and ends with a thank you sign to the NYPD and FDNY, but otherwise, it has little to do with 9/11, at least ten years later (it was part of “The Concert for New York City” benefit concert)—set to Bill Wither’s song, “Lovely Day.”
It’s a good song, but a curious choice (Withers wasn’t a New Yorker).
By not having a narrative or a theme, it focuses attention on a couple things. First, it becomes clear the short’s seventies, home movie look is a filter, which makes one question the unfiltered video. Second, how did Burns arrange the subjects?
It’s only four minutes, which is almost too long if it’s just about people… but long enough to make one curious about Burns’s process.
It’s not high art, but it’s a nice four minutes.
Leave a Reply