Godard’s American documentary shoot coincided with the Fillmore riot in November 1968

Evidence

In the fall of ’68, around the time Weekend opened in New York to the best reviews of Godard’s career, it was announced that his next film, a documentary to be made with Pennebaker for public TV, would be called One American Movie (later, as edited by Pennebaker, it became One Parallel Movie or One P.M.). The shoot opened in New York on the same November day that saw the Fillmore throw-down. Visiting the new economic zone that would attract Sam Melville’s bombs, Godard interviewed an idealistic twenty-six-year-old corporate lawyer and future New York City council president, Carol Bellamy. Another scene had Rip Torn, costumed in a Confederate uniform, out in Brooklyn, parroting “The Wall Street Lady” for a lively class of Black public school students. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1558