Two American Audiences: La Chinoise - A Film in the Making (1968)

"Announcing itself as “a typical Pennebaker production of a typical Godard visit,” JLG speaks with grad students and Serge Losique at NYU in April 1968. Pennebaker: “When Jean-Luc Godard came to New York to make a film [1 A.M./1 P.M.] with me and Ricky Leacock, he was anxious to see America before the revolution broke out, torn up as it was with the Vietnam furor. Godard’s most recent film, La Chinoise, was playing, and Columbia University students, who had initiated their student uprising on the day the film opened, were pouring into the theater. This to our unexpected delight, for when Godard had arranged for us to distribute the film, we had done so with misgiving since his films were not normally known to fill theaters. So as we laughed at his sly remarks, it occurred to us that there were two audiences involved here, and maybe that our film should be about that. It might also be noted that the date of the filming, April 4, 1968, was the day Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. Of course, none of us in the room knew about that then."