Filmmakers converged on Newark to stage a riot. Debris covered the street — overturned chairs, soggy newspapers, dismembered mannequins and clothes from ransacked storefronts. On Tuesday afternoon, extras waited for their turn in the spotlight, including black actors wearing button-down shirts, slacks and summer dresses, and white actors dressed as Newark police officers and National Guardsmen. Patrol cars were stationed throughout the scene. At the abrupt pop of a gunshot that evening, actors scattered in all directions. Two men moved a TV down the street. Another man wearing a fedora carried a box for a General Electric automatic skillet.

The scenes are part of “The Many Saints of Newark,” the “Sopranos” prequel film set in 1967, the year of the Newark riots. “Do you know what happened here?” a woman asked, surveying the crowd and assorted contents of the street, which included wigs, shirts, lampshades and metal garbage cans. When a reporter mentioned the movie, her look of distress evaporated.