24.9.06

c'était un rendez-vous

this has nothing to do with politics or writing really, but c'était un rendezvous is a short film made by claude lelouch in 1976. it is a 9 minute film shot early morning in paris that involves a fast car, a grill-mounted camera, and a roll of film that had only 10 minutes left on it. the car goes from the paris periphery to the top of montmartre in nine continuous, unedited minutes. the car runs sixteen red lights, crosses the median to avoid a bus, drives on the sidewalk to avoid a garbage truck and nearly hits several pedestrians and pigeons, all in the efforts to get to sacre coeur where the rendezvous is.

it director was actually arrested when it premiered (subsequently released without charge), and it is claimed that a ferrari was used with a formula 1 race car river at the wheel. but the director himself has said that he drove his own mercedes and the film was dubbed over with the sound of a ferrari 275gtb to make it seem like it was going at much higher speeds. calculations made by several independent groups using the film show that the car never exceeds 140 km/h (85 mph).

still, whatever car he was using, he was going pretty fast through paris, and having been to the city myself and walked through many of those same streets and locations, it is quite an amazing feat. this is one of the coolest car dashes ever filmed. the film comes across as completely irresponsible and dangerous, but i really wouldn't be surprised if part, if not all of it, was staged. it is still very cool though.