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C’était un rendez-vous Special Edition DVD (PG) |
Dir: Claude Lelouch, 1976, France, 9 mins
Proof positive that size isn’t everything, Claude Lelouch’s controversial C’était un rendez-vous, despite clocking in at only nine minutes, has generated untold debates, arguments and theorising since it first appeared 30 years ago. A one-take early morning thrash through the streets of Paris as viewed from a bumper-mounted gyro-stabilised camera (an innovation at the time), with little regard given to speed limits, traffic lights or even which side of the road one should drive on, the film is nothing if not exhilarating.
For all the cult attention it’s garnered over the intervening years, however, little is known for certain about C’était un rendez-vous, including the model of car used, the actual speeds reached, and who was driving. What’s certain is that a degree of Lelouch’s reticence regarding his film is down to its illegality: unable to afford a permit to shut down the Parisian streets, this is as visceral an example of cinéma-vérité as one could hope to see. But while the guerrilla aspect of his film is certain – Lelouch was briefly arrested after the film’s first showing, but released without charge - all else is mystery. To begin with, who was driving? Lelouch has at different times hinted that Jacques Lafitte or Jacky Ickx, both successful mid-70s Formula 1 drivers, might have been behind the wheel, or alternatively that he drove the car himself. Next, what was he, whoever he was, driving? It’s in untangling the obfuscations around this question that doubts regarding the film’s veracity begin to multiply.
Lelouch owned a Ferrari 275 GTB, but it seems certain that another of his cars, a 6.9L Mercedes Benz, was the one used in C’était un rendez-vous, with the Ferrari’s engine noise dubbed over it. This explains certain moments in the film when one can hear the revs increasing without witnessing the attendant increase in speed. The sound of squealing tyres has been overdubbed a little too liberally to escape appearing false, too. Lelouch’s film is definitely not speeded up, but it is wrong to think that it is free of all illusion. For one thing, mounting the camera on the car’s bumper gives a heightened impression of the speeds that it’s travelling at. For a more precise idea, however, we must enter the strange territory of the online analysts.
Lelouch claimed that the top speed reached on the drive was 200km/h, while websites authored by people with very individual ideas on how best to spend their time put the actual top speed at anywhere between 140km/h (still a less than tame 85mph) and 220km/h. The higher figure comes from a source that has also measured the tension in Spiderman’s webs, which is either evidence of a rare genius or a sign of screaming insanity, depending on your outlook.
Truth and untruth aside, however, C’était un rendez-vous stands as an admirable piece of inventive film-making. Lelouch couldn’t be accused of cautiousness, zipping past pedestrians at breakneck speeds at 5.30 on a summer morning in Paris, but when was caution an admirable trait in an artist? His film has a poetry to it, too, as in the sequence when, heading down a shadowy, tree-lined residential street, the car’s headlights flare against the chests of scattering pigeons. Forget the claims of Bullit (1968) or Ronin (1998) featuring the best driving sequences in the movies: this French oddity wins that contest hands (and pedal) down.
Extras:
Includes exclusive candid interview footage of French Director Claude Lelouch, who provides an insight into the myths and madness behind such a remarkable piece.
C’était un Rendezvous is available to buy online from www.spiritlevelfilm.com |
