Film director Claude Lelouch’s legendary 1976 short film, C’etait un Rendez vous. Filmed in the early hours, in one take, it goes from the outskirts of Paris to Sacré-Coeur in a little over 8 minutes. Without stopping. For anything.
For anyone who knows Paris and knows it well, the bit where he exits Place de la Concorde, turning left on to Voie Georges Pompidou is particularly horrific. As is when he heads into the winding cobbled streets of Montmartre. It should be pointed out that the film is one continuous shot, filmed in real time – no special effects. What Lelouch did was crazy, reckless, and got him arrested when the film was first shown in public. Looks like fun though.
mmmmm wikipdeia is now saying it was shot form one of these, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_450SEL_6.9
I always thought a Ferrari 275 GTB4, and although that is a high performance Merc, it would have to have been tuned to buggery to get that sound out of it! Not convinced an S Class has the handling either, lovely cars but they are like barges!
however having said that, looks like it was! http://www.geocities.com/oflint/Mercedes_not_Ferrari.jpg
Yeah, a couple of things I read said that the rumour at the time was that it was Lelouch’s own Ferrari 275 GTB, driven by a French formula 1 driver. Lelouch denied this and, at roughly the same time as he was being arrested for it, said that it was him driving in the Mercedes and that the sound of the Ferrari was then overdubbed. Yeah right. Probably the former, but given that he was in talks with the police he was probably saying, ‘No officer, it was all me, acting alone in my nice safe, respectable Merc, not in a noisy Ferrari at all.’ Or something along those lines.
Yeah. That’s definitely not a Ferrari. In a way that takes the shine off a little because the glamour of the Ferrari would have made it far more romantic and exciting. On the other hand, imagine driving that thing around at that speed in those streets, that’s possibly even more amazing.
Thanks for the well-thought article. I’m actually at work right now! So I need to go off without reading all I’d like. But, I put your blog on my RSS feed so that I can read more.