‘Rendezvous’: The high-speed car scene that sparked moral outrage
While most people know French filmmaker Claude Lelouch due to his iconic 1966 gem – A Man and A Woman, the director’s entire oeuvre deserves the attention of all film fans. One of the most interesting projects by Lelouch is his 1976 short Rendezvous, a film that was so controversial that it was allegedly responsible for the arrest of the filmmaker. Although it has almost been 50 years since its release, the influence of Rendezvous on the high-speed car scenes that have followed is simply undeniable.
Only about eight minutes in length, Rendezvous presents the crazy footage of Lelouch speeding through the streets of Paris on a Sunday morning while breaking every imaginable traffic law in existence. The French title of the film – C’était un rendez-vous – translates to “it was a date”, and it really was. According to Lelouch, the film represents the sexual urgency experienced by a young man on his way to meet his lover. “It was a date… What’s great about cinema is when you can tell a story,” Lelouch explained. “A guy who is going to meet a girl can take unnecessary risks because he doesn’t want to make her wait.”
Although it seems like Lelouch embarked on this experiment alone, he actually had a team with him as he zoomed through the streets of Paris in his Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9, which had a gyro-stabilised camera attached to its bumper. In the post-production process, the soundtrack injected the distinctive noise of the Ferrari 275GTB to make the cinematic experience more visceral. While the rumours about Lelouch’s imprisonment weren’t really true, he was actually contacted by the police after the screening.
During an interview, Lelouch revealed (via Hagerty): “The chief of police called me into his office, and he said to me, ‘If the film hasn’t been done without any editing or effects, then the red lights were definitely real. So, if the red lights are real, I should take your license 18 times, and I’ve promised I’d take your license.’ He asked me for my license, I gave it to him, he looked at it and said, ‘You know, my children loved your film. I’ve taken your license, and now I’m giving it back.'”
While talking about the importance of the film within his oeuvre, Lelouch claimed that Rendezvous represented his approach to cinema which he once described as “totally immoral”. The filmmaker admitted: “I made the movie as a gift of this moment of madness. The movie is very symbolic of my life. We did many forbidden things, as I often have in life”. Lelouch could have lost his life, but the artistic expression that emerged from the jaws of death is simply spectacular.
In the years that have followed, Rendezvous hasn’t just influenced cinema but also video games like Forza and Burnout. However, nobody has been able to perfectly replicate the one-take high-speed scene that Lelouch created, even in safe and controlled environments. Watching a car hurtle through the street from the POV of its front end makes the audience feel as if they are strapped to the bumper of the car and can die at any moment. Now that’s what cinema is all about.
Watch the film below.
