A Sunday drive
In 1976 the controversial French film director Claude Lelouch caused outrage with his short film C’était Un Rendez-vous. It depicts a drive of lunacy through the early morning streets of vintage Paris up to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica. It was shot in a single take with a ten-minute can of film.
The piece retains filmic qualities: the car emerging from the blackness of a tunnel at its beginning on to its dubious ending implying a sense of narrative.
The film’s anarchic nature raises ethical questions. Upon its release stories soon developed around the film which added to its notoriety: the director being arrested at the premier; the mystery that a Formula One driver was behind the wheel. As with all fiction it blurs the boundaries of artifice and reality.
