Vous oseriez traverser Paris à 180 km/h?

[Bloomfield]

No tricks, not sped up.

Turn up your speakers, dim the lights, and press play.




Claude Lelouch, the driver, tells this story about dealing with the police afterwards: Debout dans le bureau du préfet de police, j'ai la sensation d'être un enfant puni. Je m'apprête d'ailleurs à l'être et sévèrement.
D'une voix de procureur, le préfet, qui m'a personnellement convoqué, dresse à mon intention la liste de toutes les infractions que j'ai commises pendant les quelques minutes de tournage de Pour un rendez-vous. Elle est interminable. Quand il a fini, il lève sur moi un œil noir et dit en avançant la main : Remettez-moi votre permis de conduire, s'il vous plait.

Le moment serait mal choisi pour discuter. Je m'exécute. Le préfet de police s'empare du document, le contemple rêveusement pendant quelques secondes, puis... me le rend avec un large sourire.

Je m'étais engagé à vous le retirer, me dit-il. Mais je n'ai pas précisé pour combien de temps. Devant ma stupéfaction, il ajoute : — Mes enfants adorent votre petit film !

The film was taken in 1976. In case you're wondering: it's a Mercedes. More info on the webpage.

[Congratulations]

They totally ran a red light.

Awesome.

[carrie]

This is the Claude Lelouch of A Man and a Woman fame, I assume?

Maybe if I had brushed back my hair in that casual-sophisticate way Anouk Aimee did I wouldn't have gotten a ticket for going through a No Thru Traffic alley. I had to go to court to get my license back.

Carol

[OnTheMoor]

Liar... there's no way the French would take your license away for that!

[The Weekenders]

Incredible.

[Sylvester]

Incredible.

Not really, the guy must be a Portuguese taxi driver

[The Weekenders]

Nyuk. I don't think he nailed a pigeon until about 7 minutes into the ride.. Imagine the drycleaning costs of the few pedestrians and oncoming car drivers...

[brewerpaul]

Claude Lelouch, the driver, tells this story about dealing with the police afterwards: Debout dans le bureau du préfet de police, j'ai la sensation d'être un enfant puni. Je m'apprête d'ailleurs à l'être et sévèrement.
D'une voix de procureur, le préfet, qui m'a personnellement convoqué, dresse à mon intention la liste de toutes les infractions que j'ai commises pendant les quelques minutes de tournage de Pour un rendez-vous. Elle est interminable. Quand il a fini, il lève sur moi un œil noir et dit en avançant la main : Remettez-moi votre permis de conduire, s'il vous plait.

Le moment serait mal choisi pour discuter. Je m'exécute. Le préfet de police s'empare du document, le contemple rêveusement pendant quelques secondes, puis... me le rend avec un large sourire.

Je m'étais engagé à vous le retirer, me dit-il. Mais je n'ai pas précisé pour combien de temps. Devant ma stupéfaction, il ajoute : — Mes enfants adorent votre petit film !

The film was taken in 1976. In case you're wondering: it's a Mercedes. More info on the webpage.

Translation:

Standing in the office of the police prefect, I have the sensation to be a punished child. I prepare myself besides to the being and harshly. Of a prosecutor voice, the prefect, that personal summoned me, erects to my intention lists it of all the offences that I committed during the some minutes of shooting of an appointment. She is unending. When it finished, it gets up on me a black eye and says while advancing the hand: Put back me your driver's license, please.

The moment would be poorly chosen to discuss. I execute myself. The police prefect seizes itself document, the contemplates rêveusement during some seconds, then... returns it for me with a wide one to smile.

I had been involved myself to you to withdraw it, he says me. But I did not specify for how long. In front of my stupefaction, it adds: — My children love your small film!

[The Weekenders]

You really should take up translating as a profession.

[brewerpaul]

You really should take up translating as a profession.

I can't take credit: I ran it through one of those online translation websites. Lots of fun. You can plug in any text eg The Gettysburg Address, and the results are pretty funny.

The Gettysburg Address, translated from English to German, and then back to English:

Four game results and seven years ago our fathers, who are presented on this continent, a new nation, devised in freedom, and dedicated to the proposal, that all men of equalized are created.

Now we are busied with a large civil war, devised has lasts testing whether that nation, or any nation, so that, and so dutiful, long can from. We are encountered on a large battlefield of that war. We came to dedicate a share of that field when a finale that rests place for that could live, that gave here its life, that, that nation. It fits completely and suitably that we should make this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate can can do not idolize -we not consecration -we -this ground. That the brave men, live and deceased, that here fought have, have it to add far over our poor power or to impair geweiht. The world will notice few, yet long remembers say what we here, but it never can forget, what they made here. It is dedicated fought advanced for us of the livelihood rather here to the unfinished work to become, that it that here consequently far so nobleman. It is not rather for us here to be dedicated to the large task, that remains, before -that of this honored deceased take us the dedication increased we to that cause, for that it the measure full finally of the dedication given have -that we dissolve here very, that these deceased in vain died its become -that this nation, under God, a new birth of the freedom have becomes -and that Government of the people through the people, for whom people, will not sink of the earth.

[jim stone]

Well, the driver was French and he was in love.
Amazing film.

[LimuHead]

For us in the USA that's 111.85 mph!!!!!

And through Paris!!!!!

[StevieJ]

I can't take credit: I ran it through one of those online translation websites.

Never would have guessed, Paul!

All very exciting (if true) but I have to agree with one of the comments posted on the website:

Et si tavais buter klkun sa taurai fait koi davoir reussi ton film? vraiment rien dans la tete !

(Try putting the first sentence of that through your translation site!)

[bradhurley]

Et si tavais buter klkun sa taurai fait koi davoir reussi ton film? vraiment rien dans la tete !

That reminds me of an email I got from a friend in France saying he would send me a "K7" and I thought he was talking about a submachine gun or something until it dawned on me that he was using phonetic shorthand for "cassette." (k is pronounced "kah" in French; 7 is pronounced "set")

In Maine last year, while traveling with my French girlfriend and her Québecois daughter, we saw a car with a vanity plate that read "PIANO KC" -- which I saw as "Piano Casey," assuming that the guy driving the car was named Casey and he played the piano. My girlfriend and her daughter, however, read it as "Piano Cassé," which translates as "Broken Piano."

[Azalin]

Et si tavais buter klkun sa taurai fait koi davoir reussi ton film? vraiment rien dans la tete !

And if you'd have killed someone, what would have been the purpose of your movie? Your head is freakin empty!

Hehe Steve, now your turn for a translation.

I was actually thinking the same thing. If Claude Lelouche would have killed someone, he'd be in jailed now instead of being a famous film maker.