PARIS (AFP) – The only known script of French director Jean-Luc Godard’s New Wave classic Breathless that includes pages of his handwritten notes is set to be sold at auction in June, Sotheby’s said on Thursday.
The script comes from the estate of the film’s producer, Georges de Beauregard, another pillar of the New Wave movement of the 1960s that revolutionised cinema. Godard never wrote a complete script, often drafting his dialogue at the last minute before each day’s shoot, or encouraging his actors to improvise in order to make scenes feel more natural.
Breathless (1960), starring Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo, was his first major film and was inspired by American gangster movies.
“This rare manuscript brings together these two major figures of the New Wave in a historic document that traces the birth of one of the greatest successes in French cinema,” head of manuscripts Anne Heilbronn at Sotheby’s Paris, said.
The 70 pages include detailed descriptions of the film’s legendary opening scenes as well as other key moments such as Seberg hawking the New York Herald Tribune on the Champs-Elysees.
Estimated at between EUR400,000 and EUR600,000 (USD435,000-USD650,000), the documents will be auctioned online by Sotheby’s between June 4 and 18 along with other memorabilia including photos.
