Jacques Prevert's landmark movie script sells for £450,000

A landmark film script written by Jacques Prévert was the star lot in Ader David Nordmann's Paris auction, last week (June 9).

Prévert's 500 page manuscript, based on a 1927 novel by Pierre Mac Orlan, would become the 1938 film Le Quai des Brumes (or Port of Shadows) produced and directed by Marcel Carné.

Today, Prévert's script is viewed historically as a key exemplar of the poetic realism genre, mixing real-life with whimsical fantasy, and is regarded as one of the most influential scripts in French cinema history.


Jacques Prévert's manuscript screenplay for Le Quai des Brumes, sold for €450,000

Appearing in a collection consigned by Eugenie Bachelot Prévert, Jacques Prévert's only granddaughter, the script was estimated at €200,000-300,000.

It sold for a final price of €450,000, including Buyer's Premium.

As well as being a renowned poet and screenwriter, Prévert participated actively in France's surrealist movement and the famed Rue du Château group, along with the likes of Marcel Duchamp.


Written by Prévert, drawn on by Picasso and sold for €275,000

Elsewhere in the sale, a book written by Prévert entitled the Portraits of Picasso, with additional ink sketches by Picasso himself, sold for €275,000 above its €120,000-150,000 estimate.

Other highlights in the sale included autographed sketches by Prévert himself (sold for €80,000) and sketches and correspondence between Prévert and the artist Joan Miro (€30,000).

 

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