Jean-Luc Godard's Handwritten ‘Breathless' Manuscript to Be Auctioned by Sotheby's
Jean-Luc Godard's legacy lives on, and now, even fans can own a piece of it.
The late auteur, who died in 2022, made his feature directorial debut with 'Breathless,' also known as 'À Bout de Souffle.' The iconic 1960 film ushered in the French New Wave and propelled its stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg to fame. The film follows an American student (Seberg) in Paris who loves a dangerous criminal (Belmondo) obsessed with Humphrey Bogart. The duo later go on the run.
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The only known (and previously unseen) handwritten partial manuscript for 'Breathless' by Godard is being sold at auction by the family of 'Breathless' producer Georges de Beauregard, who also worked with François Truffaut. The auction will be held by Sotheby's Paris, with bidding beginning online from June 4 to 18.
This is the first time the manuscript will be offered for sale. There is an estimate of €400,000 – 600,000 as an opening bid, as part of Sotheby's Paris online auction of books and manuscripts. The lot will also include a number of photographs from Beauregard's archive, a further insight into a golden age of French cinema.
The manuscript comprises 70 pages, including scene synopses and dialogue. Per Sotheby's, the scenes include the dramatic opening sequence, the scenes in Marseille, the drive back to Paris, Seberg's character Patricia selling the New York Herald Tribune on the Champs-Élysées, Belmondo's Michel entering the telephone booth and the altercation with the motorcyclist, and the famous final sentence uttered by Seberg's character ('Qu'est-ce que c'est dégueulasse?'). The film's original trailer is also mapped out in Godard's hand.
'At the age of 29, Godard directed his first film, an American-style gangster story that was to become one of the cult films of the New Wave,' Anne Heilbronn, head of books and manuscripts, Sotheby's Paris, said in a press statement. 'Without the tenacity of his producer Beauregard, who found it difficult to finance the film, it would never have seen the light of day. This rare manuscript brings together these two of the great forces behind the Nouvelle Vague, in a historic document that captures the birth of one of France's greatest cinematic exports.'
Manuscripts for Godard's films are exceptionally rare, as Sotheby's is promoting, due to the director's avant-garde working style. 'Breathless' didn't even have a full synopsis or script, as Godard instead would write dialogue on each day of the shoot. The written records were also later often destroyed. The feature was filmed on location from August 17 to September 15, 1959, and released in March 1960.
'When I made 'Breathless,' I thought I was doing something very precise,' Godard later said. 'I thought I was doing a thriller movie or a gangster movie, but when I saw the print for the first time, I discovered what I'd done was completely different from what I supposed.'
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