The only known script of French director Jean-Luc Godard's New Wave classic À bout de souffle (Breathless), which includes pages of his handwritten notes, is set to be sold at auction in June, Sotheby's said on Thursday, March 20.
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 revolutionized 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," Anne Heilbronn, head of manuscripts 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-Elysées.
Estimated at between €400,000 and €600,000 ($435,000-$650,000), the documents will be auctioned online by Sotheby's between June 4 and 18 along with other memorabilia including photos. Godard died in 2022 at the age of 91.