SAINT-EXUPÉRY (Antoine de) - Lot 434

Lot 434
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Estimation :
9000 - 12000 EUR
SAINT-EXUPÉRY (Antoine de) - Lot 434
SAINT-EXUPÉRY (Antoine de) [Movie script, "We may have to kill a lot to live."] Circa 1935-1940 (?). 24 p. and a half in-4 (27 x 21 cm) of fine paper, dark blue ink. Precious autograph draft of an unpublished film script. This film noir scenario seems to correspond to an earlier version of the typed script known as Igor. It was given to Pierre Billon in 1940 and was included in the 1984 exhibition at the National Archives (see Paule Bounin, "L'oeuvre cinématographique de Saint-Exupéry", Études littéraires, 2001, p. 118). Barely ten of Saint-Exupéry's screenplays are known, most of them typescripts. In this screenplay, on board a liner in which a plague epidemic breaks out, terrorists flee Brazil to Europe and take advantage of the panic as they disembark to disappear, a beautiful adventuress from Africa who commits suicide by jumping overboard, and Spanish refugees singing of nostalgia for their country. "Five terrorists will embark for Spain in Rio de Janeiro. One of them refuses and decides to flee through Chile. They know he's a coward. "If you get caught before we arrive, the woman will sell us." We're waiting for them on the boat. Movement of the three faces dispersed among the crowd. Waiting. At the third siren he arrives alone and goes up. First explanations: we meet in a discreet corner of the ship. - I saw Luis. - We may have to kill a lot of people to live. [...]" This text can be compared to a passage from a Letter to a Hostage: "I found them on the ship, my refugees. This liner was also spreading a slight anguish. The ship was transferring these rootless plants from one continent to another. ...and just as Lisbon played at happiness, they played at believing they would soon return." (OEuvres complètes, II, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 2009, p. 90-91). This project, which had been approved by Ciné-France, did not come to fruition; Maurice Clavel, who had been commissioned to write the dialogue, fell victim to the resentment of the communists, who blocked it
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