Jacques Prévert

Jacques Prévert was a poet and screenwriter and an active member of the Surrealist movement led by André Breton. His extensive collaboration with film director Marcel Carné led to a new style of cinema, “poetic realism,” that influenced American film noir. During WWII, Prévert settled in Saint Paul-de-Vence, northwest of Nice, where he worked with Victorine Film Studios and associated with many artists. Working with director Marcel Carné, in 1945 he delivered the screenplay for the film Les Enfants du Paradis. In 1946, he produced his first book of Poetry, Paroles. In following years, he published many collections of poems that are standard material in French textbooks. Many of those poems have been set to music and sung by prominent vocalists, including Yves Montand, Edith Piaf, Joan Baez and Nat King Cole.