Jacques Prévert

Jacques Prévert (1900-1977), one of the most popular poets in France during the 20th century, and one of the most important screenwriters in French cinema of the 1930s and 1940s.

Prévert was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine. He left school at the age of 15 and worked as a sales assistant. In Paris following military service he met André Breton and the Surrealists and became part of the central group, attracted to their ideas on the possibilities of a populist art. Prévert split from the Surrealists in 1928. Between 1932 and 1936 he was involved with Groupe Octobre, a left-wing theatre company, and worked on the films of his brother, Pierre. Through these films, Prévert met film-makers Jean Renoir and Marcel Carné. With the latter he went on to have a long partnership, the fruits of which included the two films for which he is best known, Les Visiteurs du Soir (1942) and Les Enfants du Paradis (1945).

Prévert's first collection of poetry, Paroles (1946), was a huge bestseller, and was followed by ten more over the next 30 years. His success was largely due to his accessible language, his sympathy for the experience of the common people, and his sharp satire against those in power. “Familiale” deals with the stultifying effects of war on ordinary people.

In his films too, his style of “poetic realism” conveys a political message without losing a sense of individual humanity.