In The
Adventures of Young Voltaire
, director Alain Tasma and his co-scriptwriter Georges-Marc Benamou retrace the formative years, from adolescence among the Jesuits to their thirties, of the author of
Candide.
In search of glory, François-Marie Arouet, not yet a philosopher, will make a name for himself: Voltaire.
Thomas Solivérès, noticed in
Edmond
, the film adaptation of Alexis Michalik's successful play, offers him his energy.
LE FIGARO.
- Why is the Voltaire you camp going to surprise?
Thomas SOLIVÉRÈS.
- Because we are far from the Voltaire of history lessons.
Far from the cranky old man in the textbooks.
He's a middle class boy thirsty for fame.
A leader, already.
He is looking for the limelight, will experience exile and the Bastille.
A proud man ready to do anything to defend his name, heart of artichoke and poor lover.
Stained with contradictions, he seeks to establish a network, sends his writings to the Regent, to Frederick of Prussia to attract their protection.
This miniseries summons the past to better evoke the present.
Voltaire's fights for democracy, against intolerance and obscurantism remain ours.
Did you reread it before you embody it?
I love to disappear in my research.
I had spent six months reading everything about Edmond Rostand to prepare Michalik's film.
There I was just a few weeks old.
I took posture classes to learn how to sit down and curtsy.
I looked at Watteau's paintings to immerse myself in the time.
Alain Tasma told me that I will not find anything more in the biographies on the restricted period that we are exploring.
It was all in the script.
I went back to his plays:
La Henriade
et
Oedipe
.
After the shooting, I reopened the
Treatise on Tolerance,
on the trial of Jean Calas.
I discovered unexpected details: Voltaire was a vegetarian and cared a lot for the animal cause!
The soap opera dynamites the codes of the saga in costumes with a modern language ...
My work with Alexis Michalik, who speaks all the words, tracks elision, seeks precision, has helped me.
These four episodes will surprise you with their raw tone, not necessarily "public service".
Like the opening, inspired by
Courbet's
L'Origine du monde
, where Voltaire, a newborn, comes out of his mother's thighs.
What remains of Voltaire in you?
No doubt more anger and revolt at the information I hear every morning.
As the shooting was interrupted halfway through the first confinement, we spent a lot of time on the phone, Alain Tasma and I, to keep the meaning of the text, to share our anxieties.
Ironically, the day of the resumption, I played a scene where Voltaire, suffering from smallpox, is examined by a masked doctor, under the gaze of our technicians who are themselves masked ...