Thomas Soliveres plays François-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire, in “The Adventures of Young Voltaire”.
-
Jo Voets
France 2 is broadcasting this Monday and Monday February 15 at 9:05 p.m. the miniseries in 4 episodes created by Georges-Marc Benamou and directed by Alain Tasma.
This series is interested in the youth of François-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire, a young impertinent, gifted, libertine, and arrogant.
"He is an adventurer, a rocker, an insurgent, initially very ambitious, but who, by his clumsiness, his battles, his commitment, will have an absolutely thrilling life", says Georges-Marc Benamou.
How do you become Voltaire?
This is the subject of the mini-series in four episodes
The Adventures of Young Voltaire
, broadcast this Monday and Monday February 15 at 9:05 p.m. on France 2, a biopic that is interested, as its title indicates, in the youth of François-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire.
What put off some who might fear yet another somewhat academic historical fiction within the framework of the educational mission of the public channel.
It's quite the opposite.
How did
Les Aventures du Jeune Voltaire
dust off the historical biopic without betraying the Enlightenment philosopher?
"The angle proposed is a completely new angle, it is the young Voltaire, a man among men", rejoices Anne Holmes, director of fiction for France Televisions, with whom
20 Minutes
spoke during a virtual round table organized by France 2.
If we know the venerable philosopher of the Enlightenment, the author of
Zadig
et
Candide, a
refugee in Ferney, the defender of the Calas affair, we know less about the life, the aspirations, the energy and the quick-wittedness of François -Marie Arouet.
“We were immediately seduced by the life of this Voltaire that we did not know.
The format in 4 episodes was imposed because there were twists in his life, written like a kind of romantic thriller ”, continues Anne Holmes.
Voltaire, "a rocker, an insurgent"
Georges-Marc Benamou, Henri Helman and Alain Tasma, in writing, did not approach Voltaire as a monument, but as a rebellious young man in full construction.
“We quickly sympathized with this Voltaire.
We quickly liked the guy.
We were not in a position of overhang, ”says Georges-Marc Benamou, the creator of the series.
Result on screen?
We follow the incredible tribulations of a son of a Parisian notary in the last years of the reign of Louis XIV.
François-Marie Arouet is all at the same time, sassy, gifted, libertine, and arrogant.
This young commoner wants everything: glory, women and money.
"He is an adventurer, a rocker, an insurgent, initially very ambitious, but who, by his clumsiness, his battles, his commitment, will have an absolutely thrilling life", says Georges-Marc Benamou.
“This ambitious, selfish young man will gradually open up to the world with generosity,” adds director Alain Tasma, to whom we owe the staging of Aux Animaux la guerre.
Voltaire, a modern hero
The idea is to "rediscover Voltaire, in his youth, in his passions, and in his failures", he continues.
Placed with the Jesuits of the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, he sympathizes with the offspring of the nobility.
"He is a young man of today, but in a world of yesterday, a world where social classes are incredibly compartmentalized, where religious weight is incredibly heavy", analyzes Georges-Marc Benamou.
François-Marie Arouet will rebel against this system: by crashing into the law school where his father wants to force him, by writing plays and pamphlets ... These will earn him a stay of eleven months in the Bastille, when he was only 23 years old.
"He is an adventurer of freedom, he is the Coluche des Lumières", underlines Georges-Marc Benamou.
And to insist: "The idea of leaving his social class, of fighting against religious fanaticisms, he invented contemporary freedom, and it is not without resonance with the times in which we live.
"
Voltaire, an "incredible feminist"
“He was an incredible feminist,” says Alain Tasma.
This is one of Voltaire's lesser known fights, he defended women in his essays.
“Voltaire was a great lover.
He wrote it, he said it and he relied on his meetings with women ”to build himself, recalls Alain Tasma.
Voltaire has "a certain relational modernity, in his relationship to women, to sexual freedom, he is quite astonishing for his time", confirms Georges-Marc Benamou.
If the series does not cover his relationship with Emilie du Châtelet, the one that marks him the most, it portrays his first loves and his relationship with women, in an era that takes little notice of them.
“She was his counselor, his friend, and at the same time his lover.
They were quite free ”, summarizes Christa Theret, about Adrienne Le Couvreur, one of the young Voltaire's mistresses.
If the ideas of the young Voltaire appear resolutely modern to us, if his life seems sulphurous and incredible, it is because the staging of Alain Tasma and the energetic interpretation of Thomas Solivérès give him all its vitality and daring.
The idea "was to try to get out of the era as much as possible, to succeed in making a character of it today", considers Thomas Solivérès.
Alain Tasma does not tell the historical figure Voltaire, he immerses us in the heart of the tumultuous life of a fascinating young hero.
Its camera places the viewer at the heart of the action.
Like this daring and surprising shot that opens the series which propels us into the intimacy of the hero's childbirth.
A resolutely modern achievement, which shakes up the codes just as much as its hero.
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