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6.4/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.4/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Voltaire remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have a thing for black-and-white dramas where everyone speaks in complete, perfectly formed sentences, sure. It’s for the history buffs who don't mind a bit of stiffness. If you need action or anything that moves faster than a polite stroll, you’ll probably be bored to tears within ten minutes.
George Arliss is doing a lot of work here. He plays Voltaire like he’s performing to the back row of a theater that’s three blocks away. It’s not subtle. At all. Sometimes he just stares off into the middle distance as if he’s waiting for the cue to start his next monologue.
The whole plot centers on the Calas family. It’s meant to be this big, heart-wrenching tragedy about the state being cruel, but it feels a bit like a textbook summary set to music. The pacing is a total rollercoaster, only if the rollercoaster was stuck on a loop in the parking lot.
One moment that stuck with me was a scene involving a carriage ride. It looks like the actors are sitting in a wooden box while someone shakes it from the outside to simulate motion. It’s charming in a cheap sort of way, but you can’t help but laugh.
The villain, Count de Sarnac, is played with such cartoonish grumpiness that you expect him to twist his mustache at any second. It lacks the grit you might see in a film like Pogrom where the stakes feel a bit more real and less like a costume party.
There’s a weird disconnect in the film. You know it's supposed to be about serious ideas, but the production design feels like a school project gone slightly right. It’s not quite as weird as Ko-Ko's Magic, but it has its own brand of oddness.
Honestly? I kept waiting for someone to trip over their own period-accurate coat. They never did. It’s a very safe, very polite movie about a man who was neither of those things. A bit of a missed opportunity, but it’s fine for a rainy Sunday if you're in the mood for something dusty.
