Tesla (film): A great low budget film to teach you about the famous man

Like a lot of people, I have always been intrigued by the life of Nikola Tesla and how he was a true genius of his time but didn't have the business acumen necessary for his work to be widespread and profitable. This film which made almost no money and saw no widespread release may have been fishing for Oscars because they didn't seem to be very interested in even giving the public widespread access to it. I know that I wasn't even aware of this film's existence despite the fact that it was made 3 years ago, until earlier this week.

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Now this film might be taking a lot of liberties about the authenticity of the work that is exhibited in the movie but this also probably has a lot to do with the fact that Nikola was actually a very private man who never really sought to be in the limelight. He never appeared to be all that interested in gaining great wealth for himself but instead was far more interested in exploring the various theories that he had and probably, with the right funding, could have made great strides in the fields he was pursuing.

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One of the initially annoying but also very inventive and cost-effective methods that they used in this film is that the backgrounds were noticeably fake in many scenes. For example, when they are referring to the work that Tesla did at Niagara Falls, the background is quite obviously a still image rather that going through the great expense and / or CGI to make it appear real. This happens frequently in the film and we instead have to use our imagination about where the events are taking place. In this regard a lot of the film almost seems like a stage production and while I at first found it cheap and annoying, I grew to appreciate it because the acting was so spot on although at times it was so quiet that my TV was maxed out at 100. Unfortunately I didn't have subtitles and if I had, I would have used them.

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One very surprising addition to the cast was Jim Gaffigan in the role of George Westinghouse, a real person who took great interest in Tesla's work and finances many of his projects. Gaffigan is a stand-up comedian that I have always appreciated and he has recently taken an interest in doing serious roles in film. I have seen a few of his performances and he does quite well with dramatic acting. Strangely enough, the roles that he takes in comedic films don't really work for him so it is good that he seems to have found his acting legs. Now he just needs to drop some weight because dude looks terribly unhealthy.

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Another quite interesting aspect of this film is that they will frequently break the 4th wall to speak directly to us, the audience, to give us some narration about Tesla, Edison, and others from a modern day position. This is done with modern day equipment such as a laptop computer clearly in view as they explain how history has been recorded over time and how it doesn't favor Tesla, even though a lot of the advances in many things can be directly attributed to the man.

It is of course a tragic tale, because Tesla's story is one of great genius and tragedy. He was like the song "Edison's Medicine" states.... "a man out of time." Tesla truly was ahead of his time and his competitors, most notably Thomas Edison, did everything they could not to help him achieve his greatness, but to suppress it as much as possible in order to ensure their own continuation of wealth. They were holding back science intentionally and did everything they could to thwart Tesla's discoveries and innovations. Perhaps you weren't aware of a lot of this and if that is the case, you should definitely watch this film to learn about it.

At one point in the film Tesla goes into great secrecy as far as his experiments are concerned and was interested in having non-scientific assistants in his employ in far-away locations. The biopic recalls a conversation with one of his unskilled assistants who insisted "I don't know what electricity is." Tesla ominously replied "nobody knows what electricity is."

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This film presents Nikola Tesla as being severely introverted and awkward as well as being hard-working and driven, but also prone to depression. I don't think that anyone actually knows the truth as far as the man is concerned and he remains one of the great mysteries of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Should I watch it?

I think that if you have an interest in history and science that you probably should see this. Some may find it boring at times and seriously, it gets so quiet with Ethan Hawke's dialogue that you really need to keep the remote nearby or if possible, play it with the subtitles on. I didn't have subs as an option and ended up missing a lot of the words that were spoken particularly by the remarkably quiet Ethan Hawke.

at just over 100 minutes this is a standard-length USA film and the fact that it saw no widespread release is a mystery to me. Apparently it was popular on Apple-TV and maybe that was the intention by the producers from the start. I learned a lot during this film and I think that anyone who is intrigued by Tesla's life will end up feeling the same way.