The Secret of Nikola Tesla

Last updated
The Secret of Nikola Tesla
The Secret of Nikola Tesla Tajna Nikole Tesle 1980 movie poster.jpg
movie poster
Directed by Krsto Papić
Written by Ivo Brešan
Ivan Kušan
Krsto Papić
Starring Petar Božović
Strother Martin
Orson Welles
Dennis Patrick
Oja Kodar
Boris Buzančić
Cinematography Ivica Rajković
Edited byBoris Erdelji
Music by Anđelko Klobučar
Production
company
Release date
  • 19 February 1980 (1980-02-19)
Running time
115 minutes
CountryYugoslavia
LanguagesSerbo-Croatian
English

The Secret of Nikola Tesla (Serbo-Croatian : Tajna Nikole Tesle), is a 1980 Yugoslav biographical film which dramatizes events in the life of the Serbian-American engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla. This somewhat fictionalized [1] portrayal of Tesla's life has him contending with Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan in his attempts to develop alternating current and then "free" wireless power.

Contents

Plot

Tesla in a hotel room in 1943 talks to a reporter. He then reminisces about how things would be different if J. P Morgan had listened to him.

Tesla arrives in the US in the 1880s. He tries to convince his new employer, Thomas Edison, to adopt his newly invented electric induction motor running on an alternating current (AC) system but Edison claims direct current (DC) is better and turns him down. Robert Underwood Johnson and his wife Katharine, who were at the meeting, later find Tesla digging a ditch, having quit his job at Edison. Tesla strikes a business deal with two investors to finance development of his motor. He shows off his AC system at meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers but Edison, in the audience, claims it is impractical. After the reporters, and even Tesla's own investors, turn away from him George Westinghouse convinces Tesla to sell him his AC patents and offers a contract to pay Tesla a royalty on his motor design. They end up in a public battle with Edison trying to demonstrate their system is not dangerous (as Edison claims) and is actually better than DC. J.P. Morgan, pulling the strings in the background, calls Tesla and Edison into a meeting and, unhappy with Edison's progress electrifying his factories, tells Tesla he can try to prove AC would work better.

At a banquet celebrating the building of an alternating current power plant at Niagara Falls Tesla confuses the audience with his futuristic ideas about his high frequency wireless AC transmission system and then tells someone he is off to Europe to see his family (who he has been having flashbacks about). On that trip he visits his bed-ridden mother who dies in his arms. He then wanders out in the country side having flash backs about his childhood and the death of his brother, all punctuated by visions of falling water and lightning. Westinghouse and Katharine visit Tesla back at his New York lab where the inventor tears up his royalty contract to save Westinghouse from financial ruin. Tesla goes on to develop his wireless power system, making several reports to Morgan on his progress. Morgan tells Tesla he is unhappy with wild stories about the inventor but keeps backing him.

Westinghouse warns Tesla (who is now building his Morgan financed Wardenclyffe wireless power station) to watch out for Morgan's motives and Katharine tells the inventor how she wished they could have had more of a relationship together. Tesla learns from Morgan that Guglielmo Marconi has stolen his wireless patents and that Albert Einstein has new theories about matter and energy. Tesla tells Morgan these new theories are a "crime against nature" and tries to get Morgan to back his free wireless power system before it is too late. After Tesla leaves Morgan says he won't back a system that would put him out of business and orders all further interaction with Tesla cut off. Tesla looks over his demolished Wardenclyffe station and complains, at the end of his life in a world choked with smog, that he wished Morgan had listened to him.

Cast

Production

The film was shot in the former Yugoslavia. Besides lead Yugoslavian actor Petar Božović, director Krsto Papić assembled a cast which includes three American actors playing iconic personalities of 19th and early 20th century America, Orson Welles as Morgan, Strother Martin (who died six weeks before the film's premiere) as Westinghouse, and Dennis Patrick as Edison. [2] Croatian actress Oja Kodar, playing Katharine, had been Welles' companion for almost two decades at the time of filming.

The film was written by Ivo Brešan, Ivan Kušan, and Krsto Papic. Two American writers contributed to the screenplay and are cited with on-screen credits. They are John W. English, University of Georgia journalism professor, and Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee . They were commissioned by Zagreb Film Studio director and pre-production coordinator Zelimir Matko.

Release

The film was premiered in Yugoslavia on Tesla Day, July 10, 1980. [3] The film had a further September 12, 1980 English-language premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and had a small US theatrical run in 1985. [4]

Critical reception

Online reviewers note the accurate portrayal of period settings and costumes and thought the major interest for most audiences would be the portrayal of Morgan by Orson Welles. The low production values, continual switching between Serbo-Croatian and poorly dubbed English, and flashbacks burred within further flashbacks were found distracting. [5] [6] It is noted to play like a history lesson instead of a study of Nikola Tesla's character. [7] A 3 Quarks Daily commentator thought the conspiracy plot of a "messianic wizard" vs the "capitalist baddies" was campy. [8]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikola Tesla</span> Serbian-American inventor (1856–1943)

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist. He is best-known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Westinghouse</span> American engineer and businessman (1846–1912)

George Westinghouse Jr. was an American entrepreneur and engineer based in Pennsylvania who created the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry, receiving his first patent at the age of 19. Westinghouse saw the potential of using alternating current for electric power distribution in the early 1880s and put all his resources into developing and marketing it. This put Westinghouse's business in direct competition with Thomas Edison, who marketed direct current for electric power distribution. In 1911 Westinghouse received the American Institute of Electrical Engineers's (AIEE) Edison Medal "For meritorious achievement in connection with the development of the alternating current system." He founded the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1886.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wardenclyffe Tower</span> Experimental wireless transmission station (1901–1917)

Wardenclyffe Tower (1901–1917), also known as the Tesla Tower, was an early experimental wireless transmission station designed and built by Nikola Tesla on Long Island in 1901–1902, located in the village of Shoreham, New York. Tesla intended to transmit messages, telephony, and even facsimile images across the Atlantic Ocean to England and to ships at sea based on his theories of using the Earth to conduct the signals. His decision to increase the scale of the facility and implement his ideas of wireless power transmission to better compete with Guglielmo Marconi's radio-based telegraph system was met with refusal to fund the changes by the project's primary backer, financier J. P. Morgan. Additional investment could not be found, and the project was abandoned in 1906, never to become operational.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikola Tesla Museum</span> Science museum in Belgrade, Serbia

The Nikola Tesla Museum is a science museum located in Belgrade, Serbia. It is dedicated to honoring and displaying the life and work of Nikola Tesla as well as the final resting place for Tesla. It holds more than 160,000 original documents, over 2,000 books and journals, over 1,200 historical technical exhibits, over 1,500 photographs and photo plates of original, technical objects, instruments and apparatus, and over 1,000 plans and drawings. Very little is on display in the small ground floor exhibition space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikola Tesla in popular culture</span>

Nikola Tesla is portrayed in many forms of popular culture. The Serbian-American engineer has particularly been depicted in science fiction, a genre which is well suited to address his inventions; while often exaggerated, the fictionalized variants build mostly upon his own alleged claims or ideas. A popular, growing fixation among science fiction, comic book, and speculative history storytellers is to portray Tesla as a member of a secret society, along with other luminaries of science. The impacts of the technologies invented by Nikola Tesla are a recurring theme in the steampunk genre of alternate technology science-fiction.

<i>Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla</i> Book by Marc Seifer

The book Wizard, the Life and Times of Nikola Tesla is a biography of Nikola Tesla by Marc J. Seifer published in 1996.

<i>Colorado Springs Notes, 1899–1900</i> 1978 book compiled and edited by Aleksandar Marinčić and Vojin Popović

Colorado Springs Notes, 1899–1900 (ISBN 8617073527) is a book compiled and edited by Aleksandar Marinčić and Vojin Popović detailing the work of Nikola Tesla at his experimental station in Colorado Springs at the turn of the 20th century.

<i>JLA: Age of Wonder</i>

JLA: Age of Wonder is a 2003 two-issue mini-series of comics from DC's Elseworlds imprint. Taking place from 1876 to 1913, the comics follow Clark Kent and Lex Luthor as they use superpowers to create technical innovations. The comics also follow the creation of the League of Science, a superhero league dedicated to spreading these innovations for the good of mankind. The series was written by Adisakdi Tantimedh, with art by P. Craig Russell and Galen Showman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krsto Papić</span>

Krsto Papić was a Croatian screenwriter and film director whose career spanned over five decades. He is generally considered among the best directors of former Yugoslavia and the only director from Croatia that can be counted among the Yugoslav Black Wave.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tesla's Egg of Columbus</span> Device to help explain alternating current induction motors

Tesla's Egg of Columbus was a device exhibited in the Westinghouse Electric display at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition to explain the rotating magnetic field that drove the new alternating current induction motors designed by inventor Nikola Tesla by using that magnetic field to spin a copper egg on end.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Wireless System</span> Proposed telecommunications and electrical power delivery system by Nikola Tesla

The World Wireless System was a turn of the 20th century proposed telecommunications and electrical power delivery system designed by inventor Nikola Tesla based on his theories of using Earth and its atmosphere as electrical conductors. He claimed this system would allow for "the transmission of electric energy without wires" on a global scale as well as point-to-point wireless telecommunications and broadcasting. He made public statements citing two related methods to accomplish this from the mid-1890s on. By the end of 1900 he had convinced banker J. P. Morgan to finance construction of a wireless station based on his ideas intended to transmit messages across the Atlantic to England and to ships at sea. His decision to change the design to include wireless power transmission to better compete with Guglielmo Marconi's new radio based telegraph system was met with Morgan's refusal to fund the changes. The project was abandoned in 1906, never to become operational.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe</span> Proposed science museum in New York

The Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe is a nonprofit organization established to develop a regional science and technology center, museum and makerspace at the site of Nikola Tesla's former Wardenclyffe laboratory on Long Island, New York. The center had raised money through crowdfunding to purchase the property. In 2018, the Wardenclyffe site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Ana Karić was a Croatian actress. She started acting in the early 1960s even before graduating from the Zagreb Academy of Dramatic Art in 1963. Although primarily a television actress, she also appeared in numerous film and theatre productions.

<i>Tower to the People</i> 2015 American film

Tower to the People - Tesla's Dream at Wardenclyffe Continues is a 2015 documentary film directed by Joseph Sikorski about Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower. The film documents the history and subsequent decline of the Wardenclyffe complex designed and built by Tesla in Shoreham, New York, as the main laboratory and facility for his experiments on wireless power transmission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Sekulić</span> Croatian mathematician and physicist (1833–1905)

Martin Sekulić (1833–1905) was a mathematics and physics teacher from Karlovac, one of the few high-school professors who were members of the Croatian community of physicists at the time.

<i>The Current War</i> 2017 historical drama film directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

The Current War is a 2017 American historical drama film inspired by the 19th-century competition between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse over which electric power delivery system would be used in the United States. Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, written by Michael Mitnick, and executive produced by Martin Scorsese and Steven Zaillian, the film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Edison, Michael Shannon as Westinghouse, Nicholas Hoult as Nikola Tesla, and Tom Holland as Samuel Insull, alongside Katherine Waterston, Tuppence Middleton, Matthew Macfadyen and Damien Molony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikola Tesla Memorial Center</span> Biographical and technology museum in Smiljan, Croatia

The Nikola Tesla Memorial Center is a cultural-historical site and museum located in Smiljan, Croatia, located at the birthplace of Nikola Tesla, one of the world's foremost engineers and inventors. It is dedicated to Tesla, who was born in 1856 in his Serb parents house in Smiljan, then part of the Croatian Military Frontier within the Habsburg monarchy. The young engineer later left his homeland to work in America. The Lika Museum in nearby Gospić administers the site.

<i>Tesla</i> (2020 film) 2020 film by Michael Almereyda

Tesla is a 2020 American biographical drama film written and directed by Michael Almereyda. It stars Ethan Hawke as Nikola Tesla. Eve Hewson, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Jim Gaffigan, and Kyle MacLachlan also star.

"Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror" is the fourth episode of the twelfth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, first broadcast on BBC One on 19 January 2020. It was written by Nina Metivier, and directed by Nida Manzoor.

References