Original subtitles

(light orchestral music) (film reel clicking)

(mellow orchestral music)

(tranquil orchestral music)

- [Anne] He had a black cat named Machek when he was a boy.

The cat followed him everywhere.

And one day, when he stroked the cat's back,

he saw a miracle.

A sheet of light crackling under his hand.

"Lightning in the sky,"

his father explained,

"is the same thing as the spark shooting

from Machek's back."

And Tesla asked himself,

"ls nature a gigantic cat?"

And if so,

"who strokes its back?"

(thunder rumbling)

(match striking)

- Mind over matter,

that's what it's all about, isn't it?

Eventually, we'll be able to see in the dark.

- [Man] I found them.

- [Man] I think there are more in the crazy drawer.

Do you know where that is?

- The crazy drawer?

- [Man] That means is you don't have crazy drawers

where you're from?

My mother had a crazy drawer.

And yours?

- [Thomas] Leave my mother out of this.

- No one expected you to come in tonight, Tom.

- Ha, no?

Seriously?

- Well I expected it.

(organ music)

- When I was five years old-

Ed, you don't have to stop because I'm talking.

(organ music)

I was five years old and we sailed across Lake Erie

to visit the Edison clan there in Vienna.

Vienna, Ontario.

Mother and father, sisters, Marriane and Tanney,

my brother, Charlie, and my Grandpa Sam.

I learned to swim.

When I got back to Ohio,

I went exploring with my good friend, George.

George Lockwood.

He was exactly my age.

We went out to the canal below my house

and I went into the water and George followed me

and afterward, I went home feeling very subdued

and crawled into bed.

When my mother woke me, it was very dark

and she asked about George.

Everybody was looking for him, half the town.

Had lit lanterns, called his name looking everywhere.

I told her I saw George's head disappear in the water

and I waited for him a long time

and I didn't know what to do.

I was five years old.

What made me think of that just now.

- Go home, Tom.

Seriously.

- I aways assumed people can swim.

Oh, Tesla, didn't see you there before.

It is true you're from Transylvania?

- No.

- Have you ever eaten human flesh?

Are you married?

- No.

Why do you ask?

- [Thomas] We like to give the new men a hard time.

- I can swim.

- [Thomas] What's that?

- What you said before,

I can swim.

- Can you?

Well good.

We'll see.

(electricity humming)

(light orchestral music)

- [Anne] Pity the poor immigrant,

as the song goes.

Tesla came to America with an open heart

filled with expectation and hope.

(wind howling)

- I told you about my brother.

It was this time of year.

I was seven,

he was 12.

He didn't die instantly when he was thrown

from the horse.

My mother woke me,

brought me to the body,

told me to kiss him on the lips.

His very cold lips.

He was the brilliant one.

I could never measure up.

Dear Szigeti,

I'm finding my way at Edison's Machine Works,

where there's always too much to do and not enough time,

never enough money or men,

constant fixes, upgrades, emergencies.

Edison hardly sleeps and expects everyone around him

to sleep even less.

He talks to everyone, but is incapable of listening.

He has no interest in my motor.

You know the proverb, nothing grows in the shadow of an Oak.

I had hoped that Edison and I would,

I don't know, work together,

that he would understand.

- Yes.

- That we could be friends.

Edison doesn't have time to comb his hair.

- It's more than that.

There was a death in the family.

Nobody talks about it.

His wife,

his wife died.

- When was this?

- Tuesday.

- Alternating current is a waste of time.

Impractical and deadly.

There's no future in it.

$50,000.

You think I owe you $50,000 honestly?

Tesla,

you don't understand the American sense of humor.

(light orchestral music)

- This is pretty surely not how it happened

but what can I tell you?

If you Google Nikola Tesla you get 34 million results,

but for images there are mostly just

three our four photographs repeated over and over.

They get flipped around.

Some are colorized or photoshopped with lightning

in the background but it's basically just four pictures.

Beyond that, things get murky and more imaginative.

(dreamy orchestral music)

He was born in 1856, far from the Gilded Age

in Likas Milian, a small rural village

in what's now Croatia.

His father is an Orthodox Serbian priest,

but he's closer with his mother, a brilliant woman

who couldn't read or write.

He's a precocious boy, a bit withdrawn, secretive

with a gift for languages and mathematics.

Defying his father, he studies engineering in Prague,

but never graduates.

In Budapest, coming out of a depression,

walking in a park with a friend, he sees in a flash,

in a vision the motor that will be

his first revolutionary invention.

- Alternating current is a waste of time.

Impractical and deadly.

There's no future in it.

$50,000.

You think I owe you $50,000?

Tesla, you have no understanding

of the American sense of humor.

(suspenseful orchestral music)

- A man who says he doesn't care about money

can find himself tormented by the lack of it.

Whereas Edison, Edison values money

but spends it faster than he makes it.

But he's always making it

in great quantities.

Google Thomas Edison and you get over 64 million results.

Twice as many as Tesla.

Edison's one of the most famous, most successful men

of his time.

But some facts slip out of sight.

Tesla went to work for Edison the same year,

the same summer that Mary Edison died.

Congestion of the brain was the official report,

code for a Morphine overdose.

She was 15 when they met in the rain

outside Edison's new workshop,

16 when they married, 25 when she died,

leaving Edison with three young children

and a lot on his mind.

This, you might think, is where Tesla's luck turns.

He finds investors and sets up the Tesla Lighting Company,

but his partners swindle him, leaving him penniless.

He falls into the abyss of poverty,

becomes a ditch digger digging trenches for cables,

phone lines for Western Union.

(dramatic orchestral music)

After a humiliating year, a sympathetic foreman

introduces him to Alfred S. Brown and Charles F. Peck.

- [Nikola] They key is the motor rotates

by virtue of induction of rotating magnetic fields.

I've eliminated the commutator which distributes

electricity to the rotor.

- So you've eliminated the need for the commutator

and brushes the sparks.

Amazing.

- There are no sparks.

- Is that so bad?

- They're just unnecessary.

The magnetic field redirects the current.

- May I?

- The work you did for Edison, what was it?

- I redesigned 24 different dynamos,

standard machines,

replaced longer magnets with short coils,

replaced older models.

I couldn't interest him in alternating current,

but of course you know-

- I know, I'm an electrician.

But he-

- The lawyer, the sensible one.

- He understands-

- This is more than just a motor.

It is entire system

for generating, transmitting, and utilizing power.

- You were making $15 a week with Edison, correct?

We checked.

- [Charles] Edison hires the best,

but he practically makes them pay for the privilege.

We have capital.

$50,000 for an Annual sinking fund

and alternating current-

- [Alfred] I don't care if it's dangerous.

- It isn't.

- [Alfred] Edison says-

- [Charles] Fire is dangerous if you stick your hand in it.

- [Alfred] We'll set you up with a lab

and a salary.

$250 a month.

It's better than you were expecting, is it?

(dreamy orchestral music)

(soft orchestral music)

- I understand your mother is not very impressed with me.

- [Anne] Edison met his second wife, Mina Miller, in 1885.

- My mother regards our earthly existence as insignificant.

- [Anne] Her father had made a fortune

by inventing a popular lawnmower,

the Buckeye Reaper.

The youngest of seven children, she was engaged

to marry a preacher's son.

- She says when you leave this life,

you enter into a brighter and happier life,

one that never ends.

- You know what my mother said to me?

Never eat anything bigger than your head.

(laughing)

I am going to ask your father

if I can

teach you morse code.

So we can talk without talking.

(light orchestral music)

- Instead of a single coil,

we use four.

Four coils around a laminated ring.

Two separate AC currents feed into the paired coils

on opposite sides.

The currents are out of phase.

This creates the rotating electrical field.

(laughs)

- No sparks.

- I was with him in Budapest

when he had the idea.

He saw it in his head and then

he draw it in the dirt.

- I did.

That was five years ago.

- And here we are now.

- New Orleans, St. Paul, Chicago, Philadelphia, Brooklyn.

Edison has 121 power stations in the U.S.

Plus Berlin and Milan, Paris, Bordeaux, Amsterdam, Munich.

Everywhere.

When we get this across, it's going to rewrite the book.

It's going to knock him sideways.

- [Alfred] What is this can?

- It's a prototype.

- You expect me to invest in a spinning tin can

of shoe polish?

- I do.

That motor

will do the work of the world.

It'll set men free.

(church bells ringing)

(dramatic orchestral music)

- It's perfect.

I congratulate you.

Its efficiency without question is equal

to the best direct current motor.

In terms of voltage potentials, it can have no match.

- The best machine is the one with

the fewest parts.

- It's the solution everyone's been searching for.

Where have you been hiding?

- What do you mean?

- [Professor] You're not a member of the AIEE.

- [Charles] American Institute of-

- Or the National Electric Light Association

or the Electric Club of New York.

- Your endorsement means a great deal to us.

- [Alfred] To all of us, Professor.

- Mr. Tesla has been keeping a low profile.

- That will change.

- I can tell ya,

the patent office will not accept the application.

- [Charles] What do you mean?

- You think you can jam all you've done

into a single omnibus patent?

You'll have to break it up

into half a dozen separate inventions.

Well that's how I see it.

- We're at a turning point in the history of human engin-

- Sorry I'm late.

- Ah, Evelyn.

This is

Mr. Tesla,

Mr. Peck, and Mr. Brown, his business partners and Mr.-

- Antoni Szigeti.

Tesla's assistant.

- [Professor] My niece Evelyn and?

- Anne.

- Excuse me, I'm a creature of habit.

Sit down.

Look at Mr. Tesla's motor.

It's gonna make him very famous.

- Well in that case, we can split my sandwich.

- Do you like snow?

Looks like we're gonna get a lot more of it.

- Go ahead, show 'em.

He's eliminated the commutator and the sparks

to go with it.

- My uncle likes machines more than people.

- Do I?

Possibly.

- Machines is an extension of people,

not as the opposite of people.

- Nothing touches.

- That's right.

- [Both] No sparks.

- The new machines have something extra.

When my cousin died, I started to feel

she was with me when I turned on the light.

Electric light.

It was as though there was something in the current

and the light in the air that

allowed her to linger.

(tranquil orchestral music)

(dramatic orchestral music)

- I now have the pleasure of introducing you

to a novel system of electrical transformation

and distribution of energy

by means of alternate currents.

My notice was rather brief,

so I would be very much gratified if the little work

I've done meets with your approval.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- The importance of maintaining the intensity

of the all constant

is that if this can be produced, we can utilize

instead of the sub-divider armature

an ordinary still pock.

- Get me out of here.

- Westinghouse.

George Westinghouse.

He wants the motor, of course.

We are telling him that another party is involved,

a San Francisco capitalist offering $200,000.

- Plus $2.50 per house power, royaity

for each motor reinstalled.

That is strategy.

Employ it.

You can go along with this, can't you?

- There's nobody else, really.

Westinghouse is the only one who has the cash.

- The cash and the guts.

- George Westinghouse was 16

when he enlisted in the Civil War.

Served in the Navy on the northern side

and was promoted to Corporal.

When he was 21, he invented the air break for trains

and made a fortune because all the railroads needed it.

He was an inventor and businessman,

a rare mix.

Doesn't mind buying other people's patents,

working them in to bigger schemes.

He hates self-promotion.

Google him and you get just five million results.

He met his wife, Marguerite, on a train.

(train horn blowing)

Westinghouse buy Tesla's patents

for over a million dollars in today's money

and enlists Tesla to come to his home base

to oversee production.

Royalties for every motor sold assure Tesla

more millions, an accumulating fortune in years to come.

- Ah.

You know this man, Brown?

Works for Edison?

Harold P. Brown?

- I know an Alfred S. Brown, an associate.

- Sure, Brown's a pretty common American name.

Brown and Green, two color names.

I knew an Orange once, James.

But he pronounced it Oranje.

Anyway, Harold P. Brown has bought some of our machines

on the sly and has Westinghouse, that's what he calls it,

24 dogs purchased from children

for 25 cents each.

What he does, and I'm sure you've heard,

in the name of science, he zaps the dog

with 14 hundred volts of direct current.

Without fatal results and then kills the same dog

with 400 to 800 of Westinghouse current.

(jackhammer rumbling)

Sorry about the noise.

And the heat.

Pittsburgh has its charms but

they can seem-

(upbeat violin music)

Brown's challenged me

to a duel.

He wants me to bring a machine and go to New York

and expose myself to electric shocks,

alternating current, of course

while he receives direct current.

We shall commence with 100 volts

and then increase by 50 volts until one or the other

publicly admits his error.

(laughs)

- I'll do it.

- Well that's very kind of you, but even if I

or you submitted to such an imbecilic adventure,

they're still gearing up to execute Kemmler.

- Kemmler?

- The ax murderer.

Now, to be fair,

he used a hatchet.

- I had to do it.

I wanted to kill her and the sooner I hang,

the better it'll be.

- Instead of hanging, there's a move to electrocute

and our friend, Edison, is going to testify

suggesting they put an end to Kemmler

using a Westinghouse machine.

He's running scared.

Garcon?

Lemonade.

You want a lemonade?

- No, thank you.

- AC versus DC.

People think it's a difference of opinion

but we know better.

You know I reached out to Edison.

Invited him here, suggested a merger.

He's too busy, he wrote back.

"Working in my lab consumes all my time."

(eerie ambient music)

It's war.

(somber orchestral music)

- [Attorney General] Your name?

- [Thomas] Thomas Alva Edison.

- [Attorney General] And what is your calling or profession?

- Inventor.

- Have you devoted a great deal of time

to the subject of electricity?

- Yes, of course.

- [Attorney General] All right.

And how long have you engaged in your work

as inventor or electrician?

- 26 years.

- Now, can you tell us,

can you state

the necessary strength of current needed in order

to produce death in all cases?

- Well I'm opposed to capital punishment.

- The question did not arise

do we as individuals believe in capital punishment.

The practice has been in existence by law

in all ages in all nations

and probably will for all of time to come.

Now, Mr. Edison, explain the difference between

continuous or direct current

and alternating current.

- Direct current flows like water through a pipe.

Alternating current is the same as if a body of water

were allowed to flow through a pipe in one direction

for a given amount of time and then reversed

for a given amount of time.

Direct current is like a river flowing peacefully

to the sea.

Alternating current is like a current

rushing violently over a precipice.

(all applauding)

- [Attorney General] Now have you measured

the electrical resistance of human beings?

- Yes, I have.

- Can an artificial current be generated

and applied in such a manner as to produce death

in human beings in every case?

- Yes.

- [Attorney Genera] Instantly?

Instantly?

- Yes.

(dramatic orchestral music)

(dog yelp)

(gasping)

- [Attorney General] Thank you.

Mr. Cochran.

- I'm concerned, Mr. Edison, that different men

in your experiments demonstrate at different resistance.

What would the effect be-

- Excuse me, I'm sorry.

I can't hear you, you'll have to speak up.

- I'm worried that the current will have unforeseen effect.

Now what would the effect be on Kemmler

if we were to apply the current for five or six minutes?

- Now, wait a minute.

What you're saying-

- [Bourke] If we applied the current

for five or six minutes, what will happen to Kemmler,

will he not be carbonized?

- No, he'd be mummified.

All the moisture in his body would evaporate.

But that's the hardly point. - Mr. Edison-

- Just 1,000 volts of one amp current

is 10 times as much as you need to kill any man

with the Westinghouse alternator.

Westinghouse uses 2,000 more volts.

(electricity humming)

(dramatic orchestral music)

Suppose a man touches a wire in a wet place, well

that's a dead man.

(all applauding)

- [Bourke] This is your belief.

- [Thomas] What's that?

- [Bourke] This is your belief, correct?

This is not based on knowledge?

- Oh, correct.

I never killed anybody.

- You're friends from school?

- Colleagues in Budapest eight years ago.

Friends, yes.

And then Paris.

- He's an inventor as well.

- But I seem to have a gift for helping other inventors.

(laughs)

- You remind me of my cat.

If I were to interview my cat,

I feel I'd have to prepare in advance

to ask him really interesting questions.

Where are you from?

- He's from a small village

in the Austrian Empire.

- [Robert] Humble beginnings.

Like Abraham Lincoln.

- He has many fond memory.

- Yes.

I remember

when I was 1?, summertime,

I lived in the country.

There was a Cholera epidemic.

They burned trees in the streets to ward away evil spirits

and drank infected water, died like dogs.

- I just realized Mr. Tesla and Mr.?

- Szigeti.

- [Evelyn] Yes.

Just realized how late it is and somebody's father

expects her home on the hour.

- He doesn't care.

You know who my father is of course?

- Yes.

- Do you consider my father a malignant force in the world?

A person who amasses a fortune like a pirate

or a gangster?

Who acquires power by exploiting workers, and resources,

and rigging markets, and manipulating economies,

and so forth?

- Or is he a captain of industry?

Are his actions positive?

Does he in fact expand markets, and provide more jobs,

and give vast sums of money to those less fortunate?

This young lady's in my care and I must get her home.

- Til soon,

Mr. Tesla.

- Yes, we may see you again soon.

Or sooner.

You never can tell.

(door clicking)

- Anne Morgan,

daughter of J. Pierpont Morgan.

- [Anne] My father preferred to be called Pierpont.

Pierpont Morgan.

At that time and for decades to come,

one of the wealthiest men in the world.

He was born rich,

entered the family banking business early on.

In 1861 when he was 24,

he married his first wife, Amelia Sturges.

He took her to Europe after they were married,

she was diagnosed with Tuberculosis and died

four months later.

He was shattered.

He buried himself in work, banking, finance,

buying and trading companies and corporations.

I don't think he ever asked who strokes the cat's back.

He married Frances Louisa Tracy and had four children.

I'm the youngest.

(dramatic orchestral music)

He hired Thomas Edison to install electricity

in our Madison Avenue mansion,

the first private residence in New York

illuminated by Edison's light.

While Tesla was refining his designs

for the perfect induction motor,

my father was pouring millions

into the Edison General Electric Company.

- Hmm.

A woman like that,

she can make all

your dreams come true.

- Well my dreams are true.

- Yeah.

But you lack funding.

(laughs)

I will delight in working of the

nerve to show.

(laughs)

It's a compass

for steering ships at sea.

(light orchestral music)

- It's good.

Yes, it's very good.

But

Sir William Thompson's done it already.

Lord Calvin.

If you want, I can show you the journal.

- Well,

I should have showed you sooner.

- Yes.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- Um.

(laughs)

Ah yes, well good luck with

Anne Morgan.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- Gentlemen,

this is William Kemmler.

- I wish you all good luck.

I believe I am going to a good place and

I am ready to go.

(dramatic orchestral music)

(electrical buzzing)

And there's no rush.

Let's get this right.

I don't wanna take any chances on this thing.

You know?

(suspenseful orchestral music)

- Anne is very upset.

She says you live in your head.

- Doesn't everyone?

- Too much in your head, I think she feels left out.

- Sometimes it seems as though all I do is think.

For days or weeks on end.

- [Robert] Have you seen this?

Late edition?

They made a thorough botch of it.

Gruesome.

- Like my brain's burning.

Who could live with that?

- When I thought to sleep out all my faults,

I found that some had stuffed the bed with thoughts.

I would say thorns.

- [Professor] "With a click of the lever, Kemmler's body

straightened and seemed as though it might be thrown across

the chamber, were it not for the straps which held it."

- What is that?

- Poem.

- "The body was as rigid as though cast and bronze,

save for the index finger of the right hand,

which closed up so tightly that the nail penetrated

the flesh on the first joint and blood trickled out

on the arm of the chair.

There were two or three doctors with stopwatches,

"they saw Kemmler still breathing."

(dramatic orchestral music)

He wasn't dead.

"They got the machine started up again,

gave him another thousand volts.

"Well that did it."

- What was Kemmler convicted for?

- Killed his wife.

- Was Edison there?

- He's in Paris.

Seven of his company as they're merging

with international outlets, backed by Deutsche Bank.

And Drexel Morgan Company.

- Morgan.

- Blame the doctors.

They applied the current to the top of his head.

Hair is not conductive.

- They should put his hand in a jar of water.

They'll get it right next time.

(tranquil orchestral music)

(violin music)

- You're indulging me

because of my father.

- No.

- [Anne] I came to wonder,

could any woman ever reach

or touch Tesla?

The way his mother had?

He had a vision just before she died.

Easter Sunday at one a.m., 1892.

After her funeral, he fell ill

and spent three weeks living like a shadow in the village

where she was born.

Then he rebounded, gave a lecture in Belgrade

and came home.

- No.

- You think of people as machines, but you're wrong.

They aren't. - I said

the universe is a machine.

- No.

We have an outside and an inside.

We have wills and souls.

- I'm fine.

It's just sometimes I have a rather

unfavorable reaction to pearls.

- Leave us alone.

My father...

You should meet my father.

He's good with numbers and objects, like you.

- I would like to meet him.

If he isn't too busy helping Edison.

- Watch out for his nose.

- His what?

- His nose.

You've heard about it, I assume?

The richest man in the world and he has

a hideous skin disease.

Inflaming and disfiguring his nose.

He dares you to pretend you don't see it.

Maybe it will happen to me,

it's just a matter of time.

Maybe I'd be better off without a nose,

like the sphinx.

When are you going to Chicago?

- How did you know about that?

- Westinghouse is installing hundreds of dynamos.

250,000 light bulbs.

- [Nikola] I leave tomorrow.

- With your friend?

The Hungarian?

Szigeti?

- No.

He lost his compass.

He went to South America to seek his fortune.

- But wasn't he your best friend?

(violin music)

(woman laughing)

I can visit you in Chicago.

- That's not necessary.

Thank you, no.

- You need me.

(triumphant orchestral music)

Thinking, my father taught me,

is more interesting than knowing

but less interesting than looking.

That's one way to size up the pavilion of light

at the World's Fair in Chicago 1893,

where the new Tesla Westinghouse machines provide power

and illumination.

The fair consumes three times more electricity

than the whole city itself.

28 million visitors from around the world

and they all see what Edison has tried to deny,

alternating current is beautiful and safe.

- Ah.

Thank you for joining me.

Please.

I took the liberty,

ordered for us both.

An American meal.

Pie.

So you've been to my exhibition,

the tower, the Edison column.

18,000 bulbs literally

surrounded by 25 hundred different types of Edison lamps.

Go ahead, it's fresh.

- Well, I'm an American now.

Full-fledged citizen.

- Yes, yes, of course you are.

Of course.

As I was saying, it's really on display.

Edison dynamos, flat irons, sewing machine motors,

dinging room fans, elevators.

- I like the dolls. - The dolls?

- They're very amusing.

- Hmm, the talking dolls.

We rushed it, it's not perfect.

Kinetoscope, moving pictures.

Everybody will like that.

But I invited you, here you are.

Tesla, it's plain as day.

This entire World's Fair is lit and powered

by alternating current.

Westinghouse machines, your design.

I was wrong about alternating current.

I was wrong about you.

I still have capital, I still have investors.

An unmatched capacity for PR.

Let's reset the clocks.

Bygones be bygones.

You must have all sorts of ideas.

Pick a project,

something incredible, huh?

We can do incredible things together, huh?

What do you wanna do next?

Got a light?

Do you have a light?

(eerie ambient music)

- [Anne] This meeting never happened.

Edison and Tesla didn't talk at the World Fair.

Edison never admitted he was wrong

about alternating current.

There was no apology, no reconciliation.

And you can't hep but wonder,

if only Tesla had someone sharp and smart at his side,

an enlightened hustler to steer him through

the crass, commercial world.

(dreamy orchestral music)

If only.

- Dr. Tesla.

He's waiting for you.

- Ah.

I know you don't like to

shake hands, I've taken note.

- Excuse me, watch your toes.

- I was assured this was an out of the way

meeting place but it's,

I was misinformed.

Let's maybe...

Yeah.

Edison sunk.

He's on the ropes.

We beat him.

- It was never about Edison.

He was simply on the wrong side of the street.

- My legal bills would suggest

it's a bit more ugly than that.

'Cause here's the thing,

Westinghouse Electric is fighting for its life.

The economy and the Edison merger.

I'm sure you understand this.

Even with the Niagara Commission

on our side,

JP Morgan is pulling all the strings.

We don't stand a chance unless we initiate

a similar merger on our side.

My new Board of Directors

says if I pay you the royalties

spelled out in your contract,

we're bust.

It's too much money.

The whole company's in jeopardy.

They refuse to go forward with the merger

unless your contract, the horsepower clause, is canceled.

- Would you mind if we went somewhere a little less dusty?

You mean that if I give this up

and the merger goes through, you'll retain

control of your company

and the polyphase system finally?

- Yes, right.

Finally.

The whole country is put on AC,

on your machines.

- Our machines.

- Your polyphase system.

You know how I feel about this.

- And if I refuse?

- You'll have to deal with the bankers.

I wouldn't blame you, but in that case

I'd be clear out of the picture.

- [Anne] A sensible man would have said,

"Wait a minute, let me talk to my lawyer."

But Tesla-

- Tear it up.

Tear it up.

- I'd prefer if you tore it up.

(paper ripping)

You won't regret it.

We are going to Niagara.

There's no stopping it.

- All right.

(laughs)

- It's gonna be okay, don't worry.

There's more than one way to skin a cat.

- [Nikola] Yes, I've heard that.

Do you think it's true?

- Of course.

Take it from an old cat skinner.

(light orchestral music)

- [Anne] Sarah Bernhardt, the divine Sarah.

The first internationally famous celebrity superstar.

(audience applauding)

Legend has it, she once dropped her handkerchief

at Tesla's feet.

Or was it her scarf?

She's in motion all her life, traveling the globe.

She makes her first appearance on the American stage

in New York in 1881.

At two in the morning on her way to Boston,

she stops off in Menlo Park, New Jersey

to visit the wizard, Thomas Alva Edison.

- Listen to me carefully, Theseus.

Every moment now is precious to me.

I was the monster in this riddle.

I was insane with incestuous passion.

Now I am drunk on an infallible poison.

I can feel my pulses pushing it icily into my feet,

hands, and the roots of my hair.

(laughs)

- 10 years later, she's back

for the Chicago World's Fair and another grand tour.

(audience applauding)

She travels in a coffin, you know?

Which she sleeps in.

She sleeps in a coffin.

- To prepare for the reality of death.

I'd like a coffin.

Her motto is quand meme,

which translated means all the same

or despite everything, even so.

- No matter what?

(speaking in foreign language)

(speaking foreign language)

- I would like to see you again.

Will you come with me?

Quand meme.

(upbeat electronic music)

(flash bulbs popping)

(speaking in foreign language)

- Robert Underwood Johnson, the Century Magazine.

(speaking in foreign language)

- Catherine.

We have been wanting to see you in the flesh

for a very long time.

(speaking in foreign language)

- Overwhelming.

May I introduce?

Do you know the brilliant, Nikola Tesla?

(speaking in foreign language)

(speaking foreign language)

- He looks like an actor.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Robert] The greatest inventor of the age.

(speaking in foreign language)

- But you insist in looking me directly in the eye?

- Yes, he does that.

(laughing)

- Ah, the divine Miss Sarah,

you couldn't have been diviner.

(speaking in foreign language)

- Hello, Robert.

Catherine, I don't believe you know my wife, Mina.

- When you died I had to hold my breath.

It was terrifying.

- Exactly how I felt.

- [Robert] Bless my wife, Catherine.

- You know, I had Mr. Tesla at my workshop

nine years ago.

He lasted, what?

- Six months.

- Six months, he quit.

- I didn't.

- He thinks I owe him money.

What was it?

$50?

I know, I shouldn't talk about money.

I shouldn't needn't really joke about money.

- Especially with someone who has no sense of humor.

- Yes.

- It's all right, we're friends.

- And now he makes lots of money.

And his machines outsell my machines.

Oh, yes.

Salt water taffy for you from Florida.

- [Mina] Because you have everything else already.

(chuckling)

(speaking in foreign language)

- You can't look at me like this without consequences.

That's from a play.

We will see each other again.

- No hard feelings.

(Thomas laughs)

- [Robert] What did you say to her?

I didn't quite-

- I asked about her coffin.

I guess she keeps it in her hotel.

(tranquil orchestral music)

For the Niagara hydroelectric power plant,

Tesla designs completely new machines,

unprecedented generators, fives times bigger

than anything ever built.

Plus transformers, motors, transmission lines, turbines.

Revolutionary in their power and range.

He didn't invent alternating current.

Nobody did.

But his system makes it practical and possible to use

everywhere efficiently throughout the world.

(light orchestral music)

His system had to be broken down

into 40 fundamental patents.

Most valuable patent since the invention of the telephone.

(laughs)

- We'll see about that.

- In St. Louis last week, over 4,000 people

attended his lecture.

Yale gave him an honorary degree, then Columbia.

You've seen the articles in the magazine.

And now, already he has eight new patents

for wireless energy.

Electromagnetic pulses using high frequency waves.

- You know him.

You've talked to him.

Is he looking for an investor

or a wife?

- Chastity is a path to enlightenment.

A great inventor should never marry.

You realize this?

We are what our thoughts have made us.

- I believe that.

- So take care about what you think.

Thoughts live,

they travel far.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- My aim is to develop an entirely new

system of communication.

- Yes, you've said-

- Using new principles.

Electric symbols, voices even,

photographs transmitted through the air.

- Well you could load your wireless boat

with a cargo of dynamite, submerge it,

make it swim along and then explode the dynamite-

- I could, but- - It'll blow up, say,

a battleship? - But I was thinking

much bigger than that.

- Oh, it has many applications.

- Yes, it will transform the way the world works.

- An entire system.

I know.

- It's a paradox, yet true,

that the more we learn, the more ignorant we become

in the absolute sense.

It's through enlightenment that we are made aware

of our limitations.

That's why I'm going to Colorado.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- That's far.

Why?

- The air, altitude, lightning storms.

My brain is only a receiver.

In the universe, there is a core from which

we receive all information, inspiration,

knowledge, and strength.

(tranquil flute music)

- I know it's not simple

to be able to love calmly.

To trust without fear.

(tranquil flute music)

To commit yourself to really difficult tasks

with unlimited energy.

Is it better to be vindicated or to be loved?

Idealism cannot work hand in hand with capitalism.

True or false?

Are dreams and intelligence enough to save the world?

Is your

heightened ability,

your brilliance

a blessing or a curse?

- You have become much better at asking questions.

(hammering)

- [Anne] In Colorado, Tesla disappears into his work.

Conducting experiments that have never been duplicated

or fully understood.

(thunder rumbling)

He was synchronizing electricity in the sky and the earth

with currents surging through his magnifying transmitter.

A.K.A., a Tesla coil.

(thunder crashing)

(bell dinging)

It was like getting the ocean to sit for a portrait.

(thunder crashing)

(dramatic orchestral music)

(bell dinging)

(thunder crashing)

(somber piano music)

- [Nikola] Salutations, Miss Morgan

from the Alta Vista Hotel.

Mr. Lowenstein, my associate from New York

has been troubled by altitude sickness,

but I am invigorated by the climate.

Skies of dazzling calm alternating with storms

of great violence.

We have not seen Colorado's legendary fireballs,

but I intend to generate them myself.

The essential aspects of my work here must remain veiled,

as they say, in secrecy.

When my results are revealed, humanity will be like

an ant heap stirred up with a stick.

I've enlisted the aid of a bright, local boy

who humbly assures us he doesn't know what electricity is.

I tell him with great seriousness,

"No one knows what it is."

Every human being is an engine geared to the wheel work

of the universe.

(thunder crashing)

(thunder crashing)

(watch ticking)

(thunder crashing)

(thunder crashing)

(electricity humming)

(thunder crashing)

(electricity crackling)

(thunder crashing)

(thunder crashing)

(wind howling)

(thunder crashing)

(tranquil orchestral music)

(fire crackling)

- You did that.

The whole God damn generator is on fire.

You threw a short on the line!

- I set the earth an electrical resonance.

- You blacked out the whole God damn town,

you son of a bitch.

You knocked out the generator.

- I sent electrons streaming into the earth

at a rate of 150 oscillations per second,

each pulsation a wavelength of 6,600 feet

and it expands, overflowing the curve of the earth

creating a stationary wave that arises and falls

on the other side of the planet.

I will pay for a new generator.

- Great.

- My expense.

- She's in the dining room.

(violin music)

- Ah.

You are the sole topic of conversation here.

Well, other than me.

You work at night

in a secret laboratory.

No windows.

You shoot lightnings from the earth

to the sky.

- And my only fear is the very real possibility

that I may set the sky on fire.

It's as if I'm trying to tame a wild cat

and I have become nothing but a mass of bloody scratches.

- Oh, you like being scratched?

- If necessary.

- [Anne] She was in Colorado

for her second worldwide farewell tour.

Or was it her third?

He was drawn to her, I guess, for her fame and glamor

and for her unattainability.

- Colorado's a bit like a hospital ward.

Have you noticed?

It's filled with rich people with tuberculosis

pumping their lungs with the pure mountain air.

They love the theater but

they cough a lot.

Champagne?

I've been dying a lot lately.

Never the same death twice.

That's my specialty.

I've died so much I feel immortal.

- Well your English is improving.

- Well, maybe.

But when I am on stage, I perform only in French.

Some Americans pay to see the great French actress.

(speaking in foreign language)

I can get you tickets to "Camille" tomorrow night.

Well, tonight.

If the lights come back on.

- [Nikola] I'll make sure they come back on

before the curtain comes up.

(mellow orchestral music)

- Suppose

you had to cut your head off

and give it to someone else,

what difference would it make?

This is what love is like.

(tranquil orchestral music)

(man in audience coughing)

(audience applauding)

- "Energy creates energy,"

Sarah Bernhardt said.

"It is by spending myself that I become rich."

(audience applauding)

(crowd cheering)

(thunder crashing)

(audience applauding)

- So it's like rivulets in a lake.

Where you throw a stone and these lamps...

Please tell me again, Mr. Tesla,

the distance between your machines and these lamps.

- 26 miles.

It would be simple

to take a common 300 horsepower oscillator

to run simultaneously operations just like this one

at any point on the globe.

One need only place the receiving apparatus into the ground.

Doesn't matter if the transmission is affected

at a few miles

or a few thousand miles.

The waves travel in all directions,

passing over the earth's bulge in ever smaller circles

in increasing intensity until they converge

on the planet's opposite side.

- So transmitting messages to a

receiving terminal, if I understand you,

you can signal steam ships at sea,

obtain instantaneous stock quotes from the stock exchange,

New York Stock Exchange

if you set up a tower on the east coast

and another one on the other side of the Atlantic?

- Yes.

- How much you estimate you need to make this a reality?

(dramatic orchestral music)

(bell dinging)

Let's be honest, I don't have a very good impression of you.

You talk, you're boastful.

And apart from the deal with Westinghouse,

you've yet to make much money off of your boasts.

But contrary to popular belief, I never did a thing

except buying and selling securities of foreign exchange

simply to make money from the doing of it.

$100,000?

That be sufficient?

- Yes.

- I think you're wrong.

I understand what you're up to here and you can do more.

We'll draw up a contract, of course.

You and I have much in common.

I believe in higher reality,

I believe in recklessness of great men.

- [Anne] Following the battle of the currents,

Thomas Edison abandons his idea of electricity.

He's done with it, he says,

and throws himself at his new method

of extracting low grade iron ore from crushed rocks.

He buys land in Ogdensburg, New Jersey

and sets up a vast operation, employing over 400 men.

By 1899, while Tesla's in Colorado Springs,

the Edison mining concern is declared a complete failure,

wiping our four million dollars

of Edison's personal fortune.

(somber orchestral music)

- [Thomas] Yeah, it's all gone.

But we had a hell of a good time spending it.

- [Anne] As his mother would say, he tried to eat something

bigger than his head.

(light orchestral music)

(typewriter clicks)

- Miss Morgan, I believe I've been remiss.

- What does that mean?

Remiss.

That's one of those

words I never really know what...

- Yes, Marconi sends his signal through the air

using 1? of my patents.

When our tower is complete, we will send our message

across the earth through the earth.

- He sent it across the Channel

and no one's done that before.

You haven't done that.

- Using 17 of my patents.

- Hello, Anne.

I've just made tea.

I understand your father left for Cairo last week.

His aides say he can't be reached for another two weeks.

- When this tower is complete,

he will be able to be reached in an instant.

- I'm not here to talk for him or about him.

Except to tell you

that he knows you're in debt.

- [Robert] Of course he's in debt.

He's revolutionizing at least three fields of-

- [Anne] Deep debt.

And when you send out distress signals-

- [Robert] Do you understand the scale of what he's-

- [Anne] It can only alarm any other investors,

if any are left to be alarmed.

And all my father asked for was a way

to send stock reports across the Atlantic.

- We don't have any other investors.

- Why would you?

My father has a 51% share of your patents.

I'm wondering why you're giving interviews

about getting messages from Mars.

- I had three signals,

distinct vibrations, even, not random.

I do believe it pretends a message.

- Why would you go on record with this?

- [Nikola] I said it pretends-

- From Mars?

My father reads these things.

You believe in martians?

- The chance of alien life is actually-

- Alien life

is a statistical certainty.

- What if you're picking up Marconi's signals?

His test signals from across the English Channel.

Not Mars, but Marconi?

- I believe that I may be

the first person

who has ever heard the sound of one planet greeting another.

- What happens if your system succeeds?

Who controls the distribution of power?

- Nobody controls it.

- Like air, right?

You can't break it into saleable units

available to everyone.

- That's right.

- Doesn't it occur to you that the way the world runs

is determined by the manipulation of all this?

Power, energy.

And what you wanna do is,

what do you want to do?

- When this system is complete,

we will be able to go to a swamp,

or a desert, some place broken, and plighted.

Places small, sea for a few,

simple machines and have light, heat,

mode of power, a complete system of communication

for a people previously living under

the most wretched of circumstances.

And

we will be able to do it cheaply.

- You are not an economist.

Everything has to be paid for.

Especially money.

(beeping) (static hissing)

(light orchestral music)

The 150,000 my father gives Tesla

in December, 1901,

equivalent of four million in today's money,

is the same amount he paid for this painting in April.

Though this

is my favorite painting he bought at this time.

Remere,

another 100,000.

During the same period, working day and night,

Pierpont organizes the creation of U.S. Steel,

the first company valued at a billion dollars.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- [Nikola] Since a year, Mr. Morgan,

there has been hardly a night

when my pillow has not been bathed in tears,

but you must not think me a weak man for that.

When while this is applied, the earth will be converted

into a huge brain, capable of response

in every one of it parts.

Its principles I have discovered

will cause a revolution so great

that almost all values and all human relations

will be profoundly modified.

My patents confer a monopoly.

(tranquil orchestral music)

(grunting)

- Ah, Mr. Tesla.

I understand your ship has run up against the rocks.

Great pity.

- Mr. Morgan.

- There isn't a single person that's come to visit me

in the last 30 years who's come for any purpose

other than to grovel on the carpet for money.

- I've sent you detailed telegraphs, facts.

I'm not a vagabond come to beg.

- Last year I provided you with $100,000.

Months later, you requested additional aid, $50,000 more.

Do you think I'm a bottomless pit?

- When my work is finished, you'll recoup your investment

tenfold, a hundredfold.

- I'm not convinced you will finish your work.

Anyway, I'm in no need of money.

Ball.

- I'm working on a new method

to photograph thought,

transcribing electric impulses from the brain.

- The Ottawa Indians considered the Milky Way

to be muddy water stirred by a turtle

swimming along the bottom of the sky.

What do you think of that?

There is nothing durable but the eternal state of things.

Do not let yourself be intimidated

by the horror of the world.

Everything's ordered and correct and must fulfill

its destiny in order to retain perfection.

- Soon I will be able to release

a new series of inventions

that will make warfare unthinkable.

The central idea is a being

of some microscopic particles traveling at a speed

close to that of the speed of light.

It will stop an army in its tracks

at 250 miles, swipe a squadron of airplanes

at an even greater distance.

Beam travels in a straight line trajectory and therefore

has range limitations by the curvature of the earth

and all the essential details aren't finished in my mind.

(somber orchestral music)

(thunder rumbling)

("Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears)

♪ Welcome to your life ♪

♪ There's no turning back ♪

♪ Even while we sleep ♪

♪ We will find you acting on your best behavior ♪

♪ Turn your back on mother nature ♪

♪ Everybody wants to rule the world ♪

♪ It's my own design ♪

♪ It's my own remorse ♪

♪ Help me to decide ♪

♪ Help me make the most of freedom ♪

♪ And of pleasure ♪

♪ Nothing ever lasts forever ♪

♪ Everybody wants to rule the world ♪

(match striking)

♪ So glad we almost made it ♪

♪ So sad they had to fade it ♪

♪ Everybody wants to rule the world ♪

♪ I can't stand this indecision ♪

♪ Married with a lack of vision ♪

♪ Everybody wants to rule the world ♪

(cat meowing)

- Do you remember my face when I realized

it was hopeless between us?

Or does everything get jumbled in your head?

On a sequence of numbers,

but a blur of images, impressions,

feelings.

The way most of us remember things.

(dramatic orchestral music)

(cat meowing)

I finally met someone, someone as strong and willful

as my father,

someone who wanted me.

S. E. Marbury.

I moved into her villa in the French countryside

and we poured American money into a relief fund

during the war, a health service,

a camp for children.

(tranquil flute music)

Nikola Tesla outlives Edison, Westinghouse,

Sarah Bernhardt, and my father

And dies alone at the Hotel New Yorker

on January 7th, 1943.

He was 87 years old.

Destitute but not forgotten.

Over 2,000 people attend his funeral

at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

He was always looking ahead,

projecting himself into the future.

Maybe he promised more than he could deliver,

maybe he overreached,

or maybe the world that we are living in

is a dream that Tesla dreamed first.

(tranquil flute music)

(light orchestral music)