Intrinsic Value Films
Millennium Media
Passage Pictures
Not part of a collection.
Tesla
My achievements and conquests will be evaluated in the future
The story of the Promethean struggles of Nikola Tesla, as he attempts to transcend entrenched technology—including his own previous work—by pioneering a system of wireless energy that would change the world.
- Original title
- Tesla
- Language
- EN
- Country
- US
- Budget
- $5,000,000
- Revenue
- $459,051
tmdb28039023
Aug 25, 2022 · via TMDB
According to this movie, Thomas Edison (MacLachlan) and Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) were like Mozart and Salieri if Mozart and Salieri had been anything like they are portrayed in Amadeus – but then Tesla has as tenuous a hold on reality as Amadeus does, sans all the things that make Milos Forman's film otherwise great. This movie derives a sick pleasure from comparing the two inventors, emphasizing Edison's failures over Tesla's successes – whatever those may have been; I confess that, after seeing the film, I haven't the slightest idea of Tesla's achievements, apart from alternating current (which he did not invent) and, apparently, communicating with Mars. Perhaps it's due to the latter that Hawke plays Tesla as some kind of alien; a combination of Keanu in The Day the Earth Stood Still and Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth. Tesla depicts two meetings between the inventors only to admit that neither actually happened. In one of those imaginary encounters, Edison apologizes to Tesla and tells him that he was wrong about him. What is the point of this? If it is supposed to be a retroactive 'f-you' to Edison, methinks he is long past the point of caring. Apart from the historically revisionist chip on its shoulder, Tesla is a stylistic disaster. The film is narrated by Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson), American financier and banker J.P. Morgan's (Donnie Keshawarz) daughter. In addition to her role in the events of the film, Anne appears in cutaways, sitting at a table with a Mac computer (?), reporting the respective number of results in a Google search for Tesla and Edison, and telling us to Google the American businessman and engineer George Westinghouse. If this weren't strange enough, in the second half of the movie director/screenwriter Michael Almereyda has Hawke stand against a background that is either a matte painting (Niagara Falls, a field in Colorado, a restaurant) or a projection (a pair of horses frolicking in a meadow, to whom Hawke offers an apple); this might work in a stage play, or if the entire film consistently followed the same aesthetic, but here it's just another incomprehensible artistic choice. All of the above, however, is nothing compared to what will go down in history as arguably the lowest point in cinema in the year 2020; Ethan Hawke as Nikola Tesla doing a karaoke version of Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." This is the exact moment, with about ten minutes to go, when I said "F this movie" and never looked back.
User reviews courtesy of TMDB.
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Ethan Hawke
Nikola Tesla
Eve Hewson
Anne Morgan
Jim Gaffigan
George Westinghouse
Kyle MacLachlan
Thomas Edison
Donnie Keshawarz
J.P. Morgan
Josh Hamilton
Robert Underwood Johnson
Ebon Moss-Bachrach
Anital Szigeti
Lucy Walters
Katherine Johnson
John Palladino
Bourke Cochran
Michael Mastro
Charles Peck
Hannah Gross
Mina Edison
Peter Greene
Nichols
Blake DeLong
William Kemmler
Karl Geary
Francis Upton
James Urbaniak
Professor Anthony
Dan Bittner
Fred Ott
David Kallaway
John Kruesi
Tony Hutaj
Bill Edison
Ian Lithgow
Alfred Brown
Emma Clare O'Connor
Evelyn
Rick Zahn
Tracy Becker
Lois Smith
The Grande Dame
Tom Farrell
Warden Durston
Vincent De Paul
Westinghouse Assistant
Rebecca Dayan
Sarah Bernhardt
Joshuah Melnick
Richard Gregg
Gary Ayash
Science Society Dignitary (uncredited)
Sean Price Williams
Director of Photography
Sam Shepard
In Memory Of
Jay Carrado
Stunt Coordinator
Michael Almereyda
Director
Avi Lerner
Executive Producer
Jonathan Yunger
Executive Producer
Christa Campbell
Producer
Isen Robbins
Producer
Lati Grobman
Producer
Michael Almereyda
Producer
Per Melita
Producer
Per Melita
Production Manager
Tapio Liukkonen
Foley Artist
John Paesano
Original Music Composer
Michael Almereyda
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