Tesla (2020)

Anne Morgan: "Lightning in the sky, his father explained, is the same thing as the spark shooting from Machek's back." And Tesla asked himself, "Is nature a gigantic cat? And if so, who strokes its back?"

Thomas Edison: Oh, Tesla, didn't see you there before. It is true you're from Transylvania?
Nikola Tesla: No.
Thomas Edison: Have you ever eaten human flesh?... Are you married?
Nikola Tesla: No. Why do you ask?
Thomas Edison: We like to give the new men a hard time.

Nikola Tesla: "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. ..."

Thomas Edison: Alternating current is a waste of time. Impractical and deadly. There's no future in it.

Anne Morgan: 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. Nikola Tesla: This is more than just a motor. It is entire system for generating, transmitting, and utilizing power.

Nikola Tesla: That motor will do the work of the world. It'll set men free.

Nikola Tesla: I now have the pleasure of introducing you to a novel system of electrical transformation and distribution of energy by means of alternate currents...

George Westinghouse: 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." It's war.

Judge: Now, Mr. Edison, explain the difference between continuous or direct current and alternating current.
Thomas Edison: 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 reverse 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.

Katherine Johnson: Anne is very upset. She says you live in your head.
Nikola Tesla: Doesn't everyone?
Katherine Johnson: Too much in your head, I think she feels left out.
Nikola Tesla: Sometimes it seems as though all I do is think. For days or weeks on end.

Anne Morgan: Thinking, my father taught me, is more interesting than knowing but less interesting than lucking.

Anne Morgan: That's one way to size up the pavilion of light at the World's Fair in Chicago 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.

Thomas Edison: 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?....
Anne Morgan: 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 help but wonder, if only Tesla had someone sharp and smart at his side, an enlightened hustler to steer him through the crass, commercial world. If only...

Nikola Tesla: 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.

Nikola Tesla: 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 awar of our limitations.

Anne Morgan: I know it's not simple to be able to love calmly. To trust without fear. 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?
Nikola Tesla: You have become much better at asking questions.

Nikola Tesla: Yes, Marconi sends his signal through the air using 17 of my patents. When our tower is complete, we will send our message across the earth through the earth.
Anne Morgan: He sent it across the Channel and no one's done that before. You haven't done that.
Nikola Tesla: Using 17 of my patents.
Anne Morgan: And all my father asked for was a way to send stock reports across the Atlantic.

Anne Morgan: I'm wondering why you're giving interviews about getting messages from Mars.
Nikola Tesla: I had three signals, distinct vibrations, even, not random. I do believe it pretends a message.
Anne Morgan: Why would you go on record with this?
Nikola Tesla: I said it pretends...
Anne Morgan: From Mars? My father reads these things. You believe in martians?
Nikola Tesla: The chance of alien life is actually... Alien life is a statistical certainty.
Anne Morgan: What if you're picking up Marconi's signals? His test signals from across the English Channel. Not Mars, but Marconi?
Nikola Tesla: I believe that I may be the first person who has ever heard the sound of one planet greeting another.

Anne Morgan: What happens if your system succeeds? Who controls the distribution of power?
Nikola Tesla: Nobody controls it.
Anne Morgan: Like air, right? You can't break it into saleable units available to everyone.
Nikola Tesla: That's right.
Anne Morgan: 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?
Nikola Tesla: 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. We will be able to do it cheaply.
Anne Morgan: You are not an economist. Everything has to be paid for. Especially money.

Anne Morgan: 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.

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