Our Take On: "Tesla" & "The Great Escape at Dunkirk"

Just Between Frames took time this month to see two historical documentaries: one, a biographical film – the other, a historical wartime event. The first was about Nikola Tesla, the genius engineer and tireless inventor whose technology revolutionized the electrical age of the 20th century. The second, a detailed account of The Great Escape at Dunkirk.

Tesla brings this half-forgotten genius back to the American conscious for his importance has unfairly diminished over time. Without Tesla, we could very well have never figured out how AC power works. His alternating current (AC) induction motor and related polyphase AC patents, were licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888.

He was praised for the very thing that led to his downfall – his visionary inventiveness. His personal quirks (including his adamant assertion he had communicated with Mars, and his insistence on only staying in hotel rooms whose number was divisible by 3) and the monumental failure of his 187-foot-high Wardenclyffe Tower, led him to bankruptcy.

In our second film, we laid the groundwork for seeing the Oscar-winning movie Darkest Hour in July by watching The Great Escape at Dunkirk. We wanted to take advantage of our place on history’s timeline by seeing the reality of Dunkirk and what both soldiers and citizens faced, before seeing how these events played out, particularly for Churchill, in the fictionalized movie. It still moves viewers to see how a catastrophic failure was brilliantly used to bring the British people together to continue the fight against Hitler’s forces.