The Current War

The Current War (2017) 

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon  

A man dressed in black stands alone in a scene of blinding white.  A snowstorm, possibly.  Elsewhere, a field at night in Menlo Park, New Jersey, is illuminated by a sea of electric lightbulbs, as Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) proclaims his vision of the future; a move away from a world lit by gas and powered by steam, to one of electricity.  The film, set in the 1890s, tells the story of Edison's extended feud with George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon), a successful entrepreneur and engineer based in Philadelphia, in what came to be known as the "war of the currents".  Edison, himself a prolific inventor of said lightbulb amongst many devices in the fields of communication, sound and motion pictures, favoured direct current (DC), whilst Westinghouse preferred alternating current (AC).  Each of the methods had their own merits in terms of application, cost, and risk.  The science itself is largely irrelevant.  It underpins the story but the film is about not just science or ambition, but many other things.  It's the brightest of McGuffins.

From the outset, this is a tough sell.  The principal draw is ostensibly the fine cast of actors, which includes Nicholas Hoult, Tom Holland, Katherine Waterston, Tuppence Middleton and Matthew Macfadyen, but the subject matter is extremely dry, apparently only set to appeal to electrical engineers or science nerds; why not a story about the battle between HD DVD and Blu-Ray or VHS and Betamax?  Production was troubled, originating as a Weinstein Company venture, a cut was prematurely rushed out to premier at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017, perhaps under the impression that it could be an awards contender.  When the Weinstein scandal broke, its release was delayed and distribution rights were eventually sold to 101 Studios.  The version released this year is one that has been tweaked by its director, with five additional scenes included and a running time reduced by ten minutes.  Whilst hardly a radical overhaul by some standards, many have nevertheless identified this bumpy road to the screen as a contributing factor for any perceived faults in the resulting product, but mistakenly so.

In many ways, this is a very old fashioned type of film, the sort of biopic made in the 1950s and 60s.  But the sensibility is decidedly modern.  The cinematography by Chung-hoon Chung (Oldboy, Stoker) employs a wealth of tricks, angles, light, and split-screen.  Overhead shots of the factory work recall the intricate patterns of a circuit board, whilst the darkness, brightness, red, and gold emphasize differing aspects of a scene.  Danny Bensi and Saunder Juriaans' score works to similar effect, at one point stirring but ironic as celebratory of scenes of the 1983 Chicago Worlds Fair are transposed with those of the first man to be executed by electric chair being led to his death.  Gomez-Rejon, working from a script by Michael Mitnick, pulls off a tricky juggling act, treading the fine line between overload of exposition and making an emotional and dramatic point.  The two protagonists are ostensibly presented as opposites.  Edison, played by Cumberbatch with a familiar bubbly genius-at-work manner, is a showy populist, and committed family man - his relationships with his wife Mary (Middleton) and son, with whom he playfully exchanges clandestine messages in Morse code, underpin his determination.  Westinghouse, depicted with typically powerful broodiness and restraint by Shannon, sporting a magnificent display of facial hair, is by contrast gruff and surly, though no less driven.  His wife Marguerite (Waterston) is supportive and even more decisive than he at times.  As things unfold the viewer is led to conclude that these men are really two sides of the same coin.  This isn't about competition as such.  If there was an obvious winner in this duel it was AC, but most people think of electricity as AC/DC without really understanding or caring about the difference.  It's about momentum and innovation, and eventually the sharing of ideas and ideals. There's a scene late on where the two meet at the Worlds Fair where they seem gradually to come to understand this. When a field is divided by a fence, the film says, knock down the fence and you get a bigger field. 

Electricity is the spark of life, evidently, and the film leans heavily on this metaphor, but death runs just as deeply too.  Two supporting characters die relatively early, each haunting  and inspiring the men.  A key theme is the purpose to which science should be used. Edison is courted by the powerful banking magnate J. P. Morgan (Macfadyen) who dangles lucrative contracts for him to make armaments for the government, but he declines, refusing to be responsible for anything which will cause loss of life. AC is inherently more dangerous, a point Edison unironically demonstrates to the press, as the publicity battle escalates, by electrucuting a horse to death.  Both parties sought to distance themselves from the new new idea of 'humane' capital punishment in the form of an electric chair, whilst foisting blame on the other (*). Edison secretly funded the project, although thanks to his public pronouncements, to be "Westinghoused" became a byword for death by electrocution.  When the moment arrives, the death is grizzly, painful and sickening, despite the declaration that "we live in a higher civilization today." The question lingers; what sort of society deems this sort - any sort - of state sponsored killing 'civilized'? 

The characterizations are subtly inverted. Westinghouse is as curt with the Worlds Fair officials to whom he pitches his system as he was with party guests he was supposed to be glad-handing. He's not rude, it's just his way. Edison may be charming but clearly has a nasty streak, casting aside the young Serbian immigrant genius Nikola Tesla (Hoult), refusing to honour the financial pledges made for his work, and inadvertently driving him to Westinghouse. Tesla is the lynchpin, and arguably the most significant contributor to the greater story for what he achieved in the field and for which he is known today, notably wireless transmission and hydroelectric power generation. When, at its conclusion, the film returns to its opening scene of a black figure against a wall of white it's revealed not to be snow, but spray. It's the realisation of Tesla's long held dream to turn water into electricity, at Niagara Falls. Water, electricity, life... the imagery resurfaces. 

It seems to be a familiar criticism of the film that Tesla is relegated to the role of mere bit part player. So is Tom Holland as Edison's assistant / associate Samuel Insull, and as are both the main female characters. Hoult is superb as Tesla, quietly energetic, bursting with ideas and frustrated that he doesn't have the means to create. Given his accomplishments there's a strong argument for a film dedicated solely to his story. But this is not that film, nor is it a sprawling piece for television with enough time to explore every aspect of the historical events. It seems churlish to mark a film down for not being what one expects, particularly when it doesn't try to be anything else. It is, for sure, unfortunately episodic, notably in the early stages. It also shifts focus a bit too much, which could prove unsatisfying for some. And the conclusion, when it comes, is not overly hammered home.  It is noted that Westinghouse was awarded the Edison Medal in 1911. This could be intended to be taken as a bitter irony, or an indication of commonality. Many subjects are tangentially broached. Love, passion, ambition, progress, discovery, fame, light, darkness, morality, mortality and vitality. The very title is a play on words; current alludes primarily to electric power, but perhaps also to current times. The Current War is certainly not for everyone, many will and have found it to be slow and unengaging. But for those willing to to invest it can be fascinating, beautiful, and richly rewarding. 

  

(*) The ordinator of this idea, Alfred P. Southwick, was a dentist. Make of that what you will.