The past few years have brought a fresh resurgence of interest in the life and legacy of Nikola Tesla, the popularity of an Elon Musk electric car being only the best-known example. You can find Tesla's tall, dark-suited frame and mustachioed frown in graphic novels and video games; you can hear his innovations extolled in the lyrics of rock songs and even a 2018 stage musical.

The movies have done their part to exploit his considerable mystique without necessarily drawing him in from the sidelines: David Bowie played him as the drollest of enigmas in The Prestige (2006) and Nicholas Hoult gave us a peek at Tesla the wily young upstart in the more recent The Current War. You could say that history itself consigned Tesla to a subordinate role, that of the tragically thwarted genius – remembered as much for his lopsided rivalry with Thomas Edison and his ill-fated dealings with various titans of industry as for his groundbreaking advances in the study of electrical power and wireless communications.

MCT