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CLOUD ATLAS: Lana Wachowsky & Tom Tykwer & Andy Wachowsky: OCT 26
Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/10/cloud-atlas-review/
Three-View Review:
Cloud Atlas
Swirls With Ambition
By Hugh Hart, Lewis Wallace and Angela Watercutter
10.26.126:30 AM
How ambitious is Cloud Atlas, the cinematic adaptation of David Mitchell’s 2004 novel that weaves together six seemingly unrelated stories from across space and time? The film spans the globe — and multiple centuries, from the 1800s to the distant future — as it unreels its cosmic message of interconnectedness.
Cloud Atlas is so sprawling that it required three directors: Andy and Lana Wachowski (the Matrix trilogy) helm a trio of stories set in various futuristic scenarios; Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run ) handles three segments set in the past and the present. Even more unusual, a handful of actors (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Doona Bae and others) portray roles in each of the substories that blur the lines of gender, race and humanity.
The R-rated experimental film, which opens Friday, is so audacious in its scope and execution that we figure it deserves three reviewers as well. As with all movies based on literature, it’s important to note whether the reviewers have read the book in question. Having read Cloud Atlas seems to add to the enjoyment of seeing the film. (For the record, Wired reviewer Angela Watercutter read the novel; Hugh Hart and Lewis Wallace did not.)
AW = Angela Watercutter
HH = Hugh Hart
LW = Lewis Wallace
ACTING
Tom Hanks and Halle Berry do a considerable amount of heavy lifting to manage the breadth of the six roles they each play, and hats off to Hugh Grant for finding new ways to manage “creepy” (1970s chauvinist nuclear energy asshat, plantation-running reverend, etc.). But the Best Chameleon awards go to Hugo Weaving and Jim Broadbent, and even though Jim Sturgess is great by the time he’s playing a fabricant-rescuer in Neo-Seoul, it’s hard not to think that the Wachowskis are really missing Keanu Reeves these days. — AW
Ensemble anchor Tom Hanks lives out an actor’s dress-up fantasy, but even at a hefty 2 hours and 40 minutes, covering six stories in five centuries means playing archetype sketches — stilted robot “fabricant,” kindly scientist, intrepid reporter, sleazy publisher — more than three-dimensional portraits. Breakout Ben Wishaw shows the most soulful intensity as reprobate composer Robert Frobisher. — HH
Doona Bae’s wide-eyed portrayal of “fabricant” clone Sonmi-451 is effective, but Tom Hanks seems to have the most fun when he’s playing the minor role of a thuggish author. David Gyasi’s intense take on Moriori stowaway Autua is the movie’s most compelling performance. — LW
DIALOG
The futuristic patois spoken by Hanks in his juiciest role — a mutant lingo somewhere between Uncle Remus laughable and Jar Jar Binks annoying — would undermine even the most accomplished actor. (Halle Berry never really had a chance with the “true-true.”) — LW
Up through the 2012 storyline, conventional dialog functions efficiently to move the plot forward. But in the future, things get weird: In Korea, “pure-bloods” enslave “fabricants” on their way to “exaltation,” effectively embodying a brainwashed population, but when Halle Berry and Tom Hanks chitchat in Creole-flavored patois — well, you just have to get used to it. — HH
In an attempt to stay true to Mitchell’s prose, the film’s directors (and book adapters) kept a lot of the future dialects that the author created for Cloud Atlas. Difficult to follow on paper — and almost as hard to keep up with on-screen — the dialog might be the thing that most alienates audiences, no matter how authentic it is. (Side note: Things that are eternally romantic in Mitchell’s prose seem downright cheesy coming from the mouths of trained thespians.) — AW
VOICEOVERS
Characters go deep not when they’re talking to other people, but in voiceovers that state big themes. In case you missed it the first time: “Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and future. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.” — HH
By turns eloquent and pretentious, the voiceovers truly help tie together the disparate stories. The way the voiceovers sometimes overlap storylines is a testament to the film’s powerful editing. — LW
Dear Reader: While being told what’s happening can be downright annoying in some films, when putting a story on screen that was written largely in the form of letters, journals and book-within-a-book formats, having steady narration is necessary. — AW
SOUNDS & MUSIC
The past sounds rich and majestic, while the future sounds intriguing and new. Kudos to the sound designers and soundtrackers, who add an impressive heft to the film’s impact. — LW
The taut orchestral score keeps crying wolf — you think the action is peaking, but there’s a lot more to go. Plot-driving “Cloud Atlas Sextet” is good but not spine-chilling. The record store clerk says he can’t quit playing the old vinyl recording of the score requested by Halle Berry. Really? It’s not that memorable. — HH
Hearing what co-director Tom Tykwer did with the “Cloud Atlas Sextet” is one of the film’s real pleasures. (Tykwer composed the soundtrack with his musical partners before shooting even started.) In the book, Robert Frobisher’s sextet is the soundtrack that ties many of the storylines together — and its composition is key to understanding the story’s structure. Hearing what it might sound like is remarkable. –AW
SCI-FI VISION
David Mitchell talks a lot of crazy about the future in the Cloud Atlas book — for example, entertainment devices are just called “sonys” — and describes a lot of gizmos that leave much to the imagination. Thank Sonmi the team behind the Matrix trilogy got a crack at bringing it to the screen: The Wachowskis add a bit of high-flying action that wasn’t as explosive in the novel, but makes for some sweet-looking futuristic sci-fi. — AW
The hovercraft chases and death-ray shootouts look cool enough, but the most chilling vision of the future comes during a retirement ceremony. So much for golden watches. — LW
Neo-Seoul reveals chilling vistas of customers gone wild during a Happy Meals-meets-Hooters restaurant staffed by mini-skirted fabricants. The lingo takes some getting used to: Instead of saying, “I wasn’t born to save the world,” Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae) says, “I wasn’t genomed to alter the reality.” — HH
EDITING
The editing is probably the most impressive element of the movie. Keeping this constellation of stories and details from turning into a muddled mess — even for a viewer who has zero familiarity with the source text — is a keen accomplishment. — LW
Hop-scotching from farce to realism to fantastical storylines, the Wachowski siblings and Tykwer use elements and actions to bind one century to the next. Explosions, fire, gunshots and chases recur eternally through the centuries, like some kind of karmic echo chamber. — HH
Much like pimpin’, tying together six stories shot by three directors into a single three-hour movie ain’t easy. It could’ve been a hot, jumbled, nonlinear mess but somehow Alexander Berner did it: The way one character’s dialog illuminates another’s plight ties the film together in a way that’s fairly masterful, even when it’s a little overwrought. — AW
MAKEUP
In order to make the same-actor-in-multiple-roles motif work, most of the main cast of the film at one point or another plays someone of a different race or gender. Every so often — like when Hugo Weaving is playing the world’s most unappealing woman — it’s a little distracting. — AW
An Oscar-quality arsenal of beards, freckles, tattoos, wigs and moustaches disguise well-known actors to dramatize the film’s notion that bodies are just the window dressing for souls embarked on a long, long journey. — HH
The makeup is so imaginative and effective that the end credits, which flash pictures of each actor in all their roles, prove to be one of the movie’s most enlightening segments. — LW
DIRECTION
The most revolutionary thing about putting Cloud Atlas in the hands of three different directors might be that it doesn’t feel like it was made by three different directors. Matrix helmers Andy and Lana Wachowski have been directing together since the beginning, but the fact that they brought in Tom Tykwer without it messing up their vibe is impressive — it’s also a testament to the film’s artful editing. — AW
Three-headed directing beast smartly divvies up the storylines with Run Lola Run director Tykwer lending a naturalistic vibe to the 1936, 1973 and 2012 chapters. This leaves Lana and Andy Wachowski to dress up the fantastical stuff. The visual textures vary (two cinematographers were employed) but the theme is spacious enough to bring all the characters and their urgent conundrums into the same tent. — HH
On paper, turning Cloud Atlas into a successful movie sounds impossible. On the screen, the film’s three helmers make it look effortless. And that’s basically amazing. — LW
SPOT THE BIRTHMARKS
“But what do they all mean?” That’s every viewer of Cloud Atlas regarding the birthmarks that appear in the film. Truth is, the comet-like skin markings are meant to be enigmatic. Nearly every narrator in the book mentions either having one or seeing one, but their meaning isn’t explained. Presumably they indicate a connection between their bearers — the light from a single star takes ages to reach us, we are all travelers in the cosmos, blah blah blah — but there’s no Harry Potter-curse-scar reason for their existence. — AW
Halle Berry has one in 1973, meaning she’s a predestined catalyst for change — or something. Others share the birthmark, but blink and you’ll miss ‘em. The birthmark legacy doesn’t exactly pay off in a big way, but it’s a cool gimmick to suggest that nature encodes a larger design through the generations. — HH
At first, the recurring birthmarks seem heavy with portent, but in the end the whole thing seems more like a MacGuffin than a major element of the stories. Maybe I blinked and missed the momentous part. — LW
FINAL VERDICT
8
Like Watchmen before it, Cloud Atlas as a written piece of storytelling often seemed unfilmable: The novel is so expansive that a few hours of film could barely contain all its finest points. To that end, Cloud Atlas is the best movie version of the book anyone could ask for. Even when it is nearly collapsing under the weight of its own ambition, it holds up. — AW
WIRED A world-wide web IRL. Fabricants.
TIRED Occasionally impenetrable dialects.
8
While the movie’s grand ambition must be admired, it feels a mile wide and an inch deep. None of the stories really hammer home Cloud Atlas ' central uplifting message — that we’re all interconnected through time and space — as thoroughly as the masterful editing and incessant voiceovers do. High-minded and consistently interesting, it makes up what it lacks in traditional storytelling punch by pulling off an inspired cinematic experiment. — LW
WIRED Soylent Green payoff.
TIRED Space rastas.
7
Big-budget Cloud Atlas dazzles like a $100 million card trick. Filmmaker/magicians seem to shuffle the narrative deck with random abandon: Pick a storyline, any storyline and be amazed by what pops up. Beneath the chaos and makeup and costumes, the sometimes-silly Cloud Atlas delivers the kind of soulful pageantry rarely glimpsed on the big screen. See it and be stunned. — HH
WIRED Big-hearted connectivity theme: What goes around comes around.
TIRED 2012′s senile retirement home escapees’ farcical shtick runs out of gas early.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://www.vulture.com/2012/10/guide-to-the-characters-and-connections-of-cloud-atlas-confused.html
Your Guide to the
Characters and Connections of
Cloud Atlas
By Jennifer Vineyard
Today at 12:30 PM
If you've watched Cloud Atlas and you're still a bit confused, it’s easy to see why. Each of the six intertwined stories takes place in a different era and assumes the tropes of completely different genres. Actors play multiple roles across the film, switching ages, races, and even genders from tale to tale. Tracking those actors is somewhat key to understanding the connective plot, in which various souls are reincarnated or migrate over time — crossing the ages like clouds cross the skies. (In the book, you could track the reincarnation by the bodies that shared a comet-shaped birthmark; in the film, the birthmark just signals our protagonists, and the actor triggers the reincarnation.) See Hugo Weaving? Then you've got the bad soul who will only get worse over time. See Tom Hanks? Then you've got the recovering soul who starts off bad but will become (mostly) good over the course of his journey. Here is a guide to the karmic chameleons of Cloud Atlas. (Note: to avoid confusion we will mostly refer to the characters by the names of the actors who play them.)
OUR SETTINGS
A ship crossing the Pacific in 1849;
the home of an elderly composer in 1936 Edinburgh [not Zedelghem, Belgium, as in Mitchell's book--JG];
San Francisco and a nearby nuclear power plant in 1973;
London and an Edinburgh nursing home in 2012;
Neo-Soul, the capital of a half-ruined Korea in 2144;
a valley and a mountain on a post-apocalyptic Hawaii in 2321.
TOM HANKS
Who he plays:
A doctor poisoning Jim Sturgess in 1849 in order to rob him;
a hotel manager in 1936 who extorts Ben Whishaw's composer;
a physicist working at a shady nuclear power plant in 1973 who agrees to help investigative journalist Halle Berry;
a roughneck author in 2012 who throws a critic off a balcony;
an actor playing Timothy Cavendish (Jim Broadbent’s character) in a movie watched in 2144;
a cowardly (and birthmarked!) goatherd in 2321 who helps Halle Berry’s Meronym, a representative of the last vestiges of advanced civilization.
His soul journey: He goes from a shady murderer who says, "The weak are meat; the strong do eat," to someone who learns courage and selflessness.
Onscreen connections to other characters/story lines: His movie inspires a clone in 2144 to set off a revolution; that clone, Sonmi-451 becomes a goddess to his postapocalyptic tribe;
the turquoise buttons he steals from Adam Ewing’s vest in 1849 are around his neck in 2321, Hanks’s character having found them in the forest;
Hanks’s goatherd has a nightmare in which he sees all the other timelines.
JIM STURGESS
Who he plays:
Young and gullible (and birthmarked) lawyer Adam Ewing, on a journey from the South Pacific to notarize a contract between plantation owner Hugh Grant and Ewing's father-in-law, Hugo Weaving. Ewing helps an escaped-slave stowaway (David Gyasi) and ultimately condemns slavery;
a hotel guest in 1936;
a father in 1973;
a soccer fan in 2012 who gets in a pub fight to help some senior citizens;
a Korean freedom fighter in 2144 who saves clone/slave Doona Bae and starts a revolution;
a doomed tribe member in 2321, whose brother-in-law Tom Hanks is too scared to save him from cannibal Hugh Grant.
His soul journey: He starts off reluctantly helping one slave to becoming an abolitionist and ultimately becomes a revolutionary dedicated to ending all slavery.
Onscreen connections to other characters/story lines: He keeps a journal that Ben Whishaw’s 1936 composer becomes engrossed by.
BEN WHISHAW
Who he plays:
A cabin boy in 1849;
bisexual (and birthmarked!) composer Robert Frobisher in 1936, who apprentices himself to Jim Broadbent while sleeping with Broadbent's wife, Halle Berry, and writes the beautiful Cloud Atlas Sextet ;
a record-store clerk in 1973 who can't get the Cloud Atlas Sextet out of his head and helps Halle Berry find it;
the wife of Hugh Grant in 2012 and sister-in-law to Jim Broadbent;
a tribesman in 2321.
His soul journey: He doesn't seem to learn much over time, remains morally ambiguous, and will sleep with anyone, no matter whom it hurts.
Onscreen connections to other characters/story lines: He writes letters to his true love, Rufus Sixsmith (James D'Arcy), in 1936, which Halle Berry reads in 1973;
strains of his Cloud Atlas Sextet recur throughout several timelines.
HALLE BERRY
Who she plays:
A slave from an aboriginal tribe in 1849;
the white Jewish trophy wife of Jim Broadbent in 1936;
the gutsy (and birthmarked!) journalist Luisa Rey who follows in the footsteps of her famous reporter father (David Gyasi);
a hip Indian chick at a party in 2012 who intrigues Tom Hanks;
a male Korean doctor in 2144 who helps free a clone;
an advanced being in a primitive postapocalyptic world in 2321.
Her soul journey: She goes from being someone with no power to humanity's last hope, and she evolves into a higher being as she follows her impulse to help other people.
Onscreen connections to other characters/story lines: Her 1973 story becomes a manuscript that Jim Broadbent reads in 2012;
she wears the same necklace in 1936, 1973, and 2012;
her 1973 line “For the last half hour, all I could think about was throwing you off your balcony” literally comes true with Tom Hanks’s 2012 character.
JIM BROADBENT
Who he plays:
An arrogant ship's captain in 1849;
a composer in 1936 who takes on apprentice Ben Whishaw and attempts to claim the younger man's work as his own;
the morally ambiguous (and birthmarked!) vanity press publisher Timothy Cavendish, who benefits from the death of a critic at the hands of his author, Tom Hanks;
a Korean street musician in 2144 and
an advanced being known as a Prescient in 2321.
His soul journey: He starts off by being pompous and self-serving but learns humility over time.
Onscreen connections to other characters/story lines: His grand mansion in 1936 is his nursing home in 2012; the film of his "ghastly ordeal" in 2012 is watched by a clone slave in 2144;
his 1936 character has a dream of the Papa Song café in which Sonmi-451 works.
DOONA BAE
Who she plays:
The white wife of Jim Sturgess and daughter of Hugo Weaving in 1849;
the wife of Jim Sturgess and mother of James D'Arcy's niece in 1973;
a Hispanic woman working at a factory in 1973;
Sonmi-451, a (birthmarked!) clone or "fabricant," who is genetically engineered to be a worker drone but starts to think for herself and sparks a revolution when she's aided by freedom fighter Jim Sturgess.
Her soul journey: She goes from being a powerless figure to a goddess revered by a simple tribe, the only link they have to their preapocalyptic past.
Onscreen connections to other characters/story lines: Her recorded statements become the tribal wisdom of a tribe in 2321.
HUGH GRANT
Who he plays:
A reverend and a plantation owner in 1849;
a hotel clerk trying to collect from Ben Whishaw;
the owner of a nuclear power plant in 1973 who wants it to fail and kill millions;
the cuckolded brother of Jim Broadbent who tricks him into committing himself to a nursing home;
a Korean restaurant manager in 2144 who sleeps with his clone workers;
the leader of a band of cannibal warriors in 2321.
His soul journey: Despite a charming exterior at first, he never really cares about anyone, and this only gets worse over time; he devolves into a pure savage.
HUGO WEAVING
Who he plays:
The father of Doona Bae and father-in-law of Jim Sturgess in 1849, who is involved in the slave trade;
a Nazi in 1936 who is a friend of composer Jim Broadbent;
an assassin in 1973;
a female nursing home orderly in 2012 who torments elderly Jim Broadbent;
a Unanimity authority figure in 2144;
a Devil-like figment of Tom Hanks's imagination in 2321.
His soul journey: He's a figure of evil, control, and enslavement who never displays any loyalty or learns anything over time, and eventually devolves until he's just an idea.
Onscreen connections to other characters/story lines: His line as Nurse Noakes, “Because you’re new, I will not make you eat soap,” mirrors the food that fabricants eat in Neo Seoul;
his line, “There’s a natural order to this world,” which he utters as a futuristic functionary, is repeated at film’s end by his slave-owning businessman.
KEITH DAVID
Who he plays:
Like Halle Berry, a slave in 1849 working for Hugh Grant;
the security chief at Hugh Grant's nuclear power plant in 1973, who goes rogue to protect Halle Berry;
the leader of a resistance movement in 2144;
a Prescient working alongside Halle Berry in 2321.
His soul journey: He goes from being a slave to a leader, someone who throws off the shackles of evil employers/bad governments.
Onscreen connections to other characters/story lines: He appears to be a kindred spirit with Halle Berry.
JAMES D'ARCY
Who he plays:
Ben Whishaw's lover in 1936 and recipient of his letters;
an older version of his previous character Rufus Sixsmith, who gives Halle Berry damning evidence that his nuclear power plant is unsafe;
an orderly at Jim Broadbent's nursing home in 2012;
and finally, a patient Archivist in 2144 who interrogates clone Doona Bae.
His soul journey: A little muddled. He goes from being a passive listener to someone who takes a stand against a big wrong back to a passive listener of a tale of injustice.
Onscreen connections to other characters/story lines: The letters he receives from Ben Whishaw in 1936 are read by Halle Berry in 1973;
Hugo Weaving’s assassin shoots him in the mouth, which mirrors the suicide-by-gun death of his lover, Frobisher.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Simply.
Amazing.
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crHHycz7T_c[/youtube]
Published on Oct 24, 2012 by hrcmedia
Also Posted in The Equality Agenda thread, BEYOND Amazing speech by LANA WACHOWSKI for receiving the HRC Visibility Award:
http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,50204.msg639502/topicseen.html#msg639502
Front-Ranger:
What a wonderful talk!
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: Ain'tnoreins on October 27, 2012, 11:51:52 pm ---What a wonderful talk!
--- End quote ---
It isn't it?? :) :) :)
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