What do you think of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas?

I really liked Cloud Atlas, but I found Jacob de Zoet problematic. I seem to remember feeling it toiled somewhat. Pretty sure I wrote something on ILB, hang on.

Here we go:

I... can't make up my mind. Some good things - there's a nice aesthetic tingle produced by yoking constructs of Dutch 18th C Enlightenment/language with Japanese, and also his brief thumbnail detail has a sort of... well, what I wd approximate ignorantly with Japanese brush strokes, or the fine detail of its poetry/art.

Yet, and yet, it's awful slow burning. Mitchell's good at little set pieces, but actually, not an awful lot is happening. Continual hints at mystery are beginning to produce an atmosphere of a type of magic realism, whereas Cloud Atlas details a sense of real magic, rather than gesturing towards a sort of totemic/symbolic/metaphoric spirituality, which always strikes me as half-baked, and not a little lubberly.

There's a touch of the TEFL about the language stuff and a touch of the history lesson about more than a few of the character speechs.

His style grates on me sometimes as well, with characters' thinking descriptions in a most writerly fashion. Noticed this as well in Cloud Atlas, but it mattered less.

i loved the new one, even the mystical mountain demon part

i liked no9dream, pinefox

Feel like for all the formal ambition he's p workman like, he could afford to be more outragous or something, I'm all spread yr wings and fly David mitchell - like riffing off if on a winters night a traveler but finishing the stories is kind of oddly in opposition to the sprit of the thing - don't get me wrong it's still p awesome in its own way I just found it k frustrating

eh i think IOAWNAT is the wrong referent here, obviously its a forerunner to this but what hes doing is grounded a lot more in sci-fi/fantasy than it is in postmodern text games

that being said he doesnt "finish the stories" in ghostwritten, maybe youd like it more?

Isnt cloud atlas a direct ionawnat reference tho

i dunno

I didn't like winter's night and I loved Cloud Atlas

yes, he says CA idea was taken from WNight, but from my POV he has taken something and vastly improved on it.

Presumably that is possible to do and many instances could be found - eg Elvis Presley and Bill Haley, or whatever (nothing against Haley)

omg you're the only one, pinefox! besides me! who doesn't like if on a winter's night! <3!

Crazy talk!

i like his novels a lot but am also biased cuz ive interviewed a couple of times and he was just super intelligent and engaged and fun to talk to and once took like an extra hour just to chat w/ me abt like japanese music and nabakov, and was really encouraging and kind abt my own writing

'ghostwritten' is his best book, i think, although there are stretches of 'cloud atlas' that are incredible i think some of the sections really lag, also hes better at beginning than ending mb

hes kindof a storyteller at heart tho, i think, like he cares abt his characters and what happens to them, it makes his more fractured stories less inventive/clever but also nicer to read cuz theyre not just chess pieces or w/e. when i talked to him abt 'black swan green' he talked a lot abt 'realism' and caring abt truth which is kinda in opposition to calvino, sort of

My favorite part of Jacob de Zoet was the final section: the sea captain's ruminations.

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/i/2012/07/24/fl-cloud-atlas_510x383.jpg

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/i/2012/07/24/fl-cloud-atlas-2_510x383.jpg

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/cloudatlas/widget/images/slideshow/5.jpg

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/cloudatlas/widget/images/slideshow/7.jpg

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/cloudatlas/widget/images/slideshow/tips/9.jpg

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/cloudatlas/widget/images/slideshow/10.jpg

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/cloudatlas/widget/images/slideshow/12.jpg

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/cloudatlas/widget/images/slideshow/15.jpg

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/cloudatlas/widget/images/slideshow/16.jpg

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/cloudatlas/widget/images/slideshow/18.jpg

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/cloudatlas/widget/images/slideshow/17.jpg

more here http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/07/25/cloud-atlas-photos-tom-hanks-halle-berry-exclusive-first-look/

long ass trailer http://www.joblo.com/video/player.php?video=cloud-atlas-long-trailer

Running time 164 minutes

why is this not a tv show

Haha wau this looks fucking terrible. I will definitely go and see it.

I'm assuming Tom Hanks's character has just been made up for the film version?

Where does that Guy Ritchie-style gangster subplot in present day London fit in?

As if that weren’t complicated enough, each cast member plays multiple roles ... “We thought about these individual characters as aspects of larger characters,” Lana Wachowski says.

I'm just trying to understand ... why we keep making the same mistakes ... over and over.

DEATH LIFE BIRTH FUTURE PRESENT PAST LOVE HOPE COURAGE

EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED

CLOUD ATLAS

matt it's part of the 'ghastly ordeal of timothy cavendish' bit in the book

i don't know if it's because it's completely transparent when done well but why does it seem like nine out of ten films have no decent way of ever representing 'and then he read a book', 'and then he wrote a letter', 'and then he watched a film'

this could turn out to be okay, i think

i dont really know what this is, but that trailer's pretty gonzo!

can i just

http://i.imgur.com/7GQ5M.png

This looks like it could turn into the adaptation of Never Let Me Go.

i like the ott display but if the movie leans as hard on the humorless right here right now vibes as the trailer implies its going to be maybe the worst

tom hanks narrating abt life

the book was fun i hope they kept it fun

can i just

― Hungry4Ass, Thursday, July 26, 2012 8:32 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol yes

is that tom hanks, because in that still he looks disconcertingly like john travolta

that is tom hanks

i don't know about this btw. i think cloud atlas actually is one of those bits of work which is guilty of 'reaching for significance' or whatever (sunt lacrimae rerum, ad infinitum) but it gets away with it due to props and skill on mitchell's part -- and those props and that skill include doing talky stuff really, really well, and being pretty adept at pastiche of familiar styles that doesn't look like he's just doing author x

and i don't know if that makes the wachowskis a good match. i know v little about the run lola run guy. also, are they directing different segments? that is probably a good idea if they are.

You would have to be actively trying to fuck up the Luisa Rey section in film, but they might manage it. The Cavendish section really needs to retain the comedy of the original. The Adam Ewing bit and the sci-fi sections could be really po-faced and terrible. I'm worried about what they'll do to the Frobisher character and his music.

ahah the music in the trailer is also kind of ... 'this is what i've been hearing in my dream!!! *circle of fifths*'

ctrl-h 'props' 'chops' on that post above. god i stared at that for like a minute going 'what is wrong here'

What if life
Is a book
Divided into seven parts?
What if the story of man
Dovetails from one chapter to the next?
What if
We spell it out for you in film?

There's no way the Wachowskis will not fuck this up. Between this and Baz Luhrman doing Gatsby, and Keira Knightley doing Anna Karenina, there are going to be some incredibly vulgarised movies of great books soon.