Cloud Atlas - Tell Your Story
I have just watched the Watchowskis' monumental Cloud Atlas again, as I remember there being a hidden meaning to it beyond the reincarnation one, but I missed it the first time round, and i couldn't get past the first chapter of the book (sorry David Mitchell) due to the language.
Well I found it, and it was both very obvious and very stupid of me to miss it first time around. The hidden meaning of the movie is for you to tell your story. It doesn't matter how many people read it, you may affect just one and that is enough, and if one person's life is changed as a result of what you wrote then you can consider it a success.
We see this in the movie with various failed exploits being influential to just one person, and we also see one person's story become a world wide religion, so the thing that links each character is their story and I shall endeavour to list all of the authors and influences below:
Adam Ewing is the first to write a book, and this is read by Robert Frobisher. Frobisher writes his story in letters and these are read firstly by Rufus Sixsmith, and then by his niece. Frobisher also writes the cloud atlas atlas sextet. The music is heard by Luisa Rey who writes Half-Lives. Luisa is helped by Isaac Sachs who has read Carlos Castaneda's Yaqui way of Knowledge to get a copy of a report written by Sixsmith. Dermot Hoggins writes a story that is read by Timothy Cavendish and one critic. Cavendish reads Half-Lives by Luisa Rey and also Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (presumably The Gulag Archepelago). Cavendish writes the Ghastly Ordeal of, and this is then seen in a movie form by Somni-451, who also reads Solzhenitsyn. Somni records video of her story and this becomes the world religion and is read by Zachry. Finally Zachry tells his story to his grandchildren.
So there we have it a whole series of events where stories lead people to tell others their stories, who tell others their stories, and so on.
So go on, tell someone your story...
