Narrative trans-actions: Cloud Atlas (2012) and multi-role performance in the global ensemble

Abstract

Focusing on the multi-directed Cloud Atlas (Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski, 2012), this article examines the film’s unconventional approach to the ensemble format in adapting David Mitchell’s apparently unfilmable novel. It considers how the film’s unique multi-role, cross-casting performance strategy both reveals the possibilities of transnational cinema but also exposes its limitations. Drawing from popular critical reception and cast and crew commentaries, the article considers how multi-role performance offers a challenge and alternative to conventional modes of performance, how vaudeville can help to make sense of the performance approach adopted in the film, and investigates the relationship between prosthetics and play in establishing the ensemble. The film raises questions about race, ethnicity and gender, the boundaries between identities and the challenges of performing multiple roles as played out on the body of the actor. With multiple actors taking on multiple roles across multiple narratives, the article argues that Cloud Atlas offers a radical example of the ensemble as a metaphor for global interconnectedness and problematizes its very mode of performance as a result.

Keywords:

• Cloud Atlas
• acting
• performance
• ensemble
• prosthetics
• boundaries

Notes

1. Warner Bros contributed $25 million of the $102 million production budget. The rest was provided by Dreams of the Dragon Pictures in Beijing (approximately $10 million), the German Federal Film Fund, the directors’ production companies X Filme and Anarchos Productions along with other contributions from independent sources in the US, Germany, China and Hong Kong.

2. James D’Arcy’s Rufus Sixsmith is the only character to appear in more than one storyline, playing significant roles in both the Robert Frobisher and Luisa Rey narratives. Even author David Mitchell appears as a ‘Union Spy’, although his performance in the film is limited to the one role.

3. Outside the US, the film’s biggest markets were China ($27.7 million), Russia ($17 million) and Germany ($12.6 million) (figures from boxofficemojo.com).