Salon.com > Lana Wachowski

Everything you need to know about “Cloud Atlas”

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

David Mitchell, the author of "Cloud Atlas," told the Paris Review in 2010 that "'Cloud Atlas' is a novel about whose echoes, eddies and cross-references even its author possesses only an imperfect knowledge.” Yet the directors of the new film -- Tom Twyker, Lana Wachowski and Andy Wachowski -- took a different approach to Mitchell’s brilliant book. They turned six overlapping stories into more concentric circles than the author had himself.

In the book, we get these stories one at a time, until the author circles back around to them halfway through the narrative. The film takes a different approach. The stories are threaded together from the beginning of the movie, with some of the connections made more obvious and some made ... not so obvious, to say the least. It's only natural to emerge with your head spinning and lots of questions.

We're going to answer those for you. Let's start with the basic plot of the movie -- but keep in mind that these stories are woven together over the whole movie. We'll move chronologically.

Lana Wachowski gives poignant speech about growing up transgendered

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 14:57:00 +0000

Wachowski delivered a candid speech at the Human Rights Campaign's recent fundraising gala in which she opened up about her struggles with gender identity and her own traumatic childhood. HRC president Chad Griffin believes her story can inspire the international LGBT community, “Lana’s willingness to tell her story will impact and change countless lives across the world," he said. "She is a giant in her industry, and for someone with such success and such profile to be willing to tell their personal story to the world sends a tremendous message to LGBT people across the globe that they too can aspire to be a giant in their industry.”

Trans, but not like you think

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Just last week I got a birth certificate from North Carolina Vital Records that put a state seal on a tale that began before I could talk. “Thomas Page McBee,” it says, under “Certificate of Live Birth,” and then, there’s the word I spent thousands of dollars, a major surgery, two trips to probate court, two physicals, a doctor’s letter, plus the 80 oily milligrams of testosterone self-shot into my thigh every week to achieve: male.

When I tore open the envelope it took my breath away, much like seeing my reflection every morning — the growing pronouncement of my jaw, the square sideburns, the scruff on my cheek, the pecs and biceps ballooning steadily with each workout — I tear up sometimes, I’m so floored by the rightness of it all. I held my birth certificate, my heart galloping, and I felt born again at the age of 31.

Maybe you think you’ve heard my story before: I knew I wasn’t a girl before I knew much of anything. There were the years of private, simmering mirror-hate; the jealous glances at men, the coveting of facial hair and biceps. As trans people become more visible, our stories have narrowed into a neat narrative arc: born in the wrong body, pushed to the brink of suicide/sanity/society, the agonized decision to begin hormone treatment/surgeries for the reward of ending up ourselves and looking “normal," which ends in a lesson about the tenacity of the human spirit, the gorgeous triumph of believing in yourself.