Cloud Atlas (2012)

Ben Whishaw: Cabin Boy, Robert Frobisher, Store Clerk, Georgette, Tribesman

Photos 

Quotes 

• Robert Frobisher : Sixsmith. I climb the steps of the Scott Monument every morning and all becomes clear. Wish I could make you see this brightness. Don't worry, all is well. All is so perfectly, damnably well. I understand now that boundaries between noise and sound are conventions. All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention if only one can first conceive of doing so. Moments like this, I can feel your heart beating as clearly as I feel my own, and I know that separation is an illusion. My life extends far beyond the limitations of me.

• [from trailer] 

  Robert Frobisher : A half-finished book is, after all, a half finished love affair.

• [from trailer] 

  Robert Frobisher : I believe there is a another world waiting for us, Sixsmith. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there.

• Robert Frobisher : I believe we do not stay dead long. Find me beneath the Corsican stars where we first kissed. Yours eternally, R.F.

• Robert Frobisher : This world spins from the same unseen forces that twist our hearts.

• Robert Frobisher : My dearest Sixsmith, I shot myself through the roof of my mouth this morning with Vivian Ayrs' Luger. A true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty. People pontificate suicide is a coward's act. Couldn't be further from the truth. Suicide takes tremendous courage. Don't let them say I killed myself for love. Had my infatuations, but we both know in our hearts who is the sole love of my short, bright life.

• [from trailer] 

  Vyvyan Ayrs : That's it! The music from my dream.

  Robert Frobisher : I call it the "Cloud Atlas Sextet".

• Robert Frobisher : [narrating]  Dinner of pheasant with Bordeaux rich as buttercream. How I love to listen to men of distinguished lives sing of past follies and glories. The only broken note in the entire evening was Ayrs' wife, Jocasta, excusing herself early. Sensed the buried bone. Later I asked Ayrs about it, he said Kesselring had introduced Jocasta to him. I pried, had Kesselring been in love with her. The subject was a prickly one.

  Vyvyan Ayrs : Jocasta was a Jew. Obviously the relationship was impossible.

  Robert Frobisher : Why obviously?

  Vyvyan Ayrs : Can you really be so ignorant of what is happening in Germany?

  Robert Frobisher : [continues narration]  At this point in my life all I know, Sixsmith, is that this world spins from the same unseen forces that twist our hearts.

• Robert Frobisher : [From Trailer]  There are whole movements I wrote, imagining us meeting again and again, in different lives, different ages...

• Robert Frobisher : Finished in a frenzy that reminded me of our last night in Cambridge. Watched my final sunrise. Enjoyed a last cigarette. Didn't think the view could be any more perfect until I saw that beat-up trilby. Honestly, Sixsmith, as ridiculous as that thing makes you look, I don't believe I've ever seen anything more beautiful. Watched you for as long as I dared. I don't believe it was a fluke that I saw you first. I believe there is another world waiting for us, Sixsmith. A better world, and I'll be waiting for you there. I believe we do not stay dead long. Find me beneath the Corsican stars, where we first kissed. Yours eternally, R.F.

• Robert Frobisher : It's done.

• Luisa Rey : I... called about an old recording, written by a man named Robert Frobisher.

  Store Clerk : Oops, busted. I know I shouldn't be playing it, I was... checking it to make sure it wasn't scratched. But... honestly, I just can't stop listening to it.

  Luisa Rey : This is the "Cloud Atlas Sextet"?

  Store Clerk : It's, uh... the "Symphony".

  Luisa Rey : It's beautiful. But I think I've heard this before.

  Store Clerk : Can't imagine how. I doubt there's more than a... handful of copies in all of North America.

  Luisa Rey : But I know it. I know I know it.