“Every one of us, every person here, every human life presents a negotiation between public and private identity,” Cloud Atlas co-director Lana Wachowski said four days ago (10.20) in San Francisco during a speech at a Human Rights Campaign fundraiser. “Invisibility is indivisible from visibility; for the transgender this is not simply a philosophical conundrum — it can be the difference between life and death.

“Years later I find the courage to admit that I am transgender, and this doesn’t mean that I am unlovable.

“A few short weeks ago after my coming out, the three of us — Tom Hanks, Andy and I — were being interviewed, one of the reporters ventured away from the subject of the film towards my gender. Imagine that, a reporter. My brother quickly stepped in [and said], ‘Look, just so we’re clear…if somebody asks something or says something about my sister that I don’t like, understand that I will break a bottle over their head.'”

That’s Andy for you! He’s the blunt-spoken one, the “aahh, fuck this” guy, the blurter, the Wachowski who’s impatient with bullshit in any form.

This is all very moving. It’s a very good story to tell and to hear. But would Lana, who (along with Andy) had been living a media-averse, media-intimidated, Thomas Pynchon– or Terrence Malick-styled life for the last 12 or 13 years, have told it if she didn’t have a movie to sell? Probably not.

It’s always crass and callow when a film-junket interviewer or reporter tries to steer a film conversation toward the realm of tabloid revelation, but it says something about the island that Lana lives on that she would say “imagine that” about a reporter doing this.

This wasn’t just an emotionally moving speech but a highly significant one from a major artist. The Hollywood Reporter waited four days to post a video and a transcript of Lana Wachowski’s remarks because they had it slotted as an 11.2 magazine piece (which is weird), but why didn’t somebody else run with it earlier? Or did I miss something?

I still didn’t care for the portion of Cloud Atlas that I was able to force myself to watch in Toronto. It would be through, professional and responsible of me to see the whole thing, but I’m not looking forward to doing that.

I despise Brightcove embed codes. If I could eradicate these codes from existence by saying a prayer and clapping my hands three times, I would say a prayer and clap my hands three times. I won’t post them because they always screw everything up on the site.