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Call Me by Your Name (film)
Call Me by Your Name is a 2017 romantic coming-of-age drama film directed by Luca Guadagnino.
The screenplay, written by Guadagnino, Walter Fasano and James Ivory,
is based on the 2007 novel of the same name by author André Aciman. It is the third
and final installment in Guadagnino's Desire trilogy, following I Am Love and A Bigger Splash.
Set in Italy during the 1980s, Call Me
by Your Name chronicles the romantic relationship between a 17-year-old Italian-American Elio
Perlman and his father's American assistant, Oliver. The film also stars Michael Stuhlbarg,
Amira Casar, Esther Garrel, and Victoire Du Bois. Call Me by Your Name had been in development
since 2007, when producers Peter Spears and Howard Rosenman optioned the screen rights
to Aciman's novel. Guadagnino, who came on board as a location consultant,
became the sole director in 2016. Ivory was slated to co-direct the film,
but ended up writing the script and co-producing.
The film was financed through a variety of international sources.
Principal photography took place in Crema, Italy in May and June 2016.
Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom shot Call Me by Your Name on 35 mm film.
Before its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2017, Call Me
by Your Name was picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics.
The film received critical acclaim from critics upon its release.
Critics praised in particular Chalamet, Hammer and Stuhlbarg's performances, Guadagnino's direction
and the screenplay. It will be released in the United States on November 24, 2017.
Development
 [^]  After seeing an early galley in 2007, American producers Peter Spears
and Howard Rosenman bought the screen rights
to André Aciman's debut novel Call Me By Your Name before it was published.
Before making it into a film, the two asked James Ivory, a friend of theirs,
whether he would be interested in being an executive producer on the adaptation, which he accepted.
Spears and Rosenman encountered difficulty, as they met with three different set of directors
and writers, but could not find anyone that "had a track record" for the film. The need
to shoot in Italy during the summer and capricious schedules were also proved to be problematic.
As a native of Northern Italy, Luca Guadagnino was first hired as a location consultant, to help
"put[ting] the movie together from the Italian side". In 2008, he declined the offer
when the producers lined him up as the first choice director.
He became a producer before suggested to co-direct the film with Ivory,
without any contractual agreement at the time. Ivory accepted the offer,
and spent about nine months on the screenplay in 2014. Guadagnino, who described the novel as
"a Proustian book about remembering the past and indulging in the melancholy of lost things,"
wrote the adaption together with Ivory at the dining table, while also collaborated
with Walter Fasano to "really fine-tune it". The screenplay was approved by Aciman,
who commended its "direct and so real and persuasive" transposition,
"that as the writer I found myself saying, 'Wow, they've done better than the book."
It eventually helped fund the film's production through financiers.
The film was financed through a variety of international sources,
including the production companies La Cinéfacture, Frensy Film Company, RT Features
and Water’s End Productions, with the support of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage
and Activities and Tourism. During the revision of Ivory's script,
Guadagnino took out a majority of nudity content, which would have prevented the movie
from being made. According to Guadagnino, Ivory's version "was a much more costly film,
it was a different film which didn't meet the standards" of the market realities. In 2016,
he decided to direct the film alone, while Ivory dropped out from directing
to avoid the possible conflicts. "It would be awkward [.]
to have two directors working together. It might take longer,
it would look terrible if we got in fights on the set, and so on," he said.
He subsequently sold the rights to the screenplay to Luca's company.
Styles and themes
Call Me by Your Name is the third and final installment in Guadagnino's Desire trilogy,
following I Am Love and A Bigger Splash. The film represents a departure from his previous work,
as he prefered a more non-aggressive and simple approach, and called it "the most calmness"
movie he has made. Aciman set his novel in 1987, but Guadagnino decided to push the time back
to 1983, the year where the characters are untouched by the Seventies
and the political corruption in the Eighties. He described it as a family-oriented film
for the purpose of "transmission of knowledge and hope that people of different generations come
to see the film together." The director considered the film as a "homage to fathers", referring
to his own father and four filmmakers who inspired him, including Jean Renoir, Jacques Rivette,
Éric Rohmer, and Bernardo Bertolucci. He refuses to label the work as a "gay movie",
but rather a film about the "beauty of the newborn idea of desire, unbiased and uncynical",
and reflects his motto of living "with a sense of joie de vivre".
Guadagnino—who considered sex in film represents the characters' behavior
and identity—wasn't interested in including explicit sex scenes in the film, in order
to keep the tone as planned, "I wanted the audience
to completely rely on the emotional travel of these people
and feel first love [.] It was important to me to create this powerful universality,
because the whole idea of the movie is that the other person makes you beautiful — enlightens you,
elevates you." He attempted to avoid the flaws he had seen in most coming-of-age films,
in which growth is often portrayed as a result of resolving certain preconceived dilemma,
like choosing between two lovers. The director also wanted the story
to follow two people in the moment, rather than focus on an antagonist or a tragedy,
a specific approach he had been inspired from À Nos Amours, directed by Maurice Pialat.
Casting
In 2015, Shia LaBeouf and Greta Scacchi were reportedly set to be in the cast. In September 2016,
Ivory confirmed that LaBeouf and Scacchi were no longer involved in the project. According
to Ivory, LaBeouf had gone to New York City to do a reading for the film,
but the production company later felt he was unsuitable due to his "various troubles".
Although Ivory thought the two "had good scenes together" and could have made into the film,
the company disagreed.  [^]  After seeing Armie Hammer's performance in The Social Network, Guadagnino
"fell in love" with him and cultivated his passion for Hammer and the movies he made afterwards.
The director found him as a "sophisticated actor, with a great range" and had him in mind
for the role of Oliver. Hammer, who expressed his interest in Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash, met
with the director years before the film went into production. When Hammer got the script,
he almost turned down the role, because of the nudity that was originally in it, "I did want
to pass. It scared me," he said, "There’s a lot of stuff here that I’ve never done on film before.
But there’s no way I can’t do this, mostly, because it scares me so much." According to Guadagnino,
Hammer was going to pass the role through his agent, but then changed his mind
at the end of their conversation. This is the third film that Hammer playing a gay character,
following Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar and Stanley Tucci's Final Portrait.
Timothée Chalamet has acted since he was a child and made his appearance in Showtime's Homeland.
Spears' husband and agent, Brian Swardstrom introduced the 17-year-old Chalamet to Guadagnino,
who immediately felt the actor have "the ambition, the intelligence, the sensitivity, the naivety,
and the artistry" for the role of Elio. "It seemed unlikely that I would be the lead of the movie,
or that the movie would happen at all," Chalamet recalled. He read Aciman's novel
by the time he was 17, and described it as "a window into a young person." In preparation
for his role, Chalamet learned Italian, piano and guitar in Italy for three months.
Michael Stuhlbarg, who appeared in 2015 films Steve Jobs and Trumbo, played the role of Mr. Perlman,
Elio's father. Amira Casar, Esther Garrel,
and Victoire Du Bois feature in supporting roles as Annella Perlman, Marzia,
and Chiara respectively. Hammer
and Chalamet were both signed contracts that prohibited any full frontal nudity
from being featured in the film. Ivory, whose original screenplay contained "all sorts of nudity",
dismayed by the decision, "Again, it's just this American attitude. Nobody seems to care that much,
or be shocked, about a totally naked woman. It’s the men." Guadagnino,
who remained involved in the casting for Call Me by Your Name, choose
to cast actors based on their performances and chemistry, instead of "investigate or label"
their sexuality, "I only cast the actors and actresses I fall in love
with — truly having an emotion for them, an anticipation and enthusiasm when seeing them."
Filming and post-production
Principal photography on Call Me by Your Name began on May 9, 2016,
shortly after A Bigger Splash was released in the United States, and completed in June 2016.
It was primarily filmed in Crema, Lombardy—a village near where Guadagnino live in Italy,
which also contains the area of Sanremo where the book takes place—from May 11.
The production occured quietly, with reports only appearing after two weeks of filming.
The director's first cut of the film was 4 hours long.
Post-production on the film took only a month after finished shooting, between June and July,
the fastest Guadagnino had edited. Hammer and Chalamet, who did not have to do a chemistry test
for the film, met for the first time during the production in Crema.
They spent a month before shooting together to build character development, "We’d hang out
with each other all the time, because we were pretty much the only Americans there, and we were able
to defend one another and really get to know one another," Chalamet recalled.
It was filmed without any set or soundstage, while Guadagnino engaged deeply with the cast,
and cooked for them each night. "I’ve never been so intimately involved with a director before.
Luca was able to look at me and completely undress me," Hammer admitted. Guadagnino attempted
to avoid the film from "look[ing] like a reflection on the 80s, [.] when it becomes period."
His team made extensive researches, with an assist from the residents of Crema, by entered
to people's houses and collected their pictures of their '80s. Guadagnino tempted
to remove a memorable scene from the novel, in which Elio masturbates with a pitted peach,
as he found it was too explicit. Despite his reservations, he and Chalamet,
who was also nervous about the scene, then successfully applied the method themselves
and made it into the film. A scene feature Hammer and Chalamet "enthusiastic" dancing
to The Psychedelic Furs' "Love My Way" in a small bar is not drawn from the book, but inspired
by the time Guadagnino danced by himself in the bedroom when he was young.
The scene depicts an education speech delivered by Stuhlbarg was the last scene that he shot.
Chalamet wears a distinctive New Romantic-looking shirt, picked
by the costume designer Giulia Piersanti, at the end of the film. Sayombhu Mukdeeprom,
who had previously collaborated with Guadagnino in Ferdinando Cito Filomarino's Antonia,
served as the director of photography. Guadagnino and Filomarino developed an "exquisite
and extraordinary" relationship with Mukdeeprom back in the production of Antonia,
the cinematographer's first non-Thai film. Lighting is an important factor in Mukdeeprom's work,
as he needs the light to be engaged with the characters. In order
to capture the Northern Italian summer atmosphere for Call Me by Your Name, he had
to create light completely artificial, due
to the heavy rains that lasted the entirety of the shoot. He also connected to the actors
during the scene; when they finished shooting the first take of the confrontation between Oliver
and Elio, he was crying in a corner of the room.
The film was shot using a singular 35 mm format lens, which was influenced
by the work of David Cronenberg, to "solidifies the point of view".
Soundtrack
Guadagnino wanted the film's music to be attached with Elio, a young pianist who likes
to transcribe and adapt pieces to get close to Oliver. The music is used to reflect the time,
the characters' family, level of education and "the kind of canon they would be a part of".
Guadagnino also researched what was popular on the radio that summer, to stay true
to the time period. Gudagnino, who was struggled with the narration of the film,
found himself resonated with Sufjan Stevens' lyricism through his work and initially asked Stevens
to record an original song. Eventually, Stevens contributed three songs for the soundtrack:
"Visions of Gideon", which was used at the end of the film, "Mystery of Love," and a new rendition of
"Futile Devices" with piano. The director was surprised by the result, and listened
to them right on the set. Stevens penned the songs by using the script, the book,
and the conversations with the director about the characters. It marks Stevens' first soundtrack
for a feature film. "Mystery of Love" was featured in the film's first trailer,
released on August 1, 2017. The soundtrack will be released physically on November 17, 2017
by Sony Classical.
Release
Call Me by Your Name had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2017.
Prior to its premiere, Sony Pictures Classics acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film
for $6 million. The deal was negotiated by WME Global and UTA Independent Film Group.
International distribution rights were purchased by Memento Films International,
a French company which showed the promo reel for the film
at the American Film Market on November 2016. It also screened
at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2017,
and the New York Film Festival on October 3, 2017. It will be opened
to the public in limited release in the United States on November 24, 2017
and in the United Kingdom on October 27, 2017.
The first theatrical trailer was released on August 1, 2017. On October 11, 2017,
Sony Pictures Classics released a teaser, titled "Dance Party",
in honor of the National Coming Out Day. The 42-second clip,
which consists of one continuous shot of Hammer and Chalamet dancing in the bar,
became an internet meme on Twitter. Kyle Munzenrieder of W compared the scene
to the 2-minute dance sequence to Rolling Stones' "Emotional Rescue"
in Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash. After its screening at Toronto International Film Festival,
American actor James Woods criticized about the age disparity between Elio and Oliver on Twitter,
saying "As they quietly chip away the last barriers of decency. AMBLA". The hashtag refers
to North American Man/Boy Love Association, a pedophilia advocacy organization. Hammer responded
by condemning Woods' relationship with Kristen Bauguess—who started dating Woods in 2013
when she was 20 years old and he was 66 years old—saying, "Didn't you date a 19 year old
when you were 60.?"
Critical response
 [^]  After its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Call Me
by Your Name received overwhelming praise. It received a ten-minute standing ovation
during its New York Film Festival screening at Alice Tully Hall. On Rotten Tomatoes,
the film has a rating of 97%, based on 69 reviews, with an average rating of 9.2/10,
and the critical consensus reads, "Call Me by Your Name offers a melancholy,
powerfully affecting portrait of first love, empathetically acted by Timothée Chalamet
and Armie Hammer." On Metacritic, the film achieved an average score of 95 out of 100,
based on 15 reviews, signifying "universal acclaim."
Boyd van Hoeij of The Hollywood Reporter described Call Me by Your Name as an "intimate
and piercingly honest" adaptation of Aciman's novel, and called Chalamet's performance
"the true breakout of the film". Varietys Peter Debruge called it the "most personal film"
by Guadagnino, while David Ehrlich of IndieWire praised his direction, which help the film
"matching the artistry and empathy" with Carol and Moonlight. Sam Adams
from BBC enjoyed Stuhlbarg's performance, billed it as "one of his finest" to date. Sam C.
Mac of Slant commended the director’s emphatic visual energy and the "tender"
relationship between Elio and Oliver. David Morgan of CBS praised the production design for
"making a summer in the 1980s palpably alive again," and described Stuhlbarg's character as
"the most forward-thinking parent in movie history,"
while Richard Lawson hailed Guadagnino’s adaptation as a "modern gay classic"
in his Vanity Fair review. Time Outs Joshua Rothkopf called it "a triumphant,
heartbreaking tale of coming out," and compared it positively with Brokeback Mountain, Carol
and Moonlight. The Economist noted the tension "between pain and pleasure" in the film,
and praised Chalamet for "evokes so many shades of humanity,
portraying a path of youthful self-discovery that is more raw, unhinged, and ultimately honest
than many actors could manage."
Potential sequel
During the 2017 BFI London Film Festival, Guadagnino stated that he was open
to the idea of a sequel in 2020,
suggested it might be in the style of Richard Linklater's Before trilogy,
telling the story of Oliver and Elio as they aged. "If I paired the age of Elio in the film
with the age of Timothée, in three years’ time, Timothée will be 25, as would Elio
by the time the second story was set," he said.
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