Let us Anticipate "Call Me By Your Name"

Their sex is legal; it's the climate in which the film is being released that has blown up this discussion.

It's not about the current climate, the physique difference is a deliberate tactic to mess with your preconceptions. Eliot is built like a boy but Armie acts as boyish as Elio who is actually more mature and grounded in some ways, in spite of how he looks. The director deliberately heightens it by casting an actor in his 30s. It raises the stakes and makes the patents' acceptance and the father's speech more surprising (and imo, delightful).

I don't understand that tweet Eric Posted - he starts off about to insult the film then gives it the highest compliment.

fwiw apparently Hammer looks older to some of you guys... he turned 31 in late August, so he was probably just shy of 30 when this was shot. (I wonder if actors ever get away with shaving a few years off in this data-driven age.)

i had read he was early thirties (possibly only in this thread) and i thought he was young looking for that.

Hammer plays 24 but looks 30, and jed_'s right: Elio's poise will upset people who haven't read the book and don't realize that life and art don't commingle.

https://media.giphy.com/media/l1J3AqzpjRStb0Nd6/giphy.gif

https://media.giphy.com/media/26Ff68gV7hXgOtVni/giphy.gif

goddamn it

opened in NY/LA yesterday

Jonathan Romney: too idyllic

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/film-week-call-name/

pfft

I don't think I've seen many films that have overwhelmed and seduced me to the extent that this one does. Everything that Romney draws out occurred to me either during or afterward and, while I agree with most of what he objects to, I also don't care. I know that Elio is ridiculously precocious but I don't care. I know that his family is stupidly privileged and don't care. I know that I'm being seduced! I don't care! I love every second of this film!

(although it would be better without the Sufjan songs)

I'm...not getting, once again, that this movie is so timid that it deserves brokebacking.

it doesn't

God's Own Country is the less accomplished movie that I liked better.

Man, though, CMBYN has not one but TWO credit sequences for the ages!

https://www.out.com/armond-white/2017/11/30/call-me-your-names-sex-lives-rich-and-immodest

Even the editors of Out are, ahem, out to get him. "Swimming against the tide, our movie critic would rather watch Porky's than Call Me by Your Name" is not what he's saying here, but whatever.

Armie gave Timothee razor burn

http://people.com/movies/armie-hammer-timothee-chalamet-call-me-by-your-name-kiss/

and Chalamet has won best actor from the NY Film Critics Circle

I can't even

"So assailed are we by reports of harmful pleasures, and of the coercive male will being imposed through lust, that it comes as a relief to be reminded, in such style, of consensual joy." — Anthony Lane, New Yorker

"lmao my dude nutted in an apricot" — Whiney G. Weingarten, ILX

Almodovar likes:

“Everything is beautiful, charming, and desirable in this movie: The boys, the girls, the breakfasts, the fruit, the cigarettes, the reservoirs, the bicycles, the open-air dancing, the 80s, the doubts and the devotion of the protagonists, the sincerity of all the characters, the relationship with their parents,” Almodóvar said. “Behold the commitment of the authors André Aciman, James Ivory, and Luca Guadagino with the passion of the senses, the light of Northern Italy, and especially Timothée Chalament, the great revelation of the year.”

Upon further reflection, this movie's kinda overly precious, no?

Not moreso than teenage boys who play the piano, maybe.

Glenn Kenny thought so, however.

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2017/11/the-sentimental-journies-of-call-me-by-your-name-and-lady-bird.html

In a sense, then, this is the furthest thing from a “queer movie;” its whole project is to de-queer Elio’s mode of being. That’s the point of the film’s final shot. Yes, he’s heartbroken and crying, but there’s “beautiful” music, he’s literally crouching in front of a fireplace (the hearth!), and behind him his family, while giving him his space, is preparing a sumptuous holiday meal.

Only a straight person would write a passage this addled. I'm never queerer than when my parents give me my space and prepare a sumptuous holiday meal.

This comment otm:

Also, if I'm reading this right you're kind of putting forth a definition of "queer" that excludes a happy relationship between a queer person and their family. I may be getting the terms "queer" and "gay" mixed up but most of the gay people I've known have had loving relationships with their parents, by their accounts. And rather than a dark sign of our reactionary times, couldn't we take a story about a gay teenager who's totally embraced and supported by his family as an attempt to normalize "queerness" and push it into the mainstream? In other words, couldn't we see this as a progressive, rather than reactionary story?

its whole project is de-queering my ass

kenny also references one of the most irritating and terrible pieces i've read all year. the old one-two

yeah i'm not buying that, just cuz these people are well-to-do and spending the summer in Tuscany xp

Not moreso than teenage boys who play the piano, maybe.

This is the lowest you've sunk, Morbs.

hehehe

His folks are queerer than Elio is and I mean that as a compliment.

also, I never describe myself as queer, but gay. the word doesn't offend me but i have some gay friends who would be horrified if anyone referred to them as queer.

His folks are queerer than Elio is and I mean that as a compliment.

― Susan Stranglehands (jed_)

Yes, and to its credit the movie aligns with the book on this matter.

Almodovar likes:

“Everything is beautiful, charming, and desirable in this movie: The boys, the girls, the breakfasts, the fruit

https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2017/07/31/call-me-by-your-name-gifs/31-cmbyn-armie-glance.nocrop.w710.h2147483647.gif

also, I never describe myself as queer, but gay

Same. This was probably never going to be my new gay classic.

Sufjan Stevens:

They had retained the monologue from the older Elio, and he initially asked me to be the voice of the older Elio; to contribute that voiceover. He also asked if I wanted to appear in the movie as a bard, performing the song, almost as a break in the narrative. I got back to him and I said, “I think this voiceover is a mistake, and I think the interruption of me singing the song is a mistake.” I think he was just thinking out loud. I don’t know if he was really committed to the idea. So I said, “I’ll write you some songs, but that’s all I think you need from me.” And he agreed. When I saw the first edit, he said, “You were right, this doesn’t need a monologue or an interruption.”

https://deadline.com/2017/12/call-me-by-your-name-sufjan-stevens-luca-guadagnino-music-interview-1202225747/

There's a similar point made in the Q&A in this discussion, where Guadagnino says that the Sufjan songs were a way of implying some of the interiority of the novel by incorporating a first-person voice, without resorting to a voiceover. (Also worth watching for the hilariously awkward question at 38:40.)

Saw this last night, very impressive. Can anyone shed light on the seeming callousness of Oliver's phone call at the end? Trying to make sense of this.

well there's no easy way to tell last summer's effbuddy you're gettin hitched

I hated this! So much. It feels thrilling, in a way, to be overwhelmed with such hatred for something! rare for me

yeah I've read your comments, understand them, and don't see what you do.

and Elio's mixed parentage and ancestry complicates the "whiteness."

only saw fgti's (funny) tweets, where did u write about it?

on his FB page

Liked it, but too long. Could've lost 15-20 min. Loved the Psychedelic Furs song. Some wonderful shots: Elio sorrowful at night in the trees as the screen rhythmically flashes in overexposure, pan to the tree when they sleep together, red/gold color-shifted 'dream sequence', looking down on Elio and the girl lying in the grass, final conversation with the father, the snow, all of the town scenes, final shot.

"What'd you do?"

I semi-hated Guadagnino's two preceding films

read owens posts. very advanced

@ Alfred, the "whiteness" I refer to is the extreme privilege that Elio and his family carry, as well as the aesthetic appearance of both of the stars, who may be both of them half-Jewish, but definitely align themselves with the porn-industry's archetype of "hot white gay man"

The lip service that the movie paid to both character's Jewishness seemed almost kind of designed to create a "well, they're Jewish, so their whiteness is "complicated"" sideboard-rebuttal rather than actually complicate either character's white appearance and privilege

I adored "I Am Love" and think it's one of the best movies I've ever seen, didn't care at all for "A Bigger Splash"

There were all kindza gay movies this year about all kindza queers. This one seemed authentic to its chosen milieu.

why the hell did Orson Welles make his first 2 films about rich white dudes, anyhoo?

For whoever else who doesn't care to read through my Facebook longtypes:

1. Elio's character was a stereotype of a privileged young white gay man-- an avatar for that cancer within the gay community, which is, in short, The Ideal Version Of A Gay Man-- young, white, cute, rich, confident, starved for cock-- the Ideal Version Of A Gay Man that makes not-young, not-white, not-cute, not-rich, not-confident, not-cock-starved gay individuals feel worthless

2. Elio's disconsolate nature-- "oh, we have to suffer through these summers in Italy"-- was insulting and made him, to me, an unsympathetic character-- by the end of the movie, when he's literally crying at the camera, I'm wondering: "what about Elio is meant to compel me to continue watching this movie, if not his young, cute, rich, confident, starved-for-cock whiteness?"-- even friends of mine reaching out to me about "should I see this movie?"-- I'd say "no, pass on it"-- they'd respond "but the young actor is SO HOT"

3. The dialogue was poorly written to the extreme. It was so continuously, terribly awful that I figured that James Ivory was able to force this project into production

4. The scenario of this movie-- a 17-year old cockslut seduces an older visiting grad student-- was essentially the plot line of a porno, or more specifically, a yaoi manga-- and yet this movie offered none of the erotic satisfaction of a porn-- the best scenes were the ones where Armie Hammer monologues about the etymology of the word "apricot"-- and there was one long shot of them motoring off into the distance that was nice too-- but yeah, it felt nearly identical to a porno but with no actual payoff

5. Italy looked ugly, the female characters were props, the chain smoking mom seemed like an extra from a Morrissey song, Elio's female lover was debased over breakfast ("I almost had sex with [girl] last night"), even the professor dad confesses that he too! had faggoty tendencies, the only shot of food was a boiled egg, that Psychedelic Furs song repeated itself more times than I can count, Armie Hammer can't act

Basically I thought Timothée Chalemet was pretty good tho

But yeah especially in comparison to "Moonlight" this felt risible, the fact that it's getting praised to the high heavens makes me feel like nobody is immune to empathizing with the plight of a young white cutegay-- and it makes me even more frustrated that we face twenty-to-fifty more years more of "Whites Only, Please" on people's Grindr pages

Having lived for a year in L.A. and seeing what the proximity-to-the-film-and-porn-industry does to non-white non-cute non-young gay men in that city (i.e. it segregates them, devalues them, and creates this fucking nightmare-pool of weirdness), I saw this movie as further propaganda to the primacy of the young white gay male form within the gay aesthetic value system

In short, I thought this film was dangerous and insulting and I shit on it