Call Me by Your Name (Italian: Chiamami col tuo nome) is a 2017 coming-of-age drama film directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by James Ivory. The film, based on André Aciman's 2007 novel of the same name, is the final installment in Guadagnino's thematic "Desire" trilogy, after I Am Love (2009) and A Bigger Splash (2015). Set in northern Italy in 1983, Call Me by Your Name chronicles a romantic relationship between 17-year-old Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet) and his professor father's 24-year-old graduate-student assistant Oliver (Armie Hammer). The film also stars Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar, Esther Garrel, and Victoire Du Bois.
The film began development in 2007, when producers Peter Spears and Howard Rosenman optioned the screen rights to Aciman's novel. Ivory served as the screenwriter and co-producer; he was initially set to co-direct the film but stepped down in 2016. Guadagnino joined the project as a location consultant and eventually became director and co-producer. The film was financed by several international companies. Principal photography mainly took place in Crema, Italy in May and June 2016. The filmmakers spent weeks before production decorating the Villa Albergoni, one of the main filming locations. Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom shot the film on 35 mm film. Guadagnino curated the selection for the film's soundtrack, which features three original songs by Sufjan Stevens.
Call Me by Your Name was chosen for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics before its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2017. It began a limited release in the United States on November 24, 2017, and went to general release on January 19, 2018. The film gained accolades for its screenplay, direction, acting, and music. At the 90th Academy Awards, it received four nominations, including Best Picture, and won for Best Adapted Screenplay. Ivory also won awards for his screenplay at the 23rd Critics' Choice Awards, the 70th Writers Guild of America Awards, and the 71st British Academy Film Awards. A sequel to the film was announced in January 2018.
Video Call Me by Your Name (film)
Plot
In the summer of 1983, 17-year-old Elio lives with his parents in rural Northern Italy. His father, a professor of archaeology, invites a 24-year-old graduate student, Oliver, to live with him and his family over the summer and help with his academic paperwork. Elio, an introspective bibliophile and a talented musician, initially finds little in common with Oliver, who has a contrastingly carefree and exuberant personality. Elio resents having to give up his bedroom for Oliver for the duration of his stay. Elio spends much of the summer reading, playing piano, and hanging out with his girlfriend, Marzia. Oliver is meanwhile attracted to one of the local girls, much to Elio's annoyance.
Elio and Oliver swim together, go for long walks into town, and accompany Elio's father on an archaeological trip. Elio begins a sexual relationship with Marzia and brags about it in front of Oliver to gauge his reaction, but nonetheless finds himself increasingly attracted to Oliver. He sneaks into Oliver's room to smell his bathing suit, and thinks about him while masturbating. During a trip to the post office, Elio indirectly confesses his feelings to Oliver, who tells him he should not act on them. Later that day, Elio and Oliver kiss, but Oliver is reluctant to go any further. The two grow distant.
In response to a note from Elio, Oliver leaves a message on Elio's desk suggesting they meet at midnight. Elio spends the day with Marzia but longs to see Oliver. At midnight, he approaches Oliver and they have sex. They become more physically and emotionally intimate over the next few days, having sex frequently while keeping their relationship secret. In bed, Oliver tells Elio, "Call me by your name and I'll call you by mine". Now smitten with Oliver, Elio starts avoiding Marzia.
As the end of Oliver's stay approaches, the couple find themselves overcome by uncertainty and longing. Elio's parents--who are privately aware of the bond between the two, but do not address it openly--recommend they visit Bergamo together before Oliver returns to the United States. After spending three romantic days together, Elio, heartbroken, calls his mother and asks her to pick him up and take him home. Marzia, who still wants to be friends with Elio, is sympathetic. His father, seeing Elio's sadness, tells him he was aware of their relationship, confesses to almost having had a similar relationship in his own youth, and urges Elio to learn and grow from his grief, instead of quickly moving on.
During Hanukkah, Oliver telephones Elio's family to tell them he is engaged to be married. Oliver tells Elio he "remembers everything" very clearly. After the call, Elio sits by the fireplace, distraught, as his parents and the house staff prepare a holiday dinner.
Maps Call Me by Your Name (film)
Cast
Cast list adapted from Fandango.
Styles and themes
Call Me by Your Name is the final installment in Luca Guadagnino's thematic "Desire" trilogy, following I Am Love (2009) and A Bigger Splash (2015). Guadagnino described his approach in the film as "lighthearted and simple"; it is a departure from his "highly stylised [and] dazzling" previous work, according to Jordan Hoffman of The Guardian. Guadagnino considers Call Me by Your Name a "homage to the fathers of my life: my own father, and my cinematic ones", referring to filmmakers Jean Renoir, Jacques Rivette, Éric Rohmer, and Bernardo Bertolucci, who inspired him.
Guadagnino has described Call Me by Your Name 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." He saw it not as a "gay" movie but as a film about the "beauty of the newborn idea of desire, unbiased and uncynical", reflecting his motto of living "with a sense of joie de vivre" whereby "we should always be very earnest with one's feelings, instead of hiding them or shielding ourselves." He considered it an "uplifting film" about "being who you want to be and finding yourself into the gaze of the other in his or her otherness."
The director tried to avoid the flaws he had seen in most coming-of-age films, in which growth is often portrayed as being a result of resolving preconceived dilemmas such as an enforced choice between two lovers. He also wanted the story to follow two people in the moment, rather than focus on an antagonist or a tragedy--an approach inspired by À nos amours (1983), directed by Maurice Pialat. As someone who considers sex in film a representation of the characters' behavior and identity, Guadagnino was not interested in including explicit sex scenes in the film. He explained his intention: "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."
Production
Development
American producers Peter Spears and Howard Rosenman saw an early proof of André Aciman's debut novel Call Me by Your Name in 2007, and bought the screen rights before it was published. Rosenman first heard about the book through a friend after acting in Milk (2008) and described it as "divine"; Spears was moved by it and felt it deserved a cinematic adaptation, which became the first feature film for which he was credited as producer. They invited their friend James Ivory to work as an executive producer on the film adaptation. Spears and Rosenman began production in 2008. The project was soon in "development hell": the producers met with three sets of directors and writers--among them Gabriele Muccino, Ferzan Özpetek, and Sam Taylor-Johnson--but could not find anyone who would commit to the project. Scheduling filming in Italy during the summer also proved difficult.
The producers contacted Guadagnino, their first choice to direct, but he declined, citing a busy schedule. Living in northern Italy, he was initially hired as a location consultant instead, to help "put the movie together from the Italian side." Guadagnino later suggested that he co-direct the film with Ivory but no contractual agreement was put in place. Ivory accepted the offer, and spent between six and nine months in 2014 working on the screenplay. He put together more than 100 pages of notes during the process. Guadagnino, who has described the novel as "a Proustian book about remembering the past and indulging in the melancholy of lost things," wrote the adaptation with Ivory while also collaborating with Walter Fasano. Screenwriting took place at Ivory's house, Guadagnino's kitchen table in Crema, and sometimes in New York City. Ivory hardly met Guadagnino during the process, for the latter was preoccupied making A Bigger Splash (2015).
The screenplay was completed in late 2015. Aciman approved it and commended the adaptation as "direct ... real and persuasive". He added, "as the writer I found myself saying, 'Wow, they've done better than the book.'" The completed screenplay was vital in securing funding for the film. Among the financiers were the production companies La Cinéfacture (France), Frenesy Film Company (Italy, owned by Guadagnino), M.Y.R.A. Entertainment (United States), RT Features (Brazil), and Water's End Productions (United States). The project was also supported by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism. The backers considered the film "too expensive"; during negotiations, the production's budget was reduced from $12 million to $3.4 million, and the filming schedule was cut down from 12 to 5 weeks.
In 2016, Ivory stepped down from directing, leaving Guadagnino to helm the film alone. According to Ivory, financiers from Memento Films International did not want two directors to be involved with the project because they "thought it would be awkward ... It might take longer, it would look terrible if we got in fights on the set, and so on." Guadagnino said Ivory's version would have likely been "a much more costly [and] different film" that could not have been made because of "market realities". Ivory became the sole-credited screenwriter; he later sold the rights to the screenplay to Guadagnino's company. Call Me by Your Name was Ivory's first produced screenplay since Le Divorce (2003) and the only narrative feature he has written and not directed; Ivory was involved with other aspects of the production. Guadagnino dedicated the film to his friend Bill Paxton, who came to visit the set in Crema before his death in February 2017.
Adaptation
The film differs from its source material in several ways. The novel serves as a memory-piece from Elio's perspective, but the filmmakers set the movie entirely in the present timeline, a "much more efficient" solution, to help the audience understand the characters and "reflect the essence of the book", according to Guadagnino. The setting was changed from Bordighera to the countryside of Crema, Lombardy, where Guadagnino lives. Aciman felt that the town square selected for filming differed from that he had pictured in his novel, one he described was "far smaller and stood high on a hill overlooking a windswept Mediterranean"; the arid climate and "spookily deserted" landscape in Crema suggested to him that the film wouldn't correspond to the novel. The director also changed the year of the events from 1987 to 1983--a year in which he said, "in Italy at least, when everything that was great about the '70s is definitely shut down", and one in which the characters "are in a way untouched by the corruption of the '80s--in the U.S., [Ronald] Reagan, and in the UK, [Margaret] Thatcher".
Guadagnino was tempted to remove the scene in which Elio masturbates into a pitted peach, finding it too explicit. Timothée Chalamet was also nervous about the scene, describing it as "a metamorphosis of some of the strongest ideas in the movie" and the key to illuminating the character's "overabundant sexual energy". Despite their reservations, Guadagnino and Chalamet each tested the method by themselves and both agreed it worked so it was included in the film. A scene featuring Elio and Oliver dancing enthusiastically to The Psychedelic Furs' song "Love My Way" in a small bar is not drawn from the book but was inspired by Jonathan Demme's Something Wild (1986) and Guadagnino's experience of dancing by himself when he was young. Ivory altered Mr. Perlman's profession from a classics scholar to "an art historian/archeologist type", a decision that Aciman described as "perfect" and "more visual, [...] more exciting, as opposed to what a scholar does at his desk".
When he was revising Ivory's draft of the script, Guadagnino removed the voice-over narration and much of the nudity--he said that explicit nudity was "absolutely irrelevant" to his vision for the film, and that he did not like the idea of having the main character tell the story retrospectively, stating that "it kills the surprise". Towards the end of the novel, the two protagonists visit Rome together; the trip lasts an entire chapter and introduces new characters in multiple locations. Because of the film's limited budget, Ivory and the producers wrote several variations, introducing the idea of having the lead characters left alone in the house; this was changed into another trip in which they spend time alone together. In his original script, Ivory depicted Elio's parents discussing HIV/AIDS in two scenes, and Elio decorating a Christmas tree in his family's home in the final scene. Ivory had to reduce the length of Mr. Perlman's speech but was committed to keeping it in the script. He described the scene in which Elio conveys his feelings to Oliver as one of the moments that captures the "euphoric passion and nervousness" of their first love.
Changes in Ivory's screenplay were made during the filming; the screenwriter was not present at the shooting set. Speaking about the conflict with Ivory, Guadagnino has said: "I understand that for James [explicit nudity] would have been relevant but that is his vision, what is clear is that we had no limitations on what we wanted to do." In May 2018, Ivory said that Guadagnino discussed how to film the scenes involving nudity, but later dropped it. Ivory also criticized the film's lack of nudity, due to the director's "aesthetic decision", which makes him feel dissatisfied and that the film presents a "phoney" version of a same-sex relationship. He said, "To me, that's a more natural way of doing things than to hide them, or to do what Luca did, which is to pan the camera out of the window toward some trees." Aciman was surprised by Guadagnino's final scene where Elio is seen crying by the fireplace. He wrote of the film adaptation: "Cinema can be an entirely magical medium. What I do as a writer, and what Guadagnino does as a film director, is more than speak two different languages. What I do is chisel a statue down to its finest, most elusive details. What a film director does is make the statue move."
Casting
In 2015, Shia LaBeouf and Greta Scacchi were reportedly set to be cast in the film. In September 2016, Ivory confirmed they were no longer involved in the project. LaBeouf had read for the film in New York City, but the production company later felt he was unsuitable because of his personal troubles; although Ivory thought Scacchi and LeBeouf "had good scenes together" and could have made it into the film, the company disagreed.
Guadagnino paid attention to Armie Hammer upon seeing his performance in The Social Network (2010). The director found him to be a "sophisticated actor, with a great range" and considered him for the role of Oliver. Hammer met with Guadagnino seven years before the film went into production, when the director was promoting I Am Love. Hammer almost turned down the role after reading the draft script because it contained nudity. He said, "I did want to pass; it scared me" and "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 [film], mostly because it scares me so much." According to Guadagnino, Hammer was going to pass on the role through his agent, but then changed his mind at the end of their conversation. This is the third film in which Hammer has played an LGBT character, following J. Edgar (2011) and Final Portrait (2017).
In 2013, Swardstrom--Spears's husband and agent--introduced Chalamet to Guadagnino, who immediately felt the actor had "the ambition, the intelligence, the sensitivity, the naivety, and the artistry" to play Elio. Chalamet read Aciman's novel by the time he was 17 and described it as "a window into a young person". Chalamet, who had played piano and guitar for years, arrived in Italy five weeks early to prepare for his part by working with composer Roberto Solci. His character, 17-year-old Elio, is fluent in three languages: English, French and Italian. Chalamet already spoke French fluently, and took Italian lessons and gym workouts during his time in Italy.
Michael Stuhlbarg was cast as Mr. Perlman, Elio's father. Stuhlbarg did not start reading the book until he had already joined the production. He was moved by the "many beautiful sentiments expressed" in the script, including Mr. Perlman's "sense of generosity and love and understanding". Esther Garrel was contacted by Guadagnino when he was in Paris for the promotion of A Bigger Splash. Garrel was cast as Marzia without any test, and chose not to read the book before shooting. Towards the end of the film, Marzia asks Elio, "Friend for life?"-- a line taken from J'entends plus la guitare (1991), directed by the actress's father, Philippe Garrel. "I like the idea of talking virtually with Philippe Garrel through her", Guadagnino said. Garrel spoke French with Chalamet on set; to improve her English, she watched the American sitcom Friends with English subtitles during shooting.
The director chose Amira Casar, who he had known for twenty years, for the role of Annella. He admired her "sense of the transgression" and said that she represents "the most audacious test of European art cinema". Casting director Stella Savino met Vanda Capriolo when Capriolo was bicycling in the countryside. Capriolo, who was not an actor, was chosen to play the maid, Mafalda. Aciman and Spears also appear briefly in cameo roles as Mounir and Isaac, a gay couple who attend a dinner party. Aciman was asked to be in the movie after actors became unavailable. "It was a last-minute decision", Spears recalled, "Andr? turns out to be a phenomenal actor! So comfortable, not nervous at all. His wife was sitting there and said, 'I had no idea!' " The characters switch between English, French, Italian; a scene where Annella reads German translations of 16th century French literature can be seen in the film.
Hammer and Chalamet both signed contracts that prohibited full-frontal nudity. Ivory, whose original screenplay contained nudity, was dismayed by the decision, criticizing what he saw as an "American" attitude and saying, "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, picked actors based on their performances and chemistry rather than choosing to "investigate or label" their sexuality. He said, "The idea that you have to cast only someone who has a certain set of skills, and worse, a certain gender identity in any role: that's oppressive to me."
Production design and costume
The main location set for the Perlmans' residence was Villa Albergoni, an uninhabited 17th-century mansion in Moscazzano. Guadagnino wanted to buy the house but could not afford it, so he made a film there instead. A landscape designer was hired to construct an orchard in the mansion's garden. A pergola was built on the patio, and apricot and peach trees were placed in the garden.
Six weeks before production, the crew--including production designer Samuel Dehors and first-time set decorator Violante Visconti di Modrone--gradually decorated the house with furniture and objects inspired by the characters. Much of the furniture, including the dishes and glassware from the 1950s, belonged to Guadagnino and di Modrone's parents. Di Modrone said, "That made it cozy and personal ... I wanted to give it the sense of time passing by". Most of the Asia-inspired paintings, maps, and mirrors came from an antiques store in Milan. Books seen in background were published before 1982. The swimming pool used in the film was recreated from a watering trough common in the area.
The filmmakers set up faded political billboards in public places to reflect the Italian general election in 1983, and re-created a newsstand full of magazines of that time. Guadagnino did not want the film to "look like a reflection on the 80s ... when it becomes [a period piece]." His team researched extensively with help from the residents of Crema; they entered people's houses and collected their pictures of the 1980s. Chen Li served as graphic designer; she wrote the titles of the opening credits, in which the director used photocopied images of statues and placed them with Mr. Perlman's personal items.
Costume designer Giulia Piersanti avoided using period costumes; he wanted to provide "a sense of insouciant adolescent sensuality, summer heat and sexual awakening" to the characters. Several costume pieces were made for the film from scratch. The costumes were influenced by the French films Pauline at the Beach (1983), A Tale of Springtime (1990), and A Summer's Tale (1996). For the Perlmans' wardrobe, Piersanti took inspiration from her parents' photograph albums. For Oliver's "sexy, healthy American" image, Piersanti referred to "some of Bruce Weber's earliest photographs". His clothes change throughout the film as "he's more able to free himself". Aiming to emphasize Elio's confident style, she chose several Lacoste costumes and a distinctive, New Romantic-looking shirt in the final scene. For Elio, Piersanti picked some items from her husband's closet, including the polo shirt and Fido Dido T-shirt.
Principal photography
Principal photography on Call Me by Your Name lasted around 33 days. It began on May 9, 2016, and was completed in June 2016. Reports of the process only appearing after filming had been underway for two weeks. The film was shot primarily in Crema and the province of Cremona. Photography took place during an unexpected, heavy rainstorm in Italy that was described by Spears as "the coldest, wettest, stormiest time in 200 years in Europe". Scenes set in the nearby villages Pandino and Moscazzano were filmed from May 17, before moving to Crema on June 1. Additional outdoor scenes were shot on December 4, 2016. For the film, the City of Crema invested EUR18,000, including a publicity campaign cost EUR7,500.
The arch of Torrazzo at Crema Cathedral and several historical locations in the streets of Crema and Pandino were chosen during production. Businesses received compensation for financial losses caused by the closure, which was scheduled for May 30 and 31. Two days' filming at the cathedral were postponed due to poor weather. Filming also took place in the Lodigiano area near Crespiatica and two small towns Montodine and Ripalta near Crema. The archaeological discovery scene was filmed at the Grottoes of Catullus in Sirmione on the Brescian shores of Lake Garda. The trip to Bergamo was filmed at the exterior of multiple historical buildings, including Bergamo Cathedral, the Santa Maria Maggiore, the courtyard of Liceo Classico Paolo Sarpi in Piazza Rosate and the University of Sciences, Letters and Arts. The train station scenes were filmed at Pizzighettone. Because of security concerns, the production team was only granted permission to film at the Cascate del Serio in Valbondione for half an hour.
Before and during filming, the actors lived in Crema and were able to experience small-town life. Guadagnino engaged with the cast and filmmakers, and often cooked and showed films for them in his house. Hammer and Chalamet, who did not have to do a screen test together, met for the first time during production in Crema. Before filming began, they spent a month together, watching Mike Tyson documentaries and going to local restaurants 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 said. During the first two days of production, Guadagnino read the script with the cast. Hammer and Chalamet went to the kissing scene during the first rehearsal. The actors rehearsed their scenes every night before filming and spent several days filming nude. "I've never been so intimately involved with a director before. Luca was able to look at me and completely undress me", Hammer said.
- Pictures from some of the filming locations
Guadagnino shot the film in chronological order, which allowed the filmmakers to "witness the onscreen maturity of both protagonist and actor". The scene in which Mr. Perlman delivers an educational speech to Elio was filmed on the penultimate day of filming. Stuhlbarg spent months preparing for the scene, which Guadagnino wanted to make "as simple as possible" by taking fewer setups and "let the actors be". According to Fasano, the scene took three takes to film and Stuhlbarg was "on three different levels of getting emotional". Garrel enjoyed filming her sex scene with Chalamet; she described it as being filled with "joy and simplicity". Chalamet was listening to "Visions of Gideon", one of the original songs written for the film, in an earpiece while filming the final sequence, in which the director asked him to perform for three variations--one per take. The camera was set in the fireplace with nobody behind it. "It was bit of an acting experiment", Chalamet said.
At the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, a memorial to the victims of the battle of the Piave located in Pandino, the filmmakers laid a long camera dolly track and filmed the scene in which Elio tells Oliver of his feelings for him in one take to provide the flexibility and the "flow of emotion" a cut scene could not. The scene was observed by Aciman in his first day on set. During the dancing sequence, Hammer had to perform to the click track in front of 50 off-camera extras; the music was turned down so the dialogue could be recorded. In preparation for the scene, a dance coach was arranged by Guadagnino. Hammer said that it was "the worst scene" he had ever filmed. Choreographer Paolo Rocchi, who was contacted by the Frenesy Film Company in June 2016, described the routine as "awkward and realistic". Rosenman considered the scene one of the most emotional moments; he said "It embodied and encapsulated, for me, what teenage love is all about, what desire is all about."
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, who had previously collaborated with Guadagnino on Ferdinando Cito Filomarino's Antonia (2015), served as the director of photography. He read Aciman's novel before receiving the script and walked around filming locations to "get a feeling for everything ... to see the color, to see how the light changed during the day, and input it into my data". He had to use artificial lighting to capture the Northern Italian summer atmosphere for Call Me by Your Name, to compensate for the heavy rains that lasted throughout the shoot. He empathized with the actors during the confrontation scene between Oliver and Elio; Mukdeeprom cried in a corner of the room when they finished the first take. The film was made using 35 mm celluloid and a single lens--a decision influenced by the work of David Cronenberg to "solidif[y] the point of view" and make "the tension of the performance come off the screen"--even if it meant increasing the production budget. Guadagnino also praised Jean-Pierre Laforce, the sound designer and mixer of the film, for his "wonderful" and "pivotal" contribution to the film. He described the work as "visionary, even though it starts from reality".
Post-production
Fasano collaborated with Guadagnino during the post-production. They had worked together for 25 years since Guadagnino's debut feature The Protagonists (1999); Fasano described working with him as "atypical... very demanding, but it's a great experience." For Call Me by Your Name, post-production took only a month, between June and July--the fastest they had edited. Their first cut of the film was three hours and 20 minutes long; Fasano said that was his favorite cut of the film, and made him "lose [him]self in the story and the images." The final result lasts two hours and 10 minutes; its shooting ratio was 1:25. The process came naturally; Fasano cited the "fast and unexplained" storytelling in Pialat's À nos amours as his inspiration. The monologue sequence with Elio's father once had piano playing underneath,; the scene where the two protagonists bike to a courtyard almost failed to make the cut because one of the producers said that it was inconsequential. Hammer revealed that some scenes were digitally altered to fix his wardrobe malfunction due to his short shorts.
Guadagnino has confirmed a number of scenes that did not make the final cut. There was a "well-acted" scene where Elio and Oliver were "teasing one another" under a lime tree, which the director felt was "too precious". A scene where Elio's parents make love in the bedroom while Elio and Oliver are kissing under the moonlight in the garden was also cut. The latter scene was shown in a screening in Castiglioncello in June 2018, where another cut scene was also revealed, in which Elio invites Oliver to tour the village.
Music
Guadagnino selected the music for Call Me by Your Name himself. He wanted to find an "emotional narrator to the film" through music, in a "less heavy, less present, and more enveloping" way than voice and text. He was inspired by the films Barry Lyndon (1975), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and The Age of Innocence (1993). Guadagnino wanted the film's music to be connected to Elio, a young pianist who likes to transcribe and adapt piano pieces to deepen his relationship with Oliver. Music is used in the film to reflect the period setting, the characters' family life and their level of education, and "the kind of canon they would be a part of". Guadagnino also researched which pop songs had been frequently played on local radio stations that summer.
Guadagnino found that Sufjan Stevens's lyrics resonated with him, and asked Stevens to record an original song for Call Me by Your Name, and to narrate the film from the perspective of Elio at an older age. Stevens declined the voiceover role, but contributed three songs to the soundtrack: "Mystery of Love", "Visions of Gideon", and a re-recording of his 2010 song "Futile Devices". Stevens was inspired by the film's script, the novel, and conversations with Guadagnino about the characters. He submitted the songs a few days before filming began. Surprised by the result, Guadagnino listened to them on-set with the actors and editor Walter Fasano. The project marks the first time Stevens had written songs explicitly for a feature-film soundtrack.
A soundtrack album was released in digital formats by Madison Gate Records and Sony Classical on November 3, 2017, and in physical formats on November 17, 2017. It features songs by Stevens, The Psychedelic Furs, Franco Battiato, Loredana Bertè, Bandolero, Giorgio Moroder, Joe Esposito, and F. R. David, as well as music by John Adams, Erik Satie, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Maurice Ravel. As of February 1, 2018, the soundtrack has sold 9,000 copies and garnered 29 million on-demand audio streams for its tracks in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Release
Call Me by Your Name had its world premiere on January 22, 2017, at the Sundance Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics had acquired U.S. distribution rights 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 that showed the promo reel at the American Film Market in November 2016. The film was screened at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 13, 2017; Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2017; and New York Film Festival on October 3, 2017. At the Beijing International Film Festival, it was originally scheduled for April 2018, but was removed from the official program with no explanation; Patrick Brzeski of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the decision reflected the government's "consistent stance of intolerance toward gay content". That year, the film was tributed at the Crema Film Festival: Aciman met with the public on June 23 and Garrel joined the screening at the Crema Cathedral on June 30.
Call Me by Your Name began a limited release in the United Kingdom on October 27, 2017, and United States on November 24, 2017. It expanded from four to thirty locations in the U.S. on December 15, 2017, and then to 114 theaters on December 22. It opened in 174 theaters in January 2018, before going into wide release in 815 theaters a few days before the Oscar nomination announcement ceremony on January 19, 2018. On the Oscars weekend, the film opened in 914 theaters, its widest release in the U.S.
Warner Bros. Entertainment released the film in Italy on January 25, 2018. Special screenings and a public meet-and-greet with Guadagnino, Hammer and Chalamet took place in Crema between January 27 and 30. The film opened in Brazil on January 18, and in France on February 28, 2018. In March 2018, a distributor in Tunisia reported that the Ministry of Culture has banned the film as an "attack on liberties" because of its subject. In Ireland, it became the longest-running film shown at the Light House Cinema in early June 2018, after a 30-week run. In the Philippines, the film will be screened accompanied by a live performance of its soundtrack as performed by the Manila Symphony Orchestra on October 28.
Marketing
Sony Pictures Classics released an official poster for Call Me by Your Name on July 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" to celebrate National Coming Out Day. The 42-second clip, consisting of a single take of Hammer and Chalamet dancing to "Love My Way" in a bar, became a meme on Twitter. Because of its use in the clip, "Love My Way" gained popularity on music-streaming websites and rose 13% on on-demand streams during the two months before the film's release. In the week ending November 30, 2017, the song collected 177,000 on-demand streams, its biggest streaming week in the U.S.
Reaction to the advertisement on social media was somewhat negative, largely because of Sony Pictures' misleading use of an image of Chalamet and Garrel instead of a focus on the protagonists' relationship. Daniel Megarry of Gay Times described it as "an attempt to 'straight-wash' the movie's predominant same-sex romance"; Benjamin Lee of The Guardian called it a "disastrous attempt to push Oscar-buzzed Call Me by Your Name as a straight love story", and said the advert "belies an industry awkwardly denying queerness". Sony Pictures Classics later aired several commercial spots to promote the film during its U.S.-wide expansion on January 19, 2018. In South Korea, Sony Pictures released several never-before-seen photos taken on set, along with pastel promotional pictures, illustrated by Son Eunkyoung in March 2018.
Home media
A pirated copy of an awards-screener DVD of Call Me by Your Name, along with copies of Last Flag Flying and fellow Oscar nominees I, Tonya and Lady Bird, was leaked onto piracy file-sharing websites by the hacker group Hive-CM8 on December 24, 2017. The film was officially released for digital download on February 27, 2018. It was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 13, 2018, with two bonus featurettes ("In Conversation with Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg & Luca Guadagnino" and "Snapshots of Italy: The Making of Call Me by Your Name"), an audio commentary track by Chalamet and Stuhlbarg, and the music video for "Mystery of Love". The film made $1,336,207 in DVD sales and $1,713,563 in Blu-ray sales in the United States, for a total of $3,049,770 in home media sales. In the United Kingdom, the DVD charted at number 7 and the Blu-ray at number 4 on Top 100 sales for both formats.
Reception
Box office
Call Me by Your Name grossed $18.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $23.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $41.8 million against a production budget of $3.4 million. The film was Sony Pictures Classics' third-highest-grossing release of 2017.
In the United States, Call Me by Your Name began its limited run on November 24, 2017, at The Paris Theater and Union Square Theatre in New York City, and the ArcLight Hollywood and Landmark Theater in Los Angeles. The film made $404,874 in its opening weekend--a per-theater average of $101,219. It was the highest average of 2017--the biggest since that of La La Land the previous December-- and had the best per-screen opening for a gay romance film since Brokeback Mountain (2005). In its second weekend, the film grossed $281,288, with an "excellent" per-screen average of $70,320. The film expanded to nine theaters in its third weekend, grossing $291,101 for a "solid" $32,345 per-theater average. It earned $491,933 from 30 theaters in its fourth weekend, averaging $16,398. The film expanded to 114 theaters in its fifth week and grossed $850,736, averaging $7,463 per screen. It crossed $6 million in its seventh weekend, earning $758,726 from 115 locations. It grossed $715,559 from 174 theaters in its eighth weekend, averaging $4,185 per screen.
In its nationwide release week--ninth weekend overall--the film grossed $1.4 million from 815 theaters, an under-performance compared to "some of its competition with similar theater counts," according to Deadline Hollywood. The following weekend, after the announcement of its four Oscar nominations, the film's revenues dropped 6% to $1.3 million. With the total gross revenue of $9,370,359 by the week of January 23, 2018, Call Me by Your Name was the second-lowest-grossing film among Best Picture nominees. Fandango reported that the film had experienced a 56% increase in ticket sales since its Best Picture nomination was announced. Regarding the film's "lagging" box-office performance, Tom Brueggemann of IndieWire commented that Sony Picture Classic "has done an able job so far", and said "at some point the film and the reaction to it is something no distributor can overcome". It grossed $919,926, averaging $1,006, from 914 theaters during the Oscar weekend, and went on to earn $304,228 from 309 theaters in its sixteenth weekend.
Call Me by Your Name opened at number 7 in Italy with EUR781,000, and obtained the best per-theater average of the week. It made EUR49.170 on February 6, and went on to reach EUR2 million by the end of the week. It re-entered at number 10 on March 13 by making another EUR13.731 at the box office. As of July 6, 2018, the film had grossed $3,925,137 in Italy. It attracted 17,152 viewers in France on its first day of screening, with an "excellent" per-theater average of 184 entries. It went on to attract 108,500 viewers in the opening weekend, earning 1,167 viewings--the second-best average of the week; and 238,124 viewers in its third weekend. As of April 17, 2018, the film had grossed $2,652,781 in France. In the United Kingdom, the film earned £231,995 ($306,000) from 112 screens in its opening weekend, including £4,000 from previews. After ten days, it had made £568,000 ($745,000), before reaching the $1 million mark (£767,000) in its third weekend. As of May 21, 2018, the film had grossed $2,372,382 in the United Kingdom.
Critical response
At its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Call Me by Your Name received a standing ovation. When it screened at Alice Tully Hall as part of the New York Film Festival, it received a ten-minute ovation, the longest in the festival's history. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 95% based on 299 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's 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." It was the best-reviewed limited release and the second-best-reviewed romance film of 2017 on the site. On Metacritic, the film has an average weighted score of 93 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". It was the year's fifth-best rated film on Metacritic.
Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Boyd van Hoeij described Call Me by Your Name as an "extremely sensual ... intimate and piercingly honest" adaptation of Aciman's novel, and called Chalamet's performance "the true breakout of the film". Peter Debruge of Variety believed the film "advances the canon of gay cinema" by portraying "a story of first love ... that transcends the same-sex dynamic of its central couple". He compared Guadagnino's "sensual" direction with the films of Pedro Almodóvar and François Ozon, and put Call Me by Your Name "on par with the best of their work". David Ehrlich of IndieWire also praised Guadagnino's directing, which he said helps the film "match the artistry and empathy" of Carol (2015) and Moonlight (2016). Sam Adams of BBC stated that Stuhlbarg's performance "puts a frame around the movie's painting and opens up avenues we may not have thought to explore", and called it "one of his finest" to date. He extolled the film as one of "many movies that have so successfully appealed to both the intellectual and the erotic since the heydays of Patrice Chéreau and André Téchiné".
Ty Burr of The Boston Globe gave the film three-and-a-half stars, commended the director for "broaden[ing] his embrace of humanity while hitting new heights of cinematic bliss", and said that the film "may be a fantasy but it's one that's lovely and wise". David Morgan of CBS praised the cinematography, production design, and costuming for "making a summer in the 1980s palpably alive again". He found Stuhlbarg's character "the most forward-thinking parent in movie history". Richard Lawson wrote that Guadagnino's adaptation "was made with real love, with good intentions, with a clarity of heart and purposeful, unpretentious intellect" and hailed it as a "modern gay classic" in his Vanity Fair review. Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips was pleased by the "wonderfully paradoxical" visual interests from the director and said Stevens's songs "work like magic on your sympathies regarding Elio's emotional awakening". He praised Hammer's performance as one of "the most easy-breathing and relaxed best work of his career".
The Economist noted the tension "between pain and pleasure" in the film and praised Chalamet, stating that he "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". Kate Taylor of The Globe and Mail, who gave the film two-and-a-half stars, also enjoyed Chalamet's effort in capturing "first love and its inevitable heartbreak" and said the "multilingual, almost-pre-AIDS idyll does not stretch credulity ... but it can try the patience". Ken Eisner of The Georgia Straight said that "Guadagnino's lyrical excesses ... can alternate wildly between the poetically incisive and the indulgently preposterous". In a negative review, Kyle Turner of Paste wrote, "The details of the film are too small for anyone, perhaps particularly a queer person, to see"; a visual distance that "suggests that the film, in the beginning, is as terrified as Elio initially is. It never gets over that hesitation." Armond White of Out called the movie "craven commercialism" and a "super-bourgeois fantasy" that "exploit[s] the queer audience's romantic needs by packaging them and falsifying them". Luke Y. Thompson of Forbes criticized its length and called it an "excruciatingly boring travelogue".
Accolades
Call Me by Your Name was selected by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute as one of the top 10 films of the year. At the 90th Academy Awards, it was nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (Chalamet), Best Original Song ("Mystery of Love"), and Best Adapted Screenplay, winning the latter. Chalamet became the youngest Best Actor nominee since 1939, and Ivory became the oldest winner in any competitive category. The film received four nominations at the 71st British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film and Best Direction, and won Best Adapted Screenplay for Ivory. At the 75th Golden Globe Awards, it was nominated for Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama for Chalamet, and Best Supporting Actor for Hammer.
The film received eight nominations at the 23rd Critics' Choice Awards; Ivory won Best Adapted Screenplay. The film led the 33rd Independent Spirit Awards with six nominations, winning Best Male Lead for Chalamet and Best Cinematography for Mukdeeprom. At the 24th Screen Actors Guild Awards, Chalamet received a nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role. The film went on to win the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film - Wide Release at its 29th ceremony. In Italy, Fasano won Best Editing at the 73rd Nastro d'Argento Awards and 33rd Golden Ciak Awards. The National Board of Review, the Gotham Independent Film Awards, and the Hollywood Film Awards awarded Chalamet with their Breakout Actor Awards.
Sequel
Guadagnino has deliberated over the idea of a sequel since the film's premiere at Sundance, when he realized the characters "could go beyond the boundaries of the film". In October 2017, he said he hoped to make a sequel to the film in 2020 that might be in the style of François Truffaut's The Adventures of Antoine Doinel series, telling the story of Oliver and Elio as they age. "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. In the novel, Elio and Oliver reunite 15 years later when Oliver is married. Guadagnino said that in the sequel, "I don't think Elio is necessarily going to become a gay man. He hasn't found his place yet ... I believe that he would start an intense relationship with Marzia again". Guadagnino is interested in the politics of the 1990s, saying, "it would be the beginning of the [Silvio] Berlusconi era in Italy and it would mean dealing with the [first Gulf War] of Iraq". In November 2017, Guadagnino shared his intention to make a series of five films, in which the audience could "see those actors grow older, embodying those characters". A month later, he was reported to have begun writing a script for a sequel that would reveal more about Oliver and resemble Michael Apted's Up series. Hammer and Chalamet have expressed interest in appearing in a sequel, but Ivory has no interest in the material, saying "that's fine, good. But I don't know how they're going to get a 40-year-old [Chalamet]!"
In January 2018, Guadagnino revealed the sequel will be set "right after the fall of Berlin Wall and that great shift that was the end of ... the USSR", and that the first scene in the film could depict Elio watching Paul Vecchiali's Once More (1988)--the first French film to deal with AIDS--in a movie theater. In March 2018, Guadagnino confirmed he will work with Aciman on the sequel, which will take place "five or six years afterwards" with "a different tone" than the first film. He also said that Hammer and Chalamet will reprise their roles with a different backdrop, where they "go around the world". Hammer said he was pitched the script by Guadagnino, saying: "it's not a finished script, but he's got all the ideas for it". In April 2018, Aciman said in an interview for The Sydney Morning Herald that he and Guadagnino were "not sure" about the sequel, saying "[Guadagnino] has quite a few projects in line and so do I. So we are flirting with each other about the sequel but I don't know if we are very serious." In July 2018, Stuhlbarg said that Guadagnino and Aciman were excited the project, and that the director was "serious" about it. He further expressed enthusiasm for reprising his role in the sequel, "I think it would have to be some kind of unique thing from what it was, but I would absolutely be game for trying." Two months later, Hammer said of the sequel in an interview for Variety: "It will happen because there are already people working on it and trying to make it happen."
In an interview for Time in October 2018, Chalamet compared the sequel to Richard Linklater's Boyhood (2014) and said that Hammer, Aciman and Guadagnino were all intended to return for the next film. That same month, Guadagnino revealed that he has asked frequent collaborator Dakota Johnson to play Oliver's wife in the sequel. He described her character as "a New England kind of hoochie woman", who might also have children with Oliver. The director believed the film's title to be "the only problem", saying "It cannot be 'Call Me by Your Name Two.'"
Notes
References
External links
- Official website
- Call Me by Your Name on IMDb
Source of article : Wikipedia
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