Notes on…

Call Me by Your Name(2017)

Dir. Directed by Luca Guadagnino


Q: James Ivory, who won an Oscar for writing Call Me by Your Name, objected to that panning shot.

A. Old age doesn't bring wisdom. That's one of the reasons I love James Ivory, because he's not wise. He has the soul of a kid who always wants more. Maybe when you get more, you become spoiled or you have a tummy ache. But I was a bit disappointed that one of my heroes, the poet Ocean Vuong, criticised the panning because he thought it was betraying the nature of queer love. For me, it was more about a classical gesture of cinema. I watned to be Sirkian. In a Sirk movie, lovers are left alone to love.

— Luca Guadagnino (Interview in Sight & Sound, Winter 2024)

Synopsis: In 1980s Italy, a relationship begins between seventeen-year-old teenage Elio and the older adult man hired as his father's research assistant.