Call Me by Your Name: Perspectives on the Film

by Edward Lamberti (Editor), Michael Williams (Editor)

Overview

This edited collection explores how Luca Guadagnino’s film Call Me by Your Name speaks powerfully to questions of contemporary sexual identity and romance.

Adapted by James Ivory from André Aciman’s novel and directed by Luca Guadagnino, the film Call Me by Your Name has been passionately received among audiences and critics ever since its 2017 release. A love story between seventeen-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and graduate student Oliver (Armie Hammer) and set in 1983 “somewhere in northern Italy,” Call Me by Your Name presents a gay relationship in a romantic idyll seemingly untroubled by outside pressures, prejudices, or tragedy.

While this means it offers audiences welcome opportunities to swoon in front of an LGBTQ+ romance that equals classic heterosexual romances onscreen, its relevance or political significance today may not be immediately apparent. This edited collection points out the ways in which the film is abundantly infused with narrative, thematic, and stylistic elements that can be interpreted as speaking powerfully to contemporary audiences on questions of sexual identity. How does this love story explore wider tensions that exist between the specific and the general, between the open and the hidden, and between the past and the present? The contributors to this collection provide stimulating and contemplative responses to this question.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789389425
Publisher:	Intellect, Limited
Publication date:	11/13/2024
Series:	Trajectories of Italian Cinema and Media
Pages:	350
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Edward Lamberti is the author of Performing Ethics through Film Style: Levinas with the Dardenne Brothers, Barbet Schroeder and Paul Schrader and the editor of Behind the Scenes at the BBFC: Film Classification from the Silver Screen to the Digital Age. He has a PhD in film studies research from King’s College London and is policy manager at the BBFC.


Michael Williams is professor in film studies at the University of Southampton. He is the author of Film Stardom and the Ancient Past: Idols, Artefacts and Epics and Film Stardom, Myth and Classicism: The Rise of the Hollywood Gods. He has published widely on stardom and with a particular focus on queer imagery and reception, and he is also author of Ivor Novello: Screen Idol.

Table of Contents

List of Figures


List of Tables


Acknowledgements


Introduction: Somewhere in Northern Italy – Edward Lamberti and Michael Williams


 


Part I: Style




Temporary Paradise: Queer Space, Time and Pastoral Visions in Call Me by Your Name – Adam Vaughan


‘But You Know, There Have Been Queer Characters from the Very First Film’: Call Me by Your Name and the Long Shadow of James Ivory – Claire Monk


‘Is It Better to Speak or Die?’: Adaptation and Elio’s Interiority – Stuart Richards


Music as Narrator in Call Me by Your Name – Kingsley Marshall


Sex Sounds: On Aural Explicitness in Call Me by Your Name – Sarah Artt


Call Me by Your Name and the Ethics of Distance – Edward Lamberti







Part II: Themes




Call Me by Your Name, Chrononormativity and the (Queer?) Future of Italian Teen Film – Daniel Paul


Plato to Elio: Ancient and Modern Sexualities in Call Me by Your Name – Nikolai Endres


‘Daring You to Desire Them’: Digital Classicism, Star Bodies and Call Me by Your Name – Michael Williams


Call Me Bi Any Other Name: Anal Monstration, Formal Bisexualization, Gay Indigestion – Jacob Engelberg







Part III: Reception




Call Me by Your Name and Film Festivals – Ruby Cheung


Tell Tim Chalamet to Tweet at Me: Timothée Chalamet’s Social Media Silence, Presence and Performed (B)romance with Armie Hammer – Francesca Sobande


The Sexiest Risk-Taker? Armie Hammer, White Masculinity and Call Me by Your Name – Jonathan A. Cannon


‘Finally, a Gay Movie without a Bad Vibe’: Queer Nostalgia, Affection and Gender Identity in Call Me by Your Name – Vinicius Ferreira, Victor Schlude and Gêsa Cavalcanti




Notes on Contributors


Index