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.
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.
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
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