Hi, my name is Michael Stuhlbarg.
I play Professor Perlman in this film you're about to watch,
Call Me by Your Name. And I'm here with...
Timothée Chalamet and I play Elio Perlman.
Frenesy, that's Luca's production company.
I think both of us have seen the film a number of times at this point.
And just seeing the credits come up, honestly, it's...
There's so many people involved in the making of this thing.
So many tax credits. So many shortcuts made
to make about $3 work...
It looks so official to all the font
and all the little insignias. And there's the music.
Now, this font that he uses throughout this opening credit sequence,
I think Luca was walking in Milan past a store front
that he liked the writing on.
And went inside and this person had never
done font outside of a window-front setting.
You're kidding. That's fantastic.
It's funny, 'cause if you see the Sony international posters
and everything they're doing to market the film,
sometimes the title in another language is different
and they've hired somebody to imitate this font.
How funny.
But you can tell it's very slightly off.
That's terrific.
But that says so much about Luca.
He sees something he loves, he leaps at it.
And just says, "We want that, let's use this, let's use that."
I was looking over my notes before we got started here
and I was looking at how his touch has influenced every aspect of the film.
The words that I was meant to say or the scenes, whatever they were about,
he had an impact on them
and they became alive in a different way on the days that we did them.
There's James Ivory's name.
You got a chance to meet James, didn't you?
I spent a week with James upstate, when I was 19,
when it looked like he was still gonna be the director of the project.
And we watched Maurice in his screening room.
- His art is extraordinary. - I always loved that Luca saves
the big, beautiful statue for his name at the end of the title credits.
This was Day 1 of the shoot,
because, very luckily, we got to shoot chronologically
or mostly chronologically.
And it just picks up right in the middle of whatever you're doing,
- which I love. - This is the first take, first scene,
first everything we shot.
We stayed in Crema, while we were there,
and shot in Moscazzano,
where this villa was.
Which is about a 20-minute drive away.
- Professor Perlman. - Welcome, welcome.
That's another instance in which
Luca's camera was in a place
where it was a surprise.
And I don't think that camera was out the window here,
even though that's the point of view. I think they set it up on
the sort of a balcony we see later in the film, that little patio outside.
The clothes, so evocative.
Yeah, Giulia did such a good job, Giulia Piersanti.
IZOD shirts, all over the place, I remember.
That shirt is the shirt of our producer, Momo, whom she's married to.
In fact, 80% of my wardrobe is that.
That's Amira Casar.
In denim.
And I love that it doesn't punch in here
or make something big of the first moment these guys meet.
May I bring your things up to your room?
- Sure. Yeah. - My room?
Luca made a point early on of all of us playing this with great lightness
and fun, as if it was an idyllic time.
I love the way you blow the smoke out there.
- Could that have been planned? - No.
I love this.
- He's like... - Welcome to another place.
Did you have anything to do with the things that were put on the wall here?
No, that would've been Samuel, our production designer.
- Wonderful. - He did such an amazing job.
Yeah, I thought that was you, off to the corner of the room.
I insisted on a picture of myself in the corner of the room.
Yeah, I was thinking maybe that's a rock band that Timmy's a part of.
I love how Armie lies down.
My room is now your room.
And there's that shirt he has that you end up with later on.
We have to share the bathroom.
And this dialogue's straight from the book, I'm pretty sure.
I love the lightness of you there,
just how it comes in, nothing lingers. It's just a moment and it's gone.
Just like this whole movie. Moments and then they're gone.
That's beautiful, too.
I'm glad we get to see you doing a little bit of that.
This would've been the first day, I think, we shot this, as well.
And there, we can see that the weather
was already being slightly unforgiving outside.
Vanda.
She looks like she's a part of the house.
- Extraordinary. Yeah. - One with it.
I think I was doing... When I did this scene, I realised,
just because this shot lingers
for so long as I enter the bedroom, drop the book...
I think I realised for the first time, there's gonna be the permission
and the ability to just be in so many scenes of this movie
and just exist and not really worry
about moving it forward expositionally, but just be.
What a wonderful thing.
That's a great lesson.
I think I discovered that during the course of this, as well.
Sorry.
Yeah.
We're being called for dinner.
Yeah, I'm probably gonna pass.
Do you remember any thoughts you had about
what you were thinking,
about your first impressions of each other at this time?
I remember,
I don't know if it was my actor mind or my Elio mind, but just not wanting
to tip anything too soon. And certainly,
the way it's mapped out in André Aciman's novel,
in the source material,
Elio was very much at first, not put off,
but his homoeostasis has been disturbed by the confidence of Oliver
and how he just drapes his body
over my room without any sort of care or thought that it's my room.
There are these lovely moments throughout.
I love the way he runs his hand across that.
Yeah, isn't that great.
And it's odd, as well,
because I remember things showing up on set that hadn't been there before.
You know, such as tapestries like that,
or, all of a sudden, something new would be there.
You have these microscopic moments of introspection that I love about Elio.
- Look at that shot. - Isn't that beautiful?
Yeah, you see something new every time.
Michael, you would infuse these scenes with such a levity.
That was exactly what Luca wanted.
You know, that's the truth of these situations, of these summer breakfasts.
How delightful to wake up every morning and have
that kind of energy around you and lightness.
And how delightful as an actor,
where the prescription is always to behave naturally
within the given set of circumstances.
And the given set of circumstances here is to have a...
- Breakfast. - Big, beautiful breakfast.
- Tap on your egg. - Tap on your egg.
Have some peach, have some juice. Have some espresso.
None of our residents has ever had a local bank account.
Really?
Should I take him to Montodine?
I think they're closed for summer vacation.
I know a lot of people have seen the film and they reference
the fact that Oliver gets a local bank account
as something that feels very true
- to a summer stay in a foreign place. - Interesting.
Pomegranate.
I remember Luca saying that
those newspapers, as well, had news of the day.
He was very specific about what he wanted on the outside,
so that there would be glimpses of the period here and there.
And that the news being reported isn't the most optimistic of news.
Rather, if there's any sort of sombre through line in the movie,
- it'd be in the front pages. - The news.
Right.
You know, when you have a number of shots like these, as a young actor,
when the prescriptions are quite simple, just to ride around the corner,
it helps tremendously when it comes time to do the larger, more dramatic scenes,
‘cause you just find a sense of a rhythm and flow
that's just not there when every scene is some sort of expositional marker.
I love that about what this film does. It lets you breathe.
This was the town centre of Crema, where we were shooting and living.
And this was the real town centre
for the people that live in the city all the time.
And my apartment would've been right above Oliver, in this scene,
where I was staying throughout the film.
Besides my family, you're probably
the only other Jew to set foot in this town.
I'm from a small town in New England.
I know what it's like to be the odd Jew out.
So, what do you do around here?
Just read books.
Transcribe music. Swim at the river.
- Yeah? - Go out at night.
Is Elio trying to make any kind of impression on Oliver here?
All right, buddy, thanks for the help.
It's fascinating watching this scene because it's...
And I think it's the way a lot of this relationship,
the way it plays out the first half of this movie,
it's just very much a game of masks.
All right, later.
And Elio just being stunned at the way this brash American works.
And very attracted to it, but I don't think he's realised it yet.
- I love the precocious music behind it. - Right, right.
What is this?
These are the continuation of these archaeology department...
These are archaeology?
Yeah, those are archaeology. The rest of these should be history.
Okay.
- More apricot juice? - Yeah.
- Here, tesoro. - Thank you.
Help yourself, darling.
Thanks.
- It's like I can taste that every time. - I can taste it, as well.
And the music's so...
This music could've been playing in all of our heads as we shot this scene.
The word "apricot" comes from the Arabic.
It's like the words "algebra," "alchemy," "alcohol."
I remember the empty weight in the room when they would say "cut."
And there had been such life infused before
and the apricot juice being brought in. And all of a sudden it was...
It's amazing that today in Israel and many Arab countries,
the fruit's referred to by a totally different name...
That room had a life of its own.
- It really did. It really did. - It felt like it was ancient,
stepping into it.
- It really did. - It didn't have to do any work
about pretending to be anything.
However, in the case of "apricot,"
it's a little bit more of a complicated journey.
How so?
Well, here, the Greek actually takes over from the Latin.
Latin word being praecoquum or precoquere.
So it's "precook” or "pre-ripen," as you know.
To be precocious or premature.
And the Byzantines, to go on...
I love that moment.
You can't tell if it's total security on the part of Mr Periman's
or if he has been encroached upon a little bit.
I love the looks between you guys.
That's courtesy of Philology 101.
Flying colours.
I love that moment, Michael.
He does this every year.
That was something we all came upon.
I didn't know if you wanted to say it, but...
No, it was something that Luca, I think,
sort of suggested this as a test
that he does to every student every year.
That was not in the text before. It was wonderful.
Oliver and Elio are wearing sunglasses in this scene.
And I think the funny thing on set that day
was that everybody was wearing sunglasses on set.
Italian crews look about 10 times cooler than American crews.
I love this, too.
Just sort of the boldness that Oliver, all of a sudden...
We haven't seen this yet, but he's somehow or other
been in this establishment before. He's hung out with these guys.
He knows all their names. He's come to play poker with them.
He's made friends that have probably never given Elio the time of day.
I don't know if Elio's ever seen this place before.
It just seems like they've been there forever. They're still there now.
And it was so helpful, I don't know why this was the case,
but all the background actors in this film
never played anything towards the camera.
There was no awareness of the camera.
- Isn't that wonderful? - It was so helpful.
No, no, no, no, no!
All of this seems just so evocative of that time. There's a freeness of,
you know, the late '70s, early '80s,
when there was still an essence of the '70s vibe and everything,
the beginning of IZOD shirts and a new kind of,
I don't know, perhaps moneyed culture coming in.
These people look like they'd all hang out together.
So this moment's very, very specific. It was straight out the book.
And there has to be a moment of attraction
and then a moment of deference.
I had a lot of anxiety about this scene,
‘cause in the book, it's a number of pages
that describe one moment.
- ...relax a little bit. - l am relaxing.
Marzia, come here for a minute.
Back me up here.
- Feel that. Right there? - Oliver.
- It's too tight, right? - Yeah.
I love the dominance of having one's girlfriend come over.
Okay, guys, ready?
Elio walks away here, feels a little overshadowed, a little confused.
Okay, our ball, our ball, our ball.
I remember Luca telling me to keep the props in my hand here,
never put them down before I ran away.
And then watching it now, I get it,
because it adds to the total confusion of the character.
Is Oliver staying with us or going out?
Don't know.
What a movie star!
Tremendous effort in making it seem like
those rocks on the ground weren't painful to the feet.
It worked.
This is so evocative of young men.
It seems like maybe
Elio was just beginning to shave a little bit.
And the big razor he's using.
- We had played soccer... - There's a whole soccer bit here
that they cut.
That's right. Luca had... Apparently, the first cut of this film was...
- Four hours and 15 minutes. - Oh, my God.
Don't you think he's impolite when he says, "Later"?
This is also from the book.
And we shot it the day before and felt like we got it.
But then the light was off, so we had to go back and shoot this.
How funny.
With his... "Later."
Meanwhile, we'll have to put up with him for six long weeks.
Won't we, darling?
I think he's shy.
You'll grow to like him.
What if I grow to hate him?
Oh, no, sweetheart.
- Take his plates away. - Very well, madam.
Amira Casar added so much to this film,
just by the sheer nature of her being
and her fluency in so many languages and her sense of humour
and this sort of combination of the two of us
producing someone like Elio.
This is hysterical, all the '80s commercial, or whatever show that is.
That's Carlo next to me, on the couch.
He's one of Luca's close friends and the producer of a number of his projects.
I don't want to.
Why not?
Because I don't want to.
Why don't you go to Moscazzano with others?
Because I don't want to.
You're spoiling everyone's fun.
I like the idea that Elio keeps himself in the room,
even though he's a total curmudgeon in this scene.
Play well, darling.
Did you practice this stuff?
This was one of the songs that
I worked with Roberto Solci on for a month and a half.
You played all the way through this. Everything is you, isn't it?
- Yep. - That's amazing.
Did you feel a sense that anything you did
under these circumstances was right?
Did you ever feel like, you know, what is this moment about?
Or did you just come in and sort of do it?
No. In fact, I mean, I almost...
And there's a script somewhere that had physical beats plotted out,
but that would've been more...
There's a version of that film that's artificial and actor-y
and based in the control room.
And there's a ton of spontaneous stuff
that didn't make it into the movie because it would've been terrible.
But how great, it's there.
And how great to have a number of takes
and a director you know is not going to expose you for the fraud you are.
- What is that? - We had so many flies.
I thought you could see the fly in this scene.
- It just ran by. - Okay.
I was hoping I didn't just look like a maniac blowing on my...
It's funny, because there's an idea as an actor that the sexual prescription
or undertones of many of these scenes would
maybe put you in your head.
But I know something like this kind of scene is just...
The intimacy made it feel more honest or natural.
How come you're not with everyone else down by the river?
- I have an allergy. It's... - Yeah, me too.
Maybe we have the same one.
Why don't you and I go swimming?
- Right now? - Yeah.
Come on. Let's go.
Do we have to go right now?
- I'll go get changed. - Okay.
We found this blocking very naturally.
How would a young man genuinely hide his erection?
The embarrassment of that.
See you downstairs.
- I love these shots. - Yeah. These shots are amazing.
Our cinematographer, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom,
he had worked on Luca's partner's film. This was his first film with Luca.
The glasses, the Risky Business glasses.
The Risky Business glasses.
And this water was freezing.
And they built that fountain area from scratch.
It was not there before,
but they made it look like it had been there forever.
I think initially there was a swimming pool in the script,
- or in the novel. - Right.
We had this instead.
It's private.
You're not gonna tell me?
I'm not gonna tell you.
He's not gonna tell me what he's thinking about.
Elio.
I guess I'll go hang out with your mom.
We found this very naturally, too. I think Armie just added that line
about hanging out with my mom.
And I said to Luca, I think I should go running over and split them up.
- I love that you push him here. - Yes.
- "Get out of the way." - "Excuse me, excuse me."
All of a sudden, there's a body language between you two
that didn't exist before.
Yeah, and that might be the first moment in the film
that there's a real physical interplay.
So this is about a three-second insert of me playing the guitar,
but this is something I spent a month-and-a-half learning,
with Nicholas Guerrero,
who's a guitar player in Crema.
Play it again, will you?
- Look at the flies. - Isn't that amazing?
I love Elio's irreverence, doing things on his own terms
and your spontaneity that you brought to all of this.
Follow me.
I always laugh at this scene,
because within the prescription of the story,
Elio is riffing these pieces, or it's an improv of sorts.
And the truth for the actor was, again,
that I was sitting in a piano studio for a month-and-a-half
before shooting this scene,
really just trying to get something half of what it's...
To what it's described in the novel.
But you did,
‘cause that's sort of the beauty of what we get to do, is throw ourselves
into the practice of something and then throw it off
on the day we're doing it, if we can.
You want me to play the thing I played outside?
- Please. - Of course.
I remember the ground outside was so hot because of the sun.
And I'm barefoot in this scene.
And before takes, I'd be standing on Armie's feet
and they'd say "action" and I'd say,
"Thanks for letting me stand on your feet, brother.
"Let's go do this scene."
I love the little rock and roll that comes on your face
during the course of that.
I can't believe you changed it again.
- I changed it a little bit. - Yeah. Why?
I just played it the way Busoni would've played it
if he'd altered Liszt's version.
And what is wrong with Bach the way Bach would've played...
Bach never wrote it for the guitar.
In fact, we're not even sure
- Bach wrote it at all. - Forget I asked.
It's young Bach.
Luca told me to swivel around at the end of this.
- And you didn't? You did. - There itis.
The camera just seems to find you there, in the midst of something.
- That door is just... - God, that door. I know...
And this is wonderful, too,
‘cause I wondered how this was going to be done.
What a beautiful way to sort of...
And it felt good. That was actually my writing.
But I know they did a number of takes
of the fan to try to get that just perfectly.
There was a whole scene,
a whole text that was written for the scene that Armie and I have here.
And I was so perplexed on the day,
because the camera was going to be so far away
and I was sort of... "What's going on?"
It's just another texture in the story which I absolutely loved.
And then there's this.
And it was great conscientiousness to get that fish back in the water
- on the day. - Right away, right after the take.
I love that scene because it is unabashed,
non-cynical film-making.
It's just a beautiful shot of a fish and a boy reacting.
There's the teamwork, carrying it into the kitchen.
I love that. It's as if they've been there for years.
I love how Sayombhu's camera lingers on
the world.
Elio.
You sleeping?
I was.
Listen to this drivel. Tell me what you think.
- Wait. - What?
Can't hear you.
"For the early Greeks,
"Heidegger contends, this underlying hiddenness...
- Peaches. - Yeah, foreshadowing.
I loved walking and jumping around these things.
Like the door you alluded to earlier,
everything in this villa was so specific.
Doesn't make any sense to me.
Although, whatever that is, some kind of feather or...
In the air, it's pollen or something that has been blowing around.
That was all just there.
That might be the kindest thing anybody has said to me in months.
"Kind"?
Yep. Kind.
Armie's timing is so good in that scene.
This might be my favourite scene in the film.
There's such openness in Esther's love.
Yes, it's unabashed.
There isn't any strain of maliciousness.
So sincere and straightforward throughout.
It's a beautiful performance.
She and Victoire, as well.
What do I know?
I'd love to be in his shoes.
All the hair.
She wants him, no matter what!
I think these are the first moments
of self-aware percolating attraction.
There's so many songs that were written around that time called "Lady."
Lady-this, this is Lady, Lady, Lady.
And I love the change here.
And that's our editor, Walter Fasano.
That's the editor of the film DJ'ing.
The change in music, there's a sense of the new wave coming in.
Coming?
I'll come later.
I love the...
The blurriness that comes in periodically.
You'll be watching something and all of a sudden,
everything's out of focus, but you don't care.
It just makes you want to look harder.
He seems so grown up in one moment and the next, like a kid.
And the shoes.
And of course, this has been discussed at length already.
Armie is so
fantastically unabashed in this scene and yet,
it was his least favourite scene to shoot in the film
and the one he says that he was most tortured by.
And the truth is, there isn't a song playing as we shot this.
There was a click track, so there's only a click, click, click.
And that is not conducive to...
I don't understand why they can't just play the music underneath.
- I don't understand that either. - But it's great. I love that.
I love that whole number you throw in there.
Are you with me because you're mad at Chiara?
I love that Marzia's picking up on undertones in the relationship
that Elio maybe hasn't even picked up on yet.
Of Oliver.
Turn around.
Had they done this before, do you think?
You know what, no.
I think what Luca had said... I remember Esther was miserable doing this,
because it was night-time
and we really did have no idea what was lingering underneath the water.
I was kind of mouthing to her to catch up as we were swimming away.
And then we'd swim back, she'd get out and she'd...
We almost had sex last night...
Marzia and me.
I love Elio's boldness.
Well, why didn't you?
I don't know.
Well, you know, it's better to have tried and failed, right?
All I had to do was find the courage to reach out...
Some of the language...
Go ahead. Go ahead.
No, I just... Michael, I love you in this scene. I mean,
a more ignorant parent would've
had a more blunted or instinctual reaction.
And the wise parent, Mr Perlman, is...
- Would you like to come along? - I would love to. Thank you.
- Smell this. - Can I come, too?
On the condition you remain silent.
I love the allusion
to stories of Mr Perlman getting exposed by Elio.
God, the bike served
this tone of people coming in and out freely and without regard.
Can you tell him I came by?
I love the simple pink earring that dangles around and playful.
It's so evocative of the period, that colour.
He's a good dancer.
This is a charming, charming scene between the two of you.
Fishing.
Come in.
What's he feeling at that point?
Well, it's exciting to talk to the lover of who you're attracted to.
There's a certain game in that.
A moment of jealousy here.
This looks like a couple of high school seniors,
just bringing their books out of school and making plans.
Dad always sits up front with Anchise to navigate.
A moment for Elio to establish
his autonomy to the region and to the house.
What the rules are.
She's more beautiful than she was last year.
I saw her naked on a night swim once.
Great body.
Trying to get me to like her?
What would be the harm in that?
No, no harm.
Just typically like to go at those things on my own, if you don't mind.
I'll drive today!
I learned a little bit of Italian before I got to Italy,
but my tutor was from the south.
So the bits of Italian that I had to learn, I had to relearn
because there's a difference between the south and the north.
What's going on, boys?
Oliver, come. Sit up front. Be my navigator.
What? What?
To shoot in this region,
I think this was the one region we shot in that wasn't chronological,
but this was maybe one of my favourite moments of the shoot,
was getting to drive to...
Would this have been... Would this have been Bergamo?
It's called the Grotto of Catullus.
I remember that about the place...
But this is in the lake region, is it not? Or was it not?
My mic pack falls out here.
Which is why I always dragged my shirt down.
That's wonderful.
At the top of this scene, I remember, on the day,
because the grotto was called the Grotto of Catullus,
I had remembered an A.E. Housman poem that I had to say
in a play many years ago, called The Invention of Love.
It was a poem by Catullus,
so I threw that in there at the very top of the scene.
It was such a beautiful day, that day.
And that's an extraordinary...
I remember Armie and I found that moment as Armie picked it up.
And then Luca said, "That's great. Let's keep it."
And he said, "Just say ‘tregua,” which means truce.
The ship went down in 1827 on the way to Isola del Garda...
I don't know if you remember, Michael, that they...
We got boated out of the distance first, before they got to bring the camera.
So there was a really lovely moment,
we just spent an hour in the water in that boat,
just rocking back and forth with Armie.
This fellow's at number three.
The Emperor Hadrian had a pair, dug up at Tivoli...
This is quite an acting prescription,
to be reacting to absolutely nothing.
This is our green screen acting in the movie.
God, I think James Ivory and Luca came up with this
two years before the film's conception,
‘cause I don't think... This is one of the few bits that's not in the book.
I think in the book, there was this event,
where they
go see, like, the murdering of fish or something like that.
Elio!
Oliver!
I love this too.
This is one of the last scenes we shot that day.
The energy this scene has is very much what the energy was
on set for some reason.
- Are you going, too? - No, no.
I should stay and do some work on my book.
Come on. How about a drink to celebrate the day?
You know what, that's just so Armie. The end of that scene.
I love how you guys just toss the bikes away.
It's like you've been doing it forever and ever.
It's just wonderful.
And the light.
I never noticed that. Then it gets brighter.
I love these, you know, not conventional shots of bodies
in this film that Sayombhu had set up,
like the shoulder blade there.
That kitchen.
The balcony.
What piece is that? Do you remember?
That's so beautiful.
The Cosmic Fragments by Heraclitus.
That's a voice-over track I laid down in Midtown Manhattan,
five months after we did the film.
The meaning of the river flowing is not that all things are changing
so that we cannot encounter them twice...
I love getting to do this stuff as an actor, too,
because in drama school, again,
it's about antagonism or the conflict of a scene.
And here the prescription was simply to be.
And Luca was always encouraging me to run my hand across the things
I was coming across in the house and at the field of play.
I love the shadow and the light in this shot,
how that corridor was,
at times so dark and at other times so bright.
Sorry, Elio. I brought some clean clothes.
Playing possum, as my grandma used to say.
Leave the door open.
- Thanks. - You're welcome.
There's something else completely going on.
This is another one of those scenes where it felt like I had the gift,
of a minute or two minutes, to plan how the sequence would play out naturally.
And I love this, too, ‘cause there's maybe...
I think we did three versions of this with a bathing suit
that are just different sexual expressions of the same idea.
And the one that made it in
that's gonna come up here is I put it on my head
and lean backwards or kind of arch my back.
But there's a version I like a lot, too, where I maybe ran around the bed
for three minutes. It's tough to describe, especially literally,
but the sheets were all messed up.
And this one was the most succinct of the takes.
This is from the book, as well.
The music of love comes in.
It seems to be
the theme of what Elio's feeling inside.
He hears Oliver's voice
and he comes alive.
There's a very specific mark on the ground there to hit,
or else they wouldn't be able to see Oliver revealed in the shot.
I love that he's hard to see once he passes.
You get a glimpse of him.
That music is so evocative of what's going on inside.
I loved shooting this scene, with you in the mirror, Michael.
This was such a pleasure to shoot.
Darling, have you seen my Heptaméron?
Apparently there was a lot of rain in the shooting of this film,
but I don't remember it too much.
I don't remember it as much, either.
Okay.
Lovely moment that the Perlmans get to share together,
just reading on the sofa together.
You kind of get a glimpse into the kind of lives they've lived for years,
just curled on the couch, telling stories.
So, I'll translate, huh?
I remember shooting this scene
and Amira running her hand through my hair and thinking,
"That is exactly what a mother would do. That's exactly what my mom would do."
"...though she seems not to be entirely aware of it.
"Despite the friendship..."
" that blossoms between them..."
That's another moment of Amira.
- She brought so much to this film. - Yeah, of just
what if there's a joke between the two of them
about this particular word?
It was just a colour that she threw in there.
Wonderful.
"...he's totally unable to bring up the subject of his love.
"Till one day, he asks the princess point-blank..."
"Is it better to speak or to die?"
I'd never have the courage to ask a question like that.
I doubt that.
I love that there's no shame from the guidance Elio draws from his parents.
There's nothing embarrassing about it. There's nothing childish.
My mom's been reading this 16th-century French romance.
She read some of it to my dad and I the day the lights went out.
Yeah, about the knight that doesn't know whether to speak or die?
Right.
Of course, he knows that.
More smoke and mirrors.
But she's on her guard.
She senses a trap somewhere.
So, does he speak?
No.
He fudges.
It figures. He's French.
- I think they added that the day of. - l love that.
I gotta go to town in a little bit to pick some things up.
I can go. I'm not doing anything today.
Then why don't we go together?
Right now?
Yeah. Right now.
That is, of course, unless you have more important business going on.
"That is, of course, unless you have more important business going on."
I love that.
The Talking Heads shirt, too,
and the cassettes.
- Mind if I put this in your bag? - Yes, please.
I straightened the wheels and inflated the tires.
Perfect. Thanks.
I fell. I was coming home the other day, and I scraped myself pretty badly.
Anchise insisted on applying some sort of witches' brew.
I think it helped.
I love that this scene is ostentatiously about a wound,
but it's really about getting a stare at someone's nice body.
That was a tiny door. You guys navigated that really, really well.
Hold this for a second, will you?
Riding your bikes through it.
So this is a scene that we had rehearsed and decided to do in one shot,
but Luca didn't have enough track
to do it in one shot, so he put a call in to the production office in Milan
and they agreed to send enough track
but that it was going to take about two hours to send,
so we rehearsed this scene maybe six times.
We all broke for lunch. We all sat in a cafe.
Not the one in this shot here, but opposite in the square.
And when it came time to do it, which is what we're watching here,
we maybe had an hour to shoot this
in two or three takes. I mean, this was the second take.
Not bad, huh?
Not bad at all.
I thought you didn't smoke.
I don't.
- So, World War Il, huh? - No. This is World War I.
You'd have to be at least 80 years old to have known any of them.
I never even heard of the Battle of Piave.
Battle of Piave was one of the most lethal battles of World War I.
Hundred and seventy thousand people died.
Is there anything you don't know?
I know nothing, Oliver.
Well, you seem to know more than anybody else around here.
Again, the nightmare, as an actor, would have been
to do this scene a foot from Armie in a bunch of close-ups.
I don't know any actor that could have pulled that off.
But instead, Luca gave us a prescription to treat this monument
almost as a metaphorical barrier between the two boys here.
Why are you telling me this?
‘Cause I thought you should know.
Because you thought I should know?
'Cause I wanted you to know?
Because I wanted you to know.
This repetition of the line, is that in the text or is that just you?
Luca had said... As I walk by the monument,
he said, "Repeat it to yourself a number of times."
This is all one shot.
The bus going by.
And the bus, Luca had said in Q&A's, was to serve as an interrupter,
another signifier to break the tension.
Are you saying what I think you're saying?
I love the idea that if you are at a distance,
these boys might just be having a conversation,
but up close and personal,
you know what they're talking about.
- Religion. - Yeah, it was...
I was always curious about that moment.
The production design in the ceiling
of those posters to the side is just perfect.
They mixed up all of my pages.
I'm gonna have to retype this whole thing.
I'm not gonna have anything to work on this afternoon.
I love those lines. They have nothing to do with anything.
Shouldn't have said anything.
Just pretend you never did.
Does that mean we're on speaking terms but not really?
It means we can't talk about those kinds of things.
Why do you think Elio is so bold here?
The thrill of getting to be the younger lover.
Oliver's in the position of responsibility.
I get to decide whether to put a seatbelt on or not.
Hey.
Let's go, American!
If I had hit that car door, that would have ruined the whole take.
Nope, just would have been Elio, hitting the car door.
I love the movie magic of this shot, and it's a gorgeous road
we take off on
and they set the camera up right next to a trash processor.
Off to the left here, there's a big, loud...
Funny. I love that this lingers, too,
and you want to watch them the entire way.
Armie overtakes me.
It's hard to keep up with someone that big and fast and strong.
And the camera just watches.
Pretty much.
I don't know if this woman was employed that day or if she was just...
This might have literally been her home.
Well, a glimpse into the generosity of the area, though.
- A more innocent time. - Yeah.
Il Duce.
"People of Italy!"
Benito Mussolini.
- Armie's nickname for Luca. - Which is what he would call him.
- Thank you. - You're welcome.
Beautiful.
This is one of the few over-the-shoulder shots
of the movie where Sayombhu put the camera on.
It's very brave
to be riding that bike on such a rocky road with no hands.
Come on!
And the way he pops off that bike.
This was an incredible location to shoot at.
I tried to petition Luca in this scene
to not make me say the name of the mountainous region in the north
and he said, "Nope, you're saying it."
This is my spot. It's all mine.
Come here to read.
Can't tell you the number of books I've read here.
Straight from the book.
Oh, my God, it's freezing.
Spring is in the mountains.
The Alpi Orobie.
The water comes straight down from there.
I like the way you say things.
I don't know why you're always putting yourself down, though.
So you won't, I guess.
I like the idea that Elio was unrelenting
and even when Oliver lets his guard down a little bit,
perhaps generously, Elio jumps in right away.
There he is, jumping right in, face-first.
I love that about your entire performance.
You're making things very difficult for me.
I love this aspect of it, too, the playfulness between you two.
I love this, Oliver.
And this shot is almost a direct homage to James lIvory's Maurice,
and there's a very similar shot of the two lovers in the grass.
Us, you mean?
It's not bad.
I love that the film doesn't show us or tell us everything that's going on.
It allows us to have our own sort of
dialogue in our mind as to what we think is going on.
How much of this was directed and how much of it was just you guys?
There's a take where I don't lick his face first before kissing him.
- But... - Yeah, he plays with you.
Better now?
I know that the most important beat of this
is that Oliver is the one to step away and that there's a strong moment
where Elio tries to reignite it right there.
I know myself. Okay? And we've been good.
We haven't done anything to be ashamed of,
and that's a good thing.
I wanna be good.
Okay?
Am I offending you?
Just don't.
I think it's starting to get infected.
"Look at my body again."
We can stop by the pharmacist's on the way back.
Under the illusion that it's broken or bruised.
I love this scene.
Because we don't do anything but talk, talk, talk.
- This is all Luca. - My God, I love you.
We have five parties that do nothing but fight.
Smoke and shut up! Let them speak, him, her.
I'd like to know what they think too.
Annella, what do you think? A five party government!
Darling, I think it's the historic compromise...
Don't say that. Compromises are tragic.
And it's true, at the time, Italy's government was in total turmoil.
You've changed since you inherited this place.
What's that got to do with it?
What are you saying?
You're mad, darling.
You asshole!
- She's right. - And you don't say anything to her.
These two are remarkable theatre actors that Luca knew
and wanted in the film. They wanted to touch upon
these things. I'm sure he'll tell you all about it.
Cinema is a mirror of reality and it's a filter.
They broadcast The Phantom of Liberty with constant interr...
Everyone loves Buniuel!
Let's hear his opinion.
They were remarkable.
They just came in and did this over and over and over again.
Do you have an impression?
Darling, he's American.
That doesn't mean stupid!
I love it, they cut to him...
Just stop.
I don't give an easy ride to some politicians.
This is so subtle, too, in ways I love.
I'm going to go mad.
What's the matter?
What's wrong?
It's nothing. It happens all the time.
The minor debilitation that is a nosebleed.
You get used to absolutely everything.
But it's really the event of the scene, which is fantastic.
This is lovely, too.
This is a little side nook that the house had.
There's a tiny little bar area.
This is where Michael comes out, earlier in the film, with the drinks.
Serving some cognac or whiskey, whatever it was.
This is one of the rare
over-the-shoulder shots in the movie, too.
The camera was on Sayombhu's shoulder.
Don't you realise you're mixing everything up?
And they continue.
Yes, the idea that they haven't stopped talking once.
Completely clueless as to what's going on.
Elio.
You all right?
Sit for a second.
If you insist.
- That wasn't my fault, right? - No.
I'm a mess.
Well, the kitchen table sure is.
Where did this stuff come from, the toe thing?
- This is from the book. Wonderful. - Is it?
Where did you learn to do that?
My bubbe used to do this for us when we were sick.
Trust me, it helps.
I used to have one of these.
- You used to? - Yeah.
How come you never wear it?
My mother says we are Jews of discretion.
That's a favourite line from the book.
I guess that works for your mother.
Funny witch.
What is that?
It's a line we looped ‘cause what I said was too inappropriate.
I hope not.
I always wondered what that was, it goes by so fast but I was...
I love this moment as well.
Hey, are you leaving?
- Where's Elio? - He's inside.
He had a bit of a nosebleed during lunch, and he's just resting.
- Really? - Yeah.
- Okay. Bye. - I'll be back in a minute.
Don't go anywhere.
And I love that, "Don't go anywhere."
He waits just as long as he has to wait.
You okay?
"Come help me."
I love that.
Are we going out?
I don't know if I can go out. If my mom sees, she'll worry.
- She will? - Yeah, she's a pain.
These girls could have chastised me between takes
for being too
something.
And now we see Elio
with his star.
It's so beautiful, subtle.
I love this scene. I remember at the top of the film,
Luca telling us to try to find the comedy where we could.
All right.
I'm going out tonight.
- Don't make me worry. - What are you talking about?
I love that.
- Let him do his own thing. - Fine.
Why's she hassling me? I'm 17.
A member of the family. She's probably nursed Elio from a baby.
We sat on that bench, I think, the very first day we got to the villa.
In fact, there's a picture of Luca giving us notes on that bench.
I remember that.
I think he likes you too.
Amira has a perm in that picture.
She had decided to change her hair afterwards.
A while ago.
I always think for a moment when she does that,
that she's going to tuck it back into your shirt instead.
Or acknowledge it, but it's just unspoken.
This music is so evocative in this moment.
And I love that Vanda is still hard at work,
although her pace here, I'm just realising now
it's the end of the day, it's a little bit slower.
Isn't that beautiful?
I wonder how long Elio's been sitting there?
I'm waiting for Oliver,
There's a wonderful
mistake, or, not mistake, but act of God I guess, here.
Yeah, they said the film came back a little damaged,
but they found it to be a great gift, Walter and Luca.
Like inner turmoil, whatever's going on in the story.
I love that it's still there.
That film lets the light in. We shot on film.
It lets the light in and whatever happens,
becomes imprinted on the film.
It's really rare that music can reflect
the inner life of things that's going on,
and his songs in this film are extraordinary.
This is one of the beautiful songs that Sufjan Stevens contributed.
A week before filming,
we all sat down in Luca's living room and listened to this
and Visions of Gideon, the other song he sent.
To be awake would be embarrassing.
It's one of the great things about André Aciman's novel,
things like pissing in a toilet that are typically unattractive
have a weird, alluring effect in the mind.
Traitor.
Music coming in.
I love that capturing somebody, we don't know what this is.
It's just a moment...
And then we're onto something else.
All those magazines and books,
those were all specifically put down on that table.
Everything in the room, nothing was extraneous,
the heaps of books the Perlmans had everywhere.
- Hey. - Hi!
It's me. Is that Marzia?
Sure it is! Can't you tell?
I love it. They haven't been spending any time together.
It's like you forget what somebody's voice sounds like.
This shot picks up in the middle of what we shot.
I remember just coming back, but we did shoot a bit
where I also leave and...
Is that for me?
Thanks.
What is the book, do you know? That's okay.
I love that passageway.
- From the Piazza Center... - This was off the town centre. Exactly.
...that led deeper into one part of the town where we all stayed.
If you walk to the left,
my apartment would have been upstairs and this is where...
This is right in front of Armie's villa,
right in front of Armie's apartment, rather, and Luca's villa.
...people who read are...
kind of secretive.
Esther brings such
a great casual
off-the-cuff delivery to everything that she does.
The character is simultaneously so vulnerable
but powerful, too.
Why?
Because...
I think...
you're going to hurt me,
and I don't want to be hurt.
How lucky you are to be able to speak a foreign language.
There's something about being an English speaker and watching
a foreign language, it just seems oddly to me somehow more real.
It's just a different way to communicate.
You're so hard.
I love that
she instigates a different sexual energy here that I match
and then Marzia just becomes
a little flustered and wants to take it a little bit.
Have you had to do any scenes like these before?
- Not like that, no. - No.
Must have been nerve-wracking.
'Cause this just captures the time in their lives so beautifully.
This was very much supposed to be her first time.
Instant shame.
That's such a great camera shot as well.
You guys are so lovely in this.
What's so funny? Why are you laughing?
Fuck, that felt good.
- Was any of that scripted? - No, that's all just talking.
Fantastic, that's so great.
- This is wonderful, too. - This is straight from the book.
God, it's totally Luca's genius in working in the voice-over,
but this was one of the parts of the book, the obsession,
and it would've been really hard to translate to film
in lesser hands than Luca's.
I was given a lot of professorial dialogue as well
that all got extricated away
from the telling of the story, which is rightfully so,
wonderful in the novel but unnecessary in this telling of the story.
All Luca's.
I love that shot.
Feels Hitchcockian or something.
I love that it only lingers for a moment and now we're into somewhere else.
And do you remember, Michael,
how specific the timing had to be of this sequence?
Yeah.
And this might have been the scene we did the most in the film.
I don't play poker.
Several hundred colour slides of our boxer and the others like him
arrived yesterday from Berlin.
There was a whole other scene that was taken out of this as well
about poker playing.
Armie had been off playing poker the night before
which I had forgotten about.
I love Oliver's exhaustion here,
and Mr Perlman's relentless enthusiasm for the subject at hand.
Most likely sculpted under the influence of Praxiteles.
Right.
- Lot of cigarette smoking in this film. - Lot of cigarette smoking in this film.
Don't smoke cigarettes, kids. No, I'm kidding.
The art is so extraordinarily beautiful though.
God, it's fun for me to even watch this moment 'cause
it's just so exciting when I wanna...
I love that you don't need to read it and that we hear what it is.
When a lover
throws the tennis ball back, that is a thrilling feeling.
And the Elio spin. Which reoccurs, which I love.
Grow up. I'll see you at midnight.
Muscles are firm. Look at his stomach, for example.
Not a straight body in these statues. They're all curved.
Sometimes impossibly curved. And so nonchalant.
Hence their ageless ambiguity.
This could be a description of Oliver.
"Is he trying to provoke me?"
- This shot, it's so weird, I love it. - It's so great.
Don't forget, Isaac and Mounir are coming for dinner.
- Also known as Sonny and Cher. - Okay.
I'd like you to wear that shirt they gave you for your birthday.
We debated back and forth whether it should be Sonny and Cher.
I think in the novel it's Laurel and Hardy.
If Oliver thinks I look like a scarecrow in it,
I'm not wearing it.
Oliver?
Hey, what time you got?
It's 2:00.
I love the complicity.
- Later. - Later.
- Barely fits through that door frame. - Yeah, so funny.
Mafalda.
She's amazing.
And they're all charmed by Oliver. They all love him.
She was stunned and instantly
- glad to see that it's him. - Delighted.
In the outdoor.
I love how far he is already when he gets back down there.
This stuff was a lot of fun to shoot with Esther,
and Luca just said try to go in and out of the water as much as possible
with your intertwining bodies.
Perpetually looking at that watch.
Hello, Mafalda.
Marzia.
She's witnessing the whole thing.
Where are we going?
You'll see.
- Where do you guys go here? - This is in the attic.
The idea being that
what the cove is, or not the cove but...
I love the playfulness.
If Armie was too lazy to smoke a cigarette outside
while we were shooting,
he would just go up to this attic and smoke one up there.
I don't think I ever saw it the whole time we were there.
You smelled it.
The attic, not the cigarettes, my apologies.
You didn't smell the attic. That'd be weird.
- I love the dust that emerges from this. - Fantastic.
They don't care.
I remember Luca speaking about the song on the radio as well and how specific
he was about what he wanted it to be,
that it was unique that that song would have been played at that time of day.
I remember I couldn't get this fucking watch
to just land the way I wanted it to land.
But how great is that?
And here you go, heading into another intimate scene.
Is it any trepidation just sort of throwing yourselves into it?
You guys seem to have a great trust between the two of you.
Yeah, and it certainly is the...
By requisite of what the characters are going through here,
I'm leading the dance a little bit so...
And the only thought before the take or during the take is
that Esther as an actress is comfortable
and nothing is crossing any lines that we'd set out in advance.
But the cunnilingus that's performed is very much true to the novel as well
because the experience they have formatively isn't intercourse
but it's something like this, and then I'll look at the watch here.
Again.
And I love the idea here that
they've already made love but that they cannot stop going at it.
The youthful bodies exploding with hormones.
I love her.
Her messy hair.
It's pretty obvious what they've been up to
and they have to come over and say hello.
I think this is known as the walk of shame.
- How are you, buddy? - Hey!
This is Peter Spears, one of the producers of the film.
He made this film happen, and that's André Aciman.
André Aciman is the author of the novel.
So, Peter is in pink and André is in blue.
Hello.
- Marzia, remember Isaac? - The girl from Paris?
This was all improv'd dialogue.
No, no. I have to go.
- You're sure? - Yes.
- Have a nice evening. - Thank you.
Goodbye.
He still steals a kiss.
Now, what is this that you're pointing out?
I think the idea is that there was some china
that perhaps they had sent as family friends
- on the table in the distance. - Okay.
- Yes, you can. - It'll look like a put-up job.
And I love this scene, Michael, this was fun to shoot.
No... No laughing. When I tell you to play, you'll play.
You're too old not to accept people for who they are.
What's wrong with them? What's wrong with them?
You call them Sonny and Cher behind their backs.
- That's what Mom calls them... - Then you accept gifts from them.
The only person that reflects badly on iS you.
Is it because they're gay or because they're ridiculous?
An audience favourite, that line.
If you know as much about economics at Mounir's age...
Did we give this scene any idea of playing it
more seriously or dramatically? No, that would have been wrong.
I don't think so. I think it was sort of one of those things...
I think, from what I can sense is, that
Professor Perlman gets such a kick out of Elio
that as serious as he wants to be
and as, you know, rigorous a parent he chooses to be
in moments, or the absence of rigour,
he can't help but adore his son's irreverence and playfulness.
But he has to keep a straight face when he says things like that.
I touch my eye to wipe some sleep away there for a moment.
- I always loved that moment. - Lucas said, "Keep that, keep that."
He's all about capturing whatever the natural moment is.
And I love how the music picks up here as Armie emerges.
There was something so surreal
even when we were shooting this scene, it felt like a...
In a very warm way, but a ceremonial goodbye to
the boy's virginity and innocence to some capacity.
- I guess it is that. - But with all the...
"And here's your watch. Don't forget your watch."
And I always figured that watch moment was maybe a...
The most subtle of moments
of understanding from Mr Perlman.
And we get a glimpse into
the private life of the Perlmans
and how much fun they have and how important it is for them,
I don't know, to bring in people from the outside world
and how much joy in life they have.
That shot right before this one, Armie might take a hundredth of the frame.
He's tiny in that shot
and yet he's everything.
You could survey most of the house from that place.
And people would gather up there sometimes.
I'm glad you came.
And Visions of Gideon is brought in for the first time.
This almost seems in slow motion,
the creeping.
It's ‘cause we didn't want you to hear.
This scene was a lot of fun to play.
It's nice.
In the book and in the movie, but it's not clear,
and that's not it, that's a joint, that's not a cigarette.
Unfortunately, we never punch in close enough to see that.
That's okay.
You okay?
Me okay.
That's from the book, too.
- Can I kiss you? - Yes, please.
I think it's so funny and so important
for the playfulness to still be there,
and you guys are just so full of it. I love that.
Just a random moment that presented itself.
As an actor, those are just the greatest of gifts,
can't anticipate it, can only react.
And the stillness and the whole way when those trees aren't moving
and the light's not coming through and this is another lovely moment caught.
What are you doing?
Nothing.
Does this make you happy?
You're not gonna get a nosebleed on me, are you?
I'm not gonna get...
I remember when we were blocking this out,
and we were trying to kiss where I was way above him,
but then we mapped out that
I would have to go back down before we started to kiss.
You forget as an audience member in the intimate scenes
that you're watching that there are people all around you
while this is going on.
Or I'll pull it.
It's one of the beauty of how the camera
- just steps away. - Allusion to the time period.
And I wouldn't even try to do it justice,
‘cause Luca will do it when he describes it,
but I love the way he talks
about the sexuality
or lack of sexual close-ups in this film.
This is not about that.
I love that shot, too, prior, you almost don't even know what you're looking at.
Did you guys talk at all about the morning-after idea here?
And we're not quite there yet, this is still the night of...
Okay, sorry.
Call me by your name, and I'll call you by mine.
I was not envious that Armie had to
say the title of the god-damn thing in a line.
- Yeah, and he does it beautifully. - He does it absolutely beautifully.
- That'd be one to butter up. - Yeah.
- Oliver. - Elio.
Yeah, none of that seems at all heavy-handed,
so beautifully just simple.
The blue shirt. Again.
Did we make noise?
Remnants of the lovemaking.
I don't know. Mafalda always looks for signs.
And the anxiety is about Mafalda more than the parents.
You wore that shirt the first day you were here.
I remember Luca telling me to throw that shirt there on that mark
and thinking it was inconsequential but then you see it after.
And then there's that.
So we had scripted the dialogue for this scene almost straight from the book
and it just felt a little heavy-handed and you knew exactly
what this tension that had emerged between the lovers was.
And then we did a take with Luca where we didn't say anything
and this is the one.
And it just plays out a physical dialogue
and as an audience member I find it
to be more illuminating, leaves more to the imagination, too.
I agree.
Let's go swimming.
I love the bagginess of that shirt that you're wearing,
how enormous it seems on your sweater, whatever it is.
And I think Elio unknowingly sees the power
in the relationship at this moment briefly.
Is this in the script, this place, this swimming,
do you know?
It almost seems extra, but it's so beautiful at this point.
It certainly wasn't scripted to be at opposite ends of the lake,
which really is a beautiful visual metaphor.
I think it's something we found on the day.
I remember not wanting to say anything in response to Oliver in this scene
and Luca saying I should say no in response
and now watching the movie, he was absolutely right.
Are you gonna hold what happened last night against me?
No.
It wouldn't have made any sense.
And I like that look back I give him there,
just to make sure he's not too upset.
And the geography of the boys' bedrooms
is described almost exactly like this in the book,
and the fact that we found a place that had a bathroom that...
- Isn't that wonderful? - Lent itself to that... It's incredible.
What do you think's going through his head here?
Well, shirt's come off,
so, and he's just relaxing, he's maybe gonna get in bed, take a nap.
I'm wondering what Oliver is thinking here,
what the moment about calling you back
as you've decided to go to your separate rooms.
There's this again.
I remember Luca telling me to put my arms up, here.
Well, that's promising.
You're hard again.
Good.
- Power seized. - Yeah.
I love that you can see through the door.
And I'm looking through the door. I'm still there.
I don't know how many people noticed that.
That's for, like, the ninth or tenth viewing or something.
It's great.
I love the ambiguity of this moment.
Is it a warm hello, or is it a ploy to get him jealous?
And, Michael, I still see Mr Perlman in the scene, and I wondered
how much does he know? It seems like he's all-knowing, almost.
Professor, I got your note. Thank you for reminding me.
I'm gonna go into town and pick up those typed pages today,
so maybe this afternoon would be a good time to...
Later.
We'll look them over later, before you leave.
Okay. So later.
Later.
Look at Amira.
Oliver.
I always found it interesting in the discussion of the upcoming scene,
there's a guy behind you during this sort of
very intimate conversation that you're about to talk about,
and there's no shame in the talking of it.
I'll... I'm gonna... I'll go.
That man is Stefano,
who has the most delicious restaurant in all of Crema, Via Vai.
That's where Armie had an eight-hour lunch once.
I don't want you to regret anything.
And I hate the thought that maybe I may have messed you up or...
I don't want either of us to pay for this,
- one way or another. - No, I...
It's not like I'm gonna tell anyone.
You're not gonna be, like, getting in trouble.
And that's the shot in this film I see the most of myself in,
with the stuttering and the manicness.
Are you happy I came here?
I would kiss you if I could.
I love watching this in theatres for this moment
because you can kinda feel people tense up a little bit.
Times change.
Thank God we had the partisans.
That's our script supervisor, Rachel.
What do you think of Bettino?
Beautiful shot.
I love Amira's hat in this scene.
I don't know. We'll see.
Anyway, they make the rules.
Pasquinal
Hello.
Hello, ma'am.
- Tortelli cremaschi. - Yes.
Which is a dish of the area.
A little sweet for my tasting,
but it's all right. You know, the book falls apart here.
That Elio is just tossing the pits on the floor.
Was there any sense of trepidation going into this scene?
Luca had trepidations about it because
he thought maybe it worked better as a literary metaphor,
and he just had doubts about it ever making it into the movie.
So, there was not a ton of anxiety because I simply thought,
"Well, if this sucks, it's not be gonna be in there."
We just kinda found this moment because
I don't think any of us realised how hard it is to...
Reach into a peach and take the core out.
Oh, fuck.
I think the idea here was just, how would it actually happen,
and what would actually happen in this kind of scene or scenario.
In that anything comedic or
ostentatious about it would just make it ring untrue.
Love how the music builds up to the moment, too.
Fuck.
You know, he's like, he doesn't know what to do with his hands here.
They talk about, in acting classes, being private in public.
And it just seems the quintessential private in public scene to me,
how you're asked to do something that couldn't be more private.
And that noise is so European to me.
Was it cicadas outside? Not cicadas...
- Yeah, I think so, yeah. - And then those birds...
- Sounded like there was an owl as well. - Yeah, that owl noise...
- Tastes something, something amiss. - It's wonderful.
What did you do?
- Nothing. - No?
Armie's so great in this.
Oh, I see.
You've moved on to the plant kingdom already.
What's next? Minerals?
I suppose you've already given up animals.
You know that's me.
- How much of this is scripted, too? - This was all scripted.
I wish everybody was as sick as you.
This scene was terrifying because...
I'm glad it came out presentably
because I thought, "How does it take this wild turn
"in this fun scene? How does it take this...
"Or in this playful scene?"
- What are you doing? - Stop.
- You're fucking hurting me. - Then don't fight.
So all this is in the script?
This was scripted, yeah.
I just thought it was something that you guys found.
Sorry.
It's okay.
I don't want you to go.
God, we wasted so many days.
Why didn't you give me a sign?
- I did. I did. - You didn't give me a sign.
My friend, Joey, came to the screening the other night
and said this was his favourite scene in the film.
He felt like this scene captured
the lovers comfortable around each other more than any other scene.
And the way you reacted made me feel like I'd molested you.
- I'm sorry. I'm sorry. - No, it's fine.
I just decided I should keep my distance.
I don't know.
I come out here for hours almost every night.
I didn't know that.
And Luca gave me the direction there to put my hand in his shirt like that.
Where is this shot?
This is right off the stairs that lead downstairs
- into the area with the pool. - Oh, yeah.
I love how all the scenes just bleed into each other.
He's gone.
I like that I look genuinely exhausted in this scene.
"For Oliver.
"From Elio."
Elio?
Lady in red.
You disappeared for three days.
I had to work.
Full of shit.
You completely disappeared.
Yeah, I don't know. I just...
I had a lot to do.
Am I your girl?
I love that that's in English.
Yeah, Esther was so good in this scene, because to say a line in a language
that you know is not your own, that is so vulnerable.
I remember we finished shooting this scene, and I said,
"You absolutely murdered that,"
because that is not easy to do.
I would not want that prescription in a scene.
Michael, I just love the energy in this scene.
This is one of my favourite scenes in the film.
Did he tell you to have that energy
or did you guys assume it, lying in the seats like that?
There's just something about getting to lie in the sun, you know?
Makes you behave a particular way.
You get a sense of sexuality between the couple.
You know you've been our favourite student?
Just putting their hand on each other,
and that's just a glimpse into what that scene was.
Yeah, there's more there.
We're all gonna miss Oliver.
Come back? I'm just going home to pack. I'm moving here.
It's such genuine affection between all of us in the making of this film,
but it just seems like it was just...
Oliver, Oliver.
As the time passed, it just felt like
it was gonna be over, and it was a shame.
There was such pleasure.
Later. Later, later, later.
I love the way Amira slaps Oliver's back in that scene.
- I like that you smash my face. - Yeah.
Oh, no.
I love the "better luck next time" look he gives her.
And I love how Armie kinda tells me to
not ask so many questions here when he sits back down.
It just feels so true, even to our relationship in real life.
You know, the pestering on my part and him going, "Leave me alone."
- What? - Nothing.
A lady's staring at the two of you, behind.
- You know, I never noticed that. - Yeah, she's like, "Uh-huh."
And this moment is extraordinary to me, and I don't...
You're in a bus, but for some reason, we're following this trail.
- I'd love to hear what Luca has to say. - Yeah, I would, too.
It's so evocative, and it's...
- l wonder... - What the thought was here.
This was one of the most fun days I've ever had shooting anything.
We took a van to the bottom of this location, that took two hours,
and then there was a separate hike with the crew,
where everybody carried one piece of equipment up to these locations.
There was a lot of hiking in this film, wasn't there?
This shot actually wasn't, because when we were running through there,
it was thorny, So our legs were getting torn up.
And wasn't this, like, a reservoir that had to be...
This was a dam. So, it was an artificial dam, and we had one shot,
you know, we're gonna get to here, with the waterfall.
We had one go at i, and they played one of those
sirens they played in World War Il. They didn't want people to go inside.
- "The water's coming!" - Exactly.
- Isn't that amazing? - This shot here.
This is right when it emerged,
and I think there's a cut here to when it's even...
Yeah, exactly.
Lord, I no longer believe
- We had one shot at this. - It was perfect.
The abandon.
You know, maybe I shouldn't reveal this, but so be it.
I stumble there, and I just became so exhausted,
and Armie runs by me going, "Keep going, motherfucker!"
"I'm sorry, I can't. I'm so..."
Like, I guess they cut before I really stopped,
but I was so exhausted.
And here, you know, one of those rocks I'm hiding behind,
and Armie's hiding behind another one of the rocks.
Just movie magic.
This was our last day of filming. This was in Bergamo.
Oh, God.
Where do they go in the novel? When they take that trip together?
- Do you remember? Right. - To Rome.
A room with a view.
I love these little moments. There's no way to fake this.
This is all just...
It's all just self-protection.
This was a lot of fun to shoot.
Understand I'm feeling low
I remember shooting this and thinking,
"Il hope they can get the rights to that song."
It's great.
This is where we're supposed to be drunk here,
and this is the last day of shooting,
and we all had gone out to a dinner maybe a block from this location,
and there was certainly wine and things of that nature.
I love the idea that
they're fully giving themselves to each other.
- No, don't even wanna let him go. - You're away from home.
Come on.
And the two actors in this scene here are the leads of
Luca's partner, Ferdinando's film.
You are...
That dancing she does, it's so evocative of the period.
I love it, I love it.
Mods, or something about it.
I was talking to someone about this scene,
that I look scorned here or jealous, and that was never really my intention.
I think it was just supposed to be more,
again, just in awe of this guy who's so unabashed,
and less that he's gone off with a girl.
Stumbling away.
All right, this sequence coming up was tough to shoot,
because I already had a mouthful of puke in there.
And you just don't wanna reveal to the audience
that you already have a mouthful of puke.
So, it's tough.
Trying to act like you don't have a mouthful of stuff.
What'd she say?
It's a new road
I follow...
Throwing up on camera is always hard because there's just never enough stuff.
No.
Gotta go method. No, I'm kidding.
This shot is extraordinary to me.
- Where the light is, there's a car... - It's just feels too good to be true.
It's like a painting.
This is the last shot we did in the movie.
This was the last scene we shot.
This was tough to get. We did a number of takes of this Kiss,
because it's supposed to be, you know,
maybe the most unabashed kiss between the lovers in the movie,
but that's tough to play, and there's no way to...
When it's overdone, then it becomes less real.
So we had to do a number of them where we weren't doing too much.
You can see the film flickering there on the left.
And the blue...
This is my favourite scene of Armie's in this film
because I would never know how to play this,
and he plays about 6,000 emotions here.
I love this, and I don't know if Luca planned it or what,
but that's the only place that appears in the entire film.
It's almost Elio's dreams or something.
I love the blurriness
throughout these scenes.
And what's going through his mind here? That always kills me.
I can never tell if it's guilt or worry about Elio, or if he's in...
Or if he's in so much pain that he's worried... If it's about himself.
Did you get your passport?
Not guilt, empathy for Elio.
Well, it's like you said, 6,000 things.
So glad there weren't a bunch of lines here...
- Me, too. - ...to indicate what's going on.
And then he starts pulling away, and it's not time yet.
One more hug.
You guys plan anything for this, oris it just...
No, this is how it played out.
No time to linger. The guy comes immediately.
I love this final look.
Yeah, doubt.
I love it that he doesn't open the window and extend the moment.
And wave, right.
You look so young in this moment. It's that yellow backpack. It just...
It's unrelenting, the train.
I loved doing this scene. I just know this feeling so well.
That sense of abandonment
- and emptiness. - Sick, sick to your stomach.
I love the woman in the background in this scene.
Again, I can't remember if she was employed or if she was just there.
One of those million things that just happened, seemingly.
Mafalda?
Mom?
Yeah, it's me.
Yeah, everything is fine. I'm at the station...
in Clusone.
Do you remember if you did a lot of takes of this?
We did two.
Can you come get me, Mom?
Amira was so generous here.
It's always easier to do this kind of scene when you're in it with someone.
What they see.
Now the lady in red is in blue.
And at his most vulnerable, she comes.
Was any of this improvised?
How are you?
Good.
I read the book you bought me.
The poems...
They're really beautiful.
I love that... Antonia Pozzi.
I'm sorry, excuse me...
that you're sad.
I don't remember if her character is French in the novel?
Italian.
One of the cheats to
- help me speak a language I can speak. - That's wonderful.
Hardly a cheat.
I love you, Elio.
Stay friends?
This is an ode to a film that Esther's father directed.
It's a shot that's exactly the same.
Beautiful.
Luca's talked about that in some Q&AS.
And I love this moment getting out of the car here.
And there's a bit of dialogue that we did as well,
but we cut out of it before.
I think the idea is established that
the help in the house have very much been a part of this romance.
This shot is always... It just kills me.
How does it communicate how the coldness and the...
Where love was.
Watching you sit there earlier.
That wallpaper.
Missed you at dinner.
They put all that up.
That was in the novel.
And Mr Perlman likes to throw things around.
I like the beginning to this scene
because it's very much the lead-up to...
So...
Welcome home.
Thanks.
- Oliver enjoyed the trip? - Yeah.
I think he did.
You two had a nice friendship.
Yeah.
You have that shirt on, the nice weekend shirt that you wore earlier.
You're too smart not to know how rare,
how special what you two had was.
Oliver was Oliver.
Tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe.
Because it was him.
Because it was me.
Oliver may be very intelligent but...
He was more than intelligent.
What you two had,
had everything and nothing to do with intelligence.
He was good.
You're both lucky to have found each other
because you, too, are good...
I think he was better than...
I think he was better than me.
I'm sure he'd say the same thing about you.
Yeah. He'd say the same thing.
It flatters you both.
And when you least expect it,
nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot.
Just remember, I am here.
Right now, you may not wanna feel anything,
maybe you never wanted to feel anything.
And maybe it's not to me you'd want to speak about these things
but feel something you obviously did.
Look, you had a beautiful friendship.
Maybe more than a friendship.
And I envy you.
In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away.
Pray their sons land on their feet,
but I am not such a parent.
We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster,
that we go bankrupt by the age of 30.
And have less to offer, each time we start with someone new.
That's one of my favourite lines in the movie.
But to make yourself feel nothing
so as not to feel anything.
What a waste.
This all comes straight from the novel.
Have I spoken out of turn?
And I'll say one more thing,
it'll clear the air.
I may have come close
but I never had what you two have.
Something always held me back
or stood in the way.
How you live your life is your business.
Just remember,
our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once,
and before you know it, your heart's worn out.
And as for your body,
there comes a point when no one looks at it
much less wants to come near it.
That's another one of my favourite lines.
Right now, there's sorrow, pain.
Don't kill it,
and with it, the joy you felt.
Does Mom know?
I don't think she does.
I love that moment, whether he's telling the truth there or not.
I remember feeling...
Tremendous relief.
A great sense of intimacy and quiet,
and that it felt like an opportunity to just talk to each other.
Just talk.
This is so beautiful.
This almost looks like a...
One of those extraordinary, I don't know, Ansel Adams.
Luca likes to brag about how much it costs him to put together the shots.
They're really beautiful, so they were worth every penny.
I think bragging in the how-little-spent department is even better.
Even better.
New romantic, Elio.
I was bummed, those exterior shots we just saw,
they were supposed to bring me back to Italy for during the winter.
I was supposed to be walking through them,
but then I think a certain budgetary constraint didn't allow that.
So how did they capture... What is that?
I think they must've put up a green screen at the time.
I don't remember.
You know, it's beautiful, and there's the Elio spin which I love.
It looks like maybe some eyeliner or something.
Exactly.
- That shirt. It's like a Jean Cocteau. - Right.
Drawings.
And the winter light, you can feel it. It's so great.
God, Michael, you're right. I never had that thought before.
But how did he get... I mean, we shot this in the summer, this bit.
So I wonder how he got that light, because it really does just feel cold.
The blue, maybe they just added it somehow.
This scene in the study, when we were in the background,
I think, initially, it was meant to be at the very beginning of the story.
We put it at the end.
I'm good. How are you?
You have your headphones on.
Good.
I miss you.
The moment he's been waiting for.
Very much.
- I have some news. - News?
It's from the book.
What, you're getting married?
I suppose.
I might be getting married next spring, yeah.
You never said anything.
Been off and on for three years.
That's wonderful news.
The lie.
Elio is a good liar.
He has that smile frozen on his face.
- Oliver. - Oliver.
This is my favourite Amira scene in the movie.
Her laugh is so unabashed.
- And guess what? He's a she. - Oh, no.
Speaking of she's, I'm calling to tell you guys I got engaged.
My God, you guys play this so beautifully, because you say,
"Wonderful," and you're happy for the boy that stayed with you this summer,
and you support him, but you're well aware of the implications for your son.
I think you guys share a look.
Bye, sweetheart.
Here.
They know about us.
I figured.
How?
We're a little closer now.
Well, from the way your dad spoke to me.
He made me feel like I was a part of the family.
Almost like a son-in-law.
You're so lucky.
My father would have carted me off to a correctional facility.
Doesn't want to hear any of it.
Elio.
Elio. Elio. Elio. Elio. Elio. Elio. Elio. Elio.
Oliver.
I remember everything.
What was that?
- That it wasn't a dream. It was true. - That's exactly it. That's exactly it.
And I like the idea here that it's... Are we gonna end up together or not?
Maybe it landed a certain way.
That's a big fireplace.
Just so evocative.
What do you say about this?
Just, I'm grateful that I had
enough personal experiences at a young age to be able to draw from.
Obviously, you don't wanna do that all the time.
It could be dangerous as an actor to pull too much from yourself,
but with the camera this close and the take being as long as it is,
it just felt like... Anything else would ring false.
I wonder on shots like this sometimes because the camera doesn't move,
if the cameraman would, like, not be right in front of you.
What it's like to just be intimate
in front of somebody who's sitting right in front of you.
Well, yeah, I guess the camera was just in the fireplace.
There wasn't anybody behind it.
Allowing you your privacy.
It was nice that Luca wasn't too stringent about little moments like that
where I could kinda break the tension a little bit.
I think I say something even amidst this sequence.
And the great trick with this scene, too, is maybe they CGl'd it out,
but in my right ear, I had a little... A piece that was playing Sufjan's song.
The song that's playing here.
So I could kind of mirror the structure.
It was a little bit like an acting exercise, just to be playing...
- Listening to music. - Yeah, playing with what the music's
- making you feel. - It's wonderful.
Music is magic.
- It can make you feel... - Absolutely.
And we just go along with you through this whole thing. It's so wonderful.
I've never had this experience
of making something and then
getting to just enjoy seeing it over and over and over again, honestly.
Honestly.
And I always just liked the idea at the end of this shot that there isn't...
There isn't a sense of being content,
but there is the idea somewhere,
that phone call, that it wasn't a dream, all of that happened.
And even though it's over for now, it's still an experience I get to keep.
It's almost like a secret.
And I see that. We all see that in your face.
Elio.
A little homage to Boyhood here at the end,
stealing a two-second look into the lens.
Love it. I love it.
And that's the movie, huh? This was a lot of fun.
Michael, thank you for doing that with me, and thank you for being
the most amazing of scene partners I could have had on this movie,
- and such an amazing mentor. - Oh, please. Thank you
for trusting,
and for just being there with me.
We did it together. I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity.
And there, of course, "In loving memory of Bill Paxton,"
who visited us on set before he passed away this year.
A lovely man.