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Time and Eternity in Call Me By Your Name

“Some things only remain the same through change”

About halfway through the latest outing by Italian film director Luca Guadagnino, Elio, played by Timothée Chalamet, finds next to his sunlit bed a reply to his handwritten note he has received from Oliver (Armie Hammer). He has agreed to meet Elio, alone, at midnight. The rest of the day ensues with Elio and Oliver having to spend the day with Mr. Perlman (Michael Stulhbarg), father to Elio and Oliver’s professor, before they can be alone. Throughout the day Elio’s watch becomes a visual metaphor; power struggles are fought, sexual desire is drawn and knowledge is passed through Guadargino’s use of the time-piece. Throughout the day Elio and Oliver are waiting for  the stroke of midnight, a set time but also a time that has become immortalised as a symbol of romance and love, being used in everything from Cinderella to Greek lyrical poetry. Time as a metaphor and being both eternal and fixed is seen throughout Call Me By Your Name  to create a story which seems classical but modern, relatable but distant. It seems sometimes like it could never end but it must, it is as inevitable as the hot, stagnant Italian summer cooling to winter. 

The film was shot in the summer of 2016 from a James Ivory script and was based on André Aciman’s 2007 novel of the same name. Set ‘somewhere in Northern Italy’, Chamalet’s Elio is a seventeen year old who spends each summer and Christmas in a grand house set amongst luscious green fields and blue water “reading books, transcribing music, swimming in the river, going out at night”. Every summer his academic father invites a student help him in his line of research as a Greco-Roman archaeologist. In “the summer of ‘83″, the student is Hammer’s Oliver, a handsome and stocky American. He is confident and worldly against the introvertedly intelligent Elio. Cautiously, through the first hour of the film they get to know each other on a personal level; “you seem to know more than anyone else around here” Oliver says to Elio, “well, if you only knew how little I really know about the things that matter” replies Elio in a turning point of the film. Soon, more than books and bike rides are shared between the two whilst the inevitable passing of the summer hangs in the air. 

The Greco-Roman statues that Oliver and Mr. Perlman study throughout the film are perhaps the best metaphors for the eternal that is seen in the film. They have survived for millennia, both in their bronze bust form and the consciousness of people who have studied them or know about them. In this way they survive the flowing of time, symbolised in the film by the discovery of a male bust  by Mr. Perlman in a nearby lake, the still perfectly-formed statue is seen slowly ascending up through the flowing turquoise water. Indeed, a comparison can be drawn between the immortalised statues and Oliver and Elio when Mr. Perlman discusses his findings saying “[the busts are] impossibly curved, so nonchalant with their ageless ambiguity, as if they are daring you to desire them”. There are other allusions to ancient society throughout the film through visual metaphors and unspoken truths, the very fact that the audience can recognise these speaks to the feeling of eternity and time as a fallacy that is alluded to throughout the film. The classical idea of “the forbidden fruit” is explored in a scene that will stay in the mind long after the finishing time of the movie has passed. 

Summer in the film never seems to end, numerous days are spent by Elio and Oliver on their bikes, swimming, sitting at bars. The heat seems one degree away from being stagnant and oppressive, a fly constantly circles the topless body of Elio. When Oliver first bikes to the local town with Elio he asks him what he usually does here, “wait for summer to end” the reply. Before Oliver, Elio did not like the endless summer. With Oliver (and after the comment he made above), he doesn’t want it to end. Elio becomes more interested in the immortalised busts his father researches and prefers to take Oliver to still pools of water instead of the flowing river favoured by his friends. Sex between the two also is elevated to a form of eternal pleasure, the first time they have sex Guadagnino prefers not to linger, instead slowly panning to the view of a huge, omnipresent tree that can be seen through the window. 

Whilst exploring themes of the eternal, the film is rooted in Italy ‘83. Although there is no real comment on the contemporary world and its landscape, politcal or otherwise, the mise-en-scené created by Guadagnino and his team deeply roots it in the time period. Faded posters from the year’s elections can be seen in the town, Elio has a Robert Mapplethorpe poster on his walls and commercial Italian brands of the time such as Illy and San Pelligrino are placed on the tables where the characters drink, smoke and talk. Clothes and fashion are used to great effect also. Armie Hammer is never seen not wearing tiny, sports-brand shorts, usually perched atop the plush Italian leather of his 80′s road bike. Perhaps the most 80′s scene of the film is at a local disco, Hammer gets up to dance to the Psychedelic Furs “Love My Way”, the camera panning down his purple-lit body until we see his hi-top white Converse. The next day, Elio is seen wearing his own pair of Converse. 

By creating the 80′s landscape, Guadagnino is constantly but covertly reminding us of the fixed time-frame of the film; the summer must end eventually, Oliver must go. This relationship cannot last forever like in a fairy story or like a classical painting, it must end or at least change. The film deviates from the book by placing all of the narrative within the summer, in the book we see Oliver and Elio reconvening some 15 years later. The summer never ends in the film, the 80′s are there of course but so are the fairy-tales and antiquity, living side-by-side both immortalised, as if time is a construct and everything exists together. 1983 was also the dawn of the AIDs crisis, the hot summer before the cold winter. 

The fusing of fixed time and eternity creates a film of immense pleasure but also sadness, perhaps a metaphor for the gay experience when experienced covertly. Indeed, the melding of the two is experienced right until the credits, the final scene (which is still, silent, beautiful and sombre) plays whilst the credits roll, urging the audience to stay whilst the cinema lights come up inviting the audience to head back into their real and timed world. 

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Opinion: 1001 Harlem Nights

How one man’s documentation of 80s Queer New York, with a store-bought VHS recorder, inspired Queer Cinema & Hollywood

In one of the late Nelson Sullivan's earliest videos, we see the videographer in his Meatpacking District apartment pointing his new lens on himself. In amongst the men in sequin dresses and thrift-store Liberace chandeliers, a pale skinned and ill-focused Nelson is seen trying to work his new fish-eye. “Like I think right now I'm out of the frame but if I was like picking my nose could you see it?” is almost jarringly cordial from the man who created perhaps the most personable and organic accounts of Post-Stonewall America, Equally, his darkly lit and busted videos don’t seem fitting to be amongst the first frames of the kaleidoscopic Club Kids. But Sullivan, his VHS camera, and neatly conservative moustache created a place for minority New York to wander and wonder the sprawling avenues on a piece of 35mm film.

Sullivan's vignettes defy traditional tropes of cinema and documentary in the sense that they never seek to entertain nor challenge. Instead, they present its subjects and location authentically. His films place us in some of the most expressive and sacred places for minority America with the people to match; from the murderous Michael Alig's infamous Monday night dances to RuPaul performing in The Tunnel. These venues and artist embodied the post-Studio 54 generation and, much in the same way the documenter of 70’s Brooklyn, Andy Warhol, was always armed with tape recorder in hand, Sullivan's 8mm serves as an extension to his coke-stained fingers and allowed a new type of medium to explore Downtown Nightlife. Indeed, in amongst Sullivan's many hours of footage there is recording of Andy Warhol at a signing, the camera is close enough to see Warhol's pupils skewed through his glasses but it also floats around the store to see Andy's everyday cultural successors. Sullivan's craft and new stars are indebted to the Pop Art movement but have managed to find their own red-tinted spotlight. Andy’s covert but also obvious contribution to the gay liberation movement of the 60s and his experimental films that explored the improvisation between fiction and reality are things that obviously influenced the work of Sullivan and indeed made his films possible in the first place. Sullivan’s films see people openly experimenting with sexuality and gender in a very public sphere with costumes that were only seen in sketchbooks but were now being paraded on the streets of Brooklyn. It would not be rash to say 80’s Queer New York and thus Sullivan would not be the same without Warhol.

Andy Warhol and Joey Arias, a core fixture at the Tunnel: The Club Kids version of Studio 54 

In amongst the videos of grey expansive Brooklyn, there are glimpses of home for the South Carolinan native. Sullivan was raised in a family that seems from his documentations decidedly old-American. His videos show his old Aunts in floor-length patterned dresses and big silver earrings on the way, in their aged Cadillacs, to the Pentecostal Church of his old gold-mining hometown. This seemingly white conservative upbringing that Sullivan experienced is what many, inspired by the cultural upheaval of the post-Stonewall movement, were trying to escape when they moved from Middle America to the coastal walls of their country, namely San Francisco and New York. Sullivan, still seems to have an affinity for home describing one of his Aunties as the “most loving person I have ever met” and saying he documents his home “as this is what I will have to remember of them when I am dead”. In the same way he gives a voice to the minority in his works, his videos of home give a charming but perhaps ostensible illumination of his vision of 80’s rural America.

The hazy ramblings of friends walking from mythical clubs to more fantastical after-parties, broke visionaries trying to borrow enough money to buy fruit from the store and drugs from the street are just that. Sullivan nor anyone seen in his videos ever expected the videos to be seen by a larger audience. But much like the generation who succeeded Warhol, the YouTube and Facebook generation have now been handed the baton as the curators of the artistic past. The videos have gained a cult following amongst YouTube audiences, the briefness of Sullivan's work perhaps catering to a generation more adept to scrolling than watching.

This conversion of grainy film to historical but artistic artefact could also be seen as a precursor to the trend of using home video not as a nostalgic archive but as a creative outlet. This trend can perhaps be first seen in the the context of the New Queer Cinema movement of the 90’s. The New Queer Cinema Movement (as coined by B. Ruby Rich) was used to describe a filmic shift in the 90’s to a creation of movies often brazen in sexuality and aggressively radical in form. Mainly found in the independent movie distributor cutting rooms and voluptuous tents of the film festivals of North America, creating such stars as Gus Van Sant and Todd Haynes. The movement moved away from the heteronormativity of Hollywood and exclusion of fringe society. Sullivan’s influential use of home video footage can be seen in the work of two directors in particular: Sadie Benning and Jonathan Caouette. Sadie Benning, a founding member of both New Queer Cinema and the feminist post-punk band Le Tigre, created the short film Jollies at just 15 on a literal toy camera. Likewise, Jonathan Caouette’s searing love letter to his mother and youth Tarnation was made up of home footage shot over a period of 8 years on a budget of less than $250. Both deal with the loosened grip on identity experienced when one is neither child nor adult and explore ideas of loss and sexuality. Even with their low budgets and isolations, both films experienced critical and artistic notice with Jollies being housed in the MoMA and Tarnation being screened at Cannes. The use of handheld camera and low budget film roll, like Sullivan, was not an artistic choice but an artistic necessity, none of them could afford to create their works on better cameras. So whilst the rawness of the footage may seem to match the rawness of the stories that are being told, need comes above preference; authenticity has always been an integral part of the New Queer Cinema movement. Like many other movements before, white straight male Hollywood has appropriated the New Queer Cinema movement without showing any queer identity itself, including the rise in the 2000’s of the use of the home recording film such as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. In this way Sullivan could be seen in some respects as directly influencing facets of the Hollywood contemporary audiences engage with. Allowing queer youth of today not clawing to find their voice but being given a platform in order to express their views. 

Sadie Benning’s Jollies and Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation

One of the reasons that queer youth fought to find their voice and create radical queer films in the 90’s was due to the AIDs epidemic that ripped apart the queer community the decade before. The communities that were blighted by the illness needed to find a voice to both deal with their loss and express their views on the matter. it would not be rash to assume that almost all of Nelson Sullivan’s subject either knew someone or themselves suffered from the epidemic. Omnipresent stalwarts of the Meatpacking District who are repeatedly spotted in Sullivan’s videos such as Keith Haring, John Sex, Cookie Mueller all lived and died with the HIV virus.. The early death of such trailblazing artistic voices inspired much of 90’s queer culture and stretching to today; to both honour and build upon artistic legacies finalised too soon. Sullivan has created an ode to this epoch of marginalisation but not in the traditional sense as he allows for these people to speak for themselves. The artistry of the people seen of course speaks for itself but Sullivan lets us see this is not limited to the canvas or stage, it was a part of their everyday lives and everything that they did and lets us glimpse the minority as a collective who shared the same values in life. Nelson Sullivan himself died on Independence Day ‘89. He was 41.

Nelson Sullivan’s cinematography skills may not be of the calibre of the greats, his work not filmed on the latest in image recording technology nor a big movie budget granted by a cigar smoking, pinstripe wearing executive. But he did not need that, he was part of a community that had stories to tell, the greatest parties in the world, a minority only just being allowed to speak for themselves. His reels of film developed from a camcorder worth less than a directors chair has influenced Queer Cinema and the Hollywood of today. Whereas Hollywood homogenised the idea of queer identity, taking ideas from Queer Cinema but not giving their films a queer voice, Sullivan’s movies were full of camp, unabashed screams of the evolution of queer identity that still resonates today.

The 5ninthavenue project is a YouTube channel devoted to the work of Nelson Sullivan

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Review: Beau Travail (1999)

Claire Denis’ tale of the male body woven in the desolate East African Plains

Perhaps the most enduring and persistent images of Beau Travail are those of French soldiers participating in daily exercises. The white sun and blue sky serve as backdrops to Denis’ long takes of the often topless men standing with arms raised, jumping over obstacles or doing press ups in the rugged flats of Djibouti. These drills resemble a dance of male exertion with excerpts of Britten’s Billy Budd (which, like Denis’ film, is based on the short story by Herman Melville) providing the operatic music to move to. Scenes of dancing and movement are not uniquely male, we see the local Djiboutian women in bars, near to where the French Foreign Legion are stationed, dancing to contemporary Europop. By placing scenes of women dancing (scenes which would traditionally have a sexual element) against scenes of male, ballet-like training, the soldiers’ daily routine is elevated above an act of discipline and becomes a comment on the male body and homoerotic desire. Although it is somewhat patronising to describe Claire Denis as one of the best female directors, the fact that this is a beautifully told and shot film  about male sexuality, seen through the female gaze is a fact not to go unnoticed.

One of the many training scenes in Beau Travail

The 1999 film is narrated by Chief Adjutant Galoup (Denis Lavant) from his present-day Marseille, a city of grey apartment buildings and car horns. Here, as he writes in his diary, he recalls his time as in the French Foreign Legion, before being dishonorably discharged. Stationed in Djibouti, Galoup headed his troop under the watchful eye of his superior, Lieutenant Colonel Bruno Forestier (Michel Subor). The arrival of a new recruit, Giles Sentain (Grégorie Colin), plants the seeds of jealousy in Galoup leading to his inevitable demise.

The source of Galoup’s envy towards the new addition is never made potently clear by Denis or, more specifically, never verbalised explicitly by any one of the characters. Galoup describes it himself as ‘something vague and menacing’. Sentain quickly excels in his arid surroundings, showing aptitude for the physical training Galoup throws at him and becoming close to his fellow troops, something Galoup has not yet achieved. This is perhaps Denis’s trademark, the creation of jealousy and tension through images of the body and unspoken thoughts and desires expressed through the movement, glances and writings. This too starts to open up questions of erotic desire amongst the tight-knit group of isolated men. It is seen, as described above, in ritual like dances of physical exertion, a way to not only invoke discipline, but also competition and jealousy.

Grégorie Colin as Sentain and Denis Lavant as Galoup

One indication of the source of Galoup’s ambivalence towards Sentain is the sudden feeling he has to keep ‘Sentain away from Forestier’. Again, the audience is never sure of Galoup’s relationship with Forestier, the best indication is again explored by Denis through the use of the male body and images, as well as repressed thoughts Galoup writes in his diary. Galoup is seen clutching in his shaking hand an old picture of a young, good-looking Forestier as Galoup writes in his diary ‘I have always admired him, and never known why’. Perhaps Galoup has feelings, requited or unrequited, for Forestier that he feels Sentain could disrupt.

The military has always struggled to separate its values from the queer connotations these values possess, the etymology of the word ‘comrade’ and the infamous Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law act as two examples helping to prove this. Denis presents the soldiers as close but not knowing basic information about each other. In one scene the soldiers gather to celebrate a recruit’s birthday but seem to not know whos birthday it is nor the age they are celebrating. This perhaps forced separation of the militant and personal both symbolises the separation of values whilst also scrutinising the (imagined) personal relation between Forestier, Galoup and Sentain.

The film is also beautifully shot by Denis’ long-time cinematographic collaborator Agnés Godard. The beautiful landscapes, sweeping camera shots of the men, the faces of the women in the local bar all help to create a narrative of infinite pleasure. Films where women occupy all the main roles behind the camera (director, writer and cinematographer) are hard to come by in contemporary cinema, especially in a film as thought-provoking as Beau Travail.