call.me.by.your.name.

Film Plot and the Scene:

The movie is about a heart-broken summer love that happens in Lombardy, Italy, in 1983. The main character, Elio, 17 years old, is talented in music and the son of a professor. He meets his lover Oliver, a doctoral student when he works as an intern for Elio’s father. This scene happens (around 24′ in) when Elio and Oliver’s relationship starts to become closer.

[Outside the house, Oliver asked Elio to play a tune again after he heard Elio playing it on the guitar. Elio told him to come inside but he played two different versions of the same tune first before he played the original one Oliver wanted to hear.] 

Scene analysis(description/effects/emotion): 

This scene is composed of two different shots. One is a wide shot of the interior, shot from Elio’s side; the other is a quick-pan, a wide-shot of the exterior showing Oliver following Elio inside. The main difficulties of lighting here deals with the overwhelming of sunlight.

Summer in Italy is drenched with sunlight and so does the exterior shot. The hot lining of the leaves and of each actor’s head is very obvious. The light comes from directly opposite of the camera and it is hard. Yet, the light on characters’ faces is very soft. Such a shot must have been achieved without any artificial light, but perhaps (a very very small chance) they used reflectors to light up Oliver’s back and other darker parts of the actors. This lighting effect actually is applied throughout the movie as well as the color palette of blue, yellow and green in this scene (except for the scenes shot when Oliver has left Italy). All of the mise-en-scene contributed to creating a nostalgic, memory-like, simply happy and somehow glamorous summer feeling in 1980s Italy. The yellow cane furnishings, the steel white chair, the blazing yellow shorts of Oliver, Elio’s mother’s straw hat, and a bit of blue on the unknown man’s back—they all indicate summer and passion, working together with that glare on everyone and even on the plants there. It is the glare that is in Elio and Oliver’s heart—the love. It is also the glare which makes that summer for them so dream-like—a golden memory. And perhaps the old 17th-century villa symbols the past, which reminiscence with the theme of memory.

The interior shot of Elio playing the piano with Oliver in the background is also lit mainly with natural light. And both of their faces are very softly lit. The room is full of sunshine coming in from different large, long windows—one light coming from the window on the right behind Elio, one from behind Oliver (the door), one light source from the window in the shot. There is an obvious a-bit-hard shadow on Elio’s body which is produced by a source of light coming from the left. This light from the left could possibly either be from a window or a set-up light. It is quite hard to tell. As the shot pans to the right, we can see another window behind Oliver which is the fifth light source. Now, it is clear that the left face of Oliver is a bit darker than the right due to the light source from the right of the camera which cannot be seen in the shot. I feel that the light in this scene is controlled really well as the trees outside the window aren’t overexposed under such a light condition. Also, I really love how this scene is filmed not like how they would have done it in Hollywood. It’s an undisturbed long shot, focusing on their conversation and Elio’s tune. What I haven’t noticed during the first watch was the changing of focus—it switches between Elio and Oliver. It has done so smoothly and naturally that I didn’t notice. The furnishings and the television in the corner indicate the time in history. The set design and the costume altogether, again, contributed to the blue, yellow and green color palette (blue jeans, yellow wall and shorts, green armchairs and green trees). Their time together is, again, brightly lit, but not as glamorous as it was outside.

This is the scene in which Elio started to truly open up to Oliver. He does this by inviting him inside to hear him play (inviting him into his life)—after two “wrong” tunes, it finally resolves with one “right” tune. It is exactly how their relationship is like. At first, when Oliver first arrived, Elio found him impolite and arrogant. He even criticised him on the dining table one evening. However, after a bit of teasing in this scene, the distance between them starts to vanish.

Comparison: 

Compare to the movie, Arabian Nights, also made by the same cinematographer as Name, the look of the shots can sometimes be similar. The color temperature is usually warm in this trailer. The shots with sunlight can relate to the shots in Name—the glowing outline of the actor and the blazing reflection from the water are both indentical in two films.