Sonic Dreams: Call Me By Your Name
Though celebrated for the gorgeous original musical contributions from songwriter Sufjan Stevens – whose “Mystery of Love” picked up an Oscar nomination – Call Me By Your Name also boasts an exemplary soundtrack of pre-existing music. The film, which describes the romance between 17-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer), an American grad student assisting Elio’s father’s research, during one scorching summer in 80s Italy, dispenses with the first-person narration of the André Aciman book it is based on. In its place, we get music – which director Luca Guadagnino has described as the film’s “emotional narrator.”
A large portion of the soundtrack comes from within the world of the film. Elio is a pianist, and performs pieces by Erik Satie and Francis Poulenc; in one fantastic scene he flirtatiously teases Oliver by refusing to play Bach in the manner he originally intended. Elsewhere, the film’s sonic texture is enriched by the Euro disco and synthpop perpetually seeping from televisions and radios – songs like Joe Esposito’s “Lady, Lady, Lady”, Bandolero’s “Paris Latino”, and F.R. David’s sublimely cheesy “Words”, whose chorus (Words don't come easy to me / How can I find a way / To make you see I love you?) anticipates the dilemma Elio later grapples with: “Is it better to speak or to die?”
Fittingly, the film’s use of non-diegetic piano music voices what Elio initially can’t. Snippets of minimalist compositions by John Adams and Ryuichi Sakamoto lend a sense of playfulness to Elio’s adolescent inquisitiveness and frustration. Strains of Ravel’s lush, dreamy “Une barque sur l’océan” from the suite Miroirs fade in and out of Elio and Oliver’s hesitant interactions, hinting at the deep romance they can only communicate in euphemism. Ravel returns at a pivotal moment towards the end of the film: “Le jardin féerique” from Ma mère l'Oye accompanies the poignant monologue Elio’s father gives.
Call Me By Your Name’s big needle drop comes during the much-memed outdoor disco scene, in which the DJs play The Psychedelic Furs’ glorious “Love My Way.” Oliver is immediately lost in the music, ecstatically breaking into what could generously be described as Footloose-inspired dancing. Elio hangs back, then eventually slides over and tests out some self-consciously ‘cool’ moves – but soon he too is hopping to the music like a total dork. In a relationship so far defined by covert signals (a look, a comment, a touch) and restraint, seeing Oliver and Elio let loose on the dancefloor feels like their first moment of real closeness.
Still, there’s a bittersweet sting to the lyrics – the opportunity and confidence to “love my way” is what’s so often denied to queer people, and before long Oliver is preparing to return home, their relationship still a secret. On their last night together in Bergamo, Elio and Oliver again stumble upon the song blaring from the stereo of a parked car. In the context of Oliver’s departure, another aspect of the music emerges – “Love My Way” is a song whose chords never quite resolve, a song with a what we might call a phantom tonic. It’s this eternal deferral of closure that makes the song resonate so painfully with Elio’s predicament – and which makes it such a perfect anthem for the couple.