Is the father in Call Me By Your Name supposed to be gay too?

I thought so.

Yes. The implication is his speech is that he was in love with a boy but was afraid and never pursued it and he deeply regretted it.

Pretty obvious, but left ambiguous ... was he saying he never had what his son and Oliver had in terms of a real love connection or a gay relationship?

The father is portrayed as very "fey". My guess in the way the parents are portrayed in the film is that the mother and father have a very deep friendship of respect and understanding of one another. Theirs is not a conventional marriage per se. He is gay/bisexual and both recognize the same trait in their son.

The fact that the mother is constantly smoking may indicate a non-sexual relationship with her husband.

I would also say that is hinted in his scene with Oliver when they are looking at pictures of the statues.

The father talks about how sensual they are and that they are daring you want them, and camera shows Oliver making a look as he is picking up that Elio's father probably likes men.

r4, I think that look was more irony - he's waiting to meet the prof's 17-year old son later that night at midnight and there he is being shown endless slides of erotic naked male statues by the prof himself.

I don't think he was thinking "man, he's gay too?!"

In the book, Elio muses to himself on his father's past after the famous father-son speech, knowing all about the women he was rumoured to be with but never thinking there might be men too.

He later muses to Oliver years later when the two meet up in their forties that he always wondered about his father, as in was he really gay/bisexual?

Yeah OP. Only just saw it. Assumed the dad was at the very least bi and regretted not acting upon it more when he was younger - and was still getting lots of that kind of male attention. Clearly now that had all stopped happening, his life had taken a different course, and he felt its time had past. He could see what was going on with his son and Oliver though - and did his best to encourage the experience that he’d wanted and missed out on...

So: very woke, cool dad who was extraordinatily socially/sexually advanced for his time - or a twisted, pervy old closeted guy, longing for his son and/or the beautiful young American and jerking off to at night to private fantasies of them?

What sealed it for me was when Dad says, "there will come a time when no one will want to get near your body anymore." If the dad were interested in women, he'd find them to be not-so-judgmental about men's bodies. But men have stopped making advances because he's over 40, and hence, an elderly.

I don't think the Dad was a closet perv, r7. Remember the Mom was just as aware of what was going on. Mom and Dad both knew.

I think it was implied they both told sisters Chiara and Marzia, Oliver's girlfriend and Elio's girlfriend respectively, while Oliver and Elio were in Rome. The mother invited both girls to dinner that night after Chiara just missed Oliver leaving by bus. When Elio returned home, Marzia was very understanding. Did the parents explain everything to the sisters?

The most refreshing thing about the movie was that no one was out to blame anyone else for their unhappiness or were out to make conflict. Everyone essentially liked one another. The parents loved their gay son and the man who took their son's "virginity", they liked each other, Elio liked Marzia and Marzia liked him and they became friends "for life" ... refreshing.

The book depicts Elio as questioning whether his dad was also gay or bisexual.

at the end of the scene he asks if the mother knows too but the father says no....but then at the very end the mother does seem to know

(on another note: I sort of didn't get why Armie Hammer's character couldn't come out. It wasn't like he had some career ambitions like politics or sports or something, did he? I missed his goals. And it was 1981 not 61. Does that come across more clearly in the book?)

I didn't read it like that.

[quote](on another note: I sort of didn't get why Armie Hammer's character couldn't come out. It wasn't like he had some career ambitions like politics or sports or something, did he? I missed his goals. And it was 1981 not 61. Does that come across more clearly in the book?)

Because it is scary as hell to come out for a lot of people. The fear of lack of acceptance primarily. In the phone call between the two at the end Oliver even tells Elio that his father would have sent him off to a correctional facility.

Oliver was closeted out of a sense of self-protection and self-preservation. It wasn't easy to be gay in the 80s. Gay men were still seen as the flaming queen and a threat to the nuclear family unit; they also weren't welcome to be teachers or professors. We don't really get a clearly articulated vision of Oliver's background in the book, except when he states quite clearly his father would have sent him to a correctional facility if the old man knew about his son's true orientation. Oliver cultivated a charismatic social persona that was very worldly and self-sufficient. He was a loner yet had exceptional social skills. He created a living myth of sorts, that led people to assume all they wanted about him that gratified their fantasies of what he was to them. As like everyone, Elio naturally assumed he was a raging pussyhound who was boinking every girl in town. The truth of the matter: Oliver was actually alone most of the time doing his own thing. ,

Yeah you seem to be massively overestimating how easy it was to be an out gay man in the 1980s. And Oliver makes it clear he comes from a very homophobic family, as others have said did you miss the "my Dad would send to be a conversion center" line.

send me to a*

I thought his dad was bisexual, not gay. At least, that's how I read it.

the director talked about studios over the years asking 'who's the bad guy in this?' who's keeping them apart?'

and the direct said there doesn't have to be a bad guy.

I did like that the parents were so cool with Elio; it seemed more natural than the cool way Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Garner were in Love, Simon.

Too bad the father looked like a groundhog covered in nostril hair.

Oliver is who kept them apart.

The way the father says the mother doesn't know anything in reply to Elio's question should be taken as "let's just SAY she doesn't, even though we both know she does". In other words, it's not important, don't worry about it, it makes no difference at all and we don't have to all make a big deal out of this.

In the book, the mother is really not that prominent a presence. Not fleshed out at all, and quite insignificant to the overall story. The housekeeper Mafalda has more of an emotional impact on Elio than the mother. The film fleshes the mother out to be more pivotal. The actress is allowed to relay more with peripheral side glances, knowing looks, and smoking a cigarette than any dialogue could reveal about character. I think she is truly one of the most intriguing presences in the film. Smoking, watching - always watching - hovering around the action like a ghost.

In the book, Anchise the gardener picks Elio up at the train station when he returns alone from his Rome vacation with Oliver; in the film, it is the mother Elio turns to to pick him up at the station. Interestingly, they say nothing in the car ride, but she proves once again without a line of dialogue that she is there without any doubt emotionally and mentally for her son.

In the book, the mother has a few snippets of blah-blah-blah dialogue. In the film, much of the mother's dialogue is taken from another character in the book - Vimini, the young next door neighbour with leukemia, who isn't in the film at all. It is Vimini who opens up the reality to Elio that Oliver likes him more than Elio likes himself; in the film, it is the mother who reveals that to Elio.

In the book, we do not have that wonderful scene in the movie of Elio and his parents curled up on the sofa on a rainy day afternoon while the mother translates a fairy tale for them ("is it better to speak or die?"). That was created specifically for the movie. In the book, Elio finds the story all by himself and reads it alone.

I tend to think that it was Luca himself who shaped the mother into a more important presence, for she is like the director himself: watching, guiding the story, clarifying, and directing it, as when she suggests to her husband the two men go to Rome together for a last hurrah. If you watch Luca in this Q&A with Andre Aciman, you see the mother in him: quiet, peripheral, watching-watching-watching (even though he claims he identifies with Mafalda, which I dispute, unless he means the novel version of Mafalda, who is more like the film's hovering watchful mother):

r19, what a sad empty little man you must be.

r17, at least in the book, yes. It is alluded the father had a history with women. The father in the film projects a more visual sexual ambiguity that isn't picked up in the novel father until the famous speech.

The book itself appears to have been embraced by many as more a story of bisexuality than homosexuality. Elio himself states he wants both man and woman - even be both man and woman. Throughout the novel, he uses Ovid as a repeated metaphor of personal and physical metamorphosis, sexual hybridity and gender doubling. He understands why Oliver must fuck other women; the jealousy he has is the ease that the heterosexual encounter can go off without any complication. Jealous of Oliver and Chiara's conventionally accepted social interaction, Elio at one point schemes to insinuate himself as a third party in their relationship, talking to each about the other, trying to manipulate them and in effect, creating a pseudo-threesome in which he can satisfy his sexual desire for Oliver through a third female party. Later, in Rome, there are several instances littered throughout the episode in which Elio is turned on by many women, flat out stating that he would like to make love to one right then and there.

And those who have only seen the film may be surprised that in the book, Elio has sex with Marzia, then later that night has sex with Oliver for the first time as he does in the film, but later that same morning after having sex with Oliver, he has sex with Marzia again - a one-two-three sexual marathon for the horny 17 year old. Later, during the peach scene, he leaves his French window doors open hoping someone - anyone - sees him naked, fantasizing either Oliver or Marzia - he doesn't care which - finds him in bed.

The film is a gay story; the book is a story of sexual awakening.

[quote]at the end of the scene he asks if the mother knows too but the father says no....but then at the very end the mother does seem to know

Dad may not know that Mom knows, but Mom totally knows, probably even before Dad figured it out.

The fairy tale that she reads about the knight who was in love and had to be brave about it also features in the book, but it's Elio that finds it. Putting it in her hands seems pretty deliberate.

[quote]And those who have only seen the film may be surprised that in the book, Elio has sex with Marzia, then later that night has sex with Oliver for the first time as he does in the film, but later that same morning after having sex with Oliver, he has sex with Marzia again - a one-two-three sexual marathon for the horny 17 year old.

Not quite. Elio and Oliver kiss at Monet’s berm. Oliver avoids Elio and the next day Elio spends with Marzia when they have sex that evening for the first time. It is later that night that Elio slips the note under Oliver’s door. During the day he’s waiting out til midnight, he and Marzia have sex again in the attic, with Elio constantly checking his watch. She leaves, the gay couple comes to dinner and Oliver and Elio finally get together. Elio does not have sex with Marzia again after he hooks up with Oliver.

I remember what it was like to be a 17 year old yearning for my sexual awakening...like a character in an E M Forster novel.

But the difference, r20, is that Oliver is not a bad guy. There are no bad guys in the story.

I did not mean to imply Oliver was a bad guy, r27. I can see you you'd infer that from what I wrote, though. I had an Oliver in my life. I don't think of him as either bad or good, just someone whose fear trumped everything.

r25, in the movie, yes. In the novel, Elio has sex with Marzia hours before making love with Oliver for the first time, then makes love with Marzia later that day after making love with Oliver.

Most of us have had an Oliver in our lives, no?

Are there any Olivers on this thread?

What is Oliver studying to be? What profession?

He is a PhD student, it is never specified what he is getting his PhD in. I think Classics, it fits the best from what we know of the academic interests talked about.

He continues along in academia and becomes a professor. Elio eventually gets his PhD and becomes a professor as well. At least in the book.

No. He was supposed to be me.

I did not take Elio's dad's speech to imply that he was gay or bi, just that he had the opportunity for some exploration that he did not pursue. If he were gay or bi, he could have easily have had sex with men; I think he was talking more about a deep love that frightened him, and the sex of the person wasn't really relevant. And: I was coming to terms with being gay in the 80's. Even though it was just a short time ago, the atmosphere was so different. I was in grad school at an Ivy League school -- probably the same milieu Oliver was in -- and I was the only person in the entire class who was at least somewhat out, and I wan't even THAT out. Years later, of course, many others came out, but no one was open about it back then. That Ivy League world, despite its worldliness -- was not as accepting as you'd think.

[quote] and the sex of the person wasn't really relevant

Of course the sex of the person was relevant. When Mr. Perlman was younger homosexuality would have been even more crazy taboo than it was in the 80s. He had some of the "thing" with a man but he was too afraid to pursue it. The entire thing that makes Elio/Oliver noteworthy and having to be a secret is that they are two guys.

Michael Stuhlbarg speaks about it

[quote]In a way, Sammy's supportive final speech is as much about revealing things about himself as it is about comforting his son. It does suggest that. You get glimpses of the road not taken — or perhaps the road that was taken away from him.

In the book, the father talks at one point to Oliver about the different avenues one has to choose to take in life. There is a sad undercurrent to his speech that he picked the road right for everybody else but perhaps not for him. It isn't until the famous speech near the end of the book that the reader can put two-and-two together and realize there was definitely more to the father than the reader may have realized. Then there is the fact that it is the father who books his son and Oliver a room at one of the more luxurious hotels in Rome. There is no indication in the novel the father and mother conspire on this at all. In the film, it is the mother who suggests their son go with Oliver to Rome for Oliver's last three days in Italy.

I have nothing to add, except to thank you all for this interesting discussion, the best I’ve seen on DL in a long time.

[quote] Yeah you seem to be massively overestimating how easy it was to be an out gay man in the 1980s.

THIS^^^

[quote]The fact that the mother is constantly smoking may indicate a non-sexual relationship with her husband.

I found this detail very striking in the film - Annella's non-stop puffing is indicative of SOMETHING about her emotional state/anxiety level. She even has to stop for cigarettes in the middle of Elio's sad drive home after Oliver's departure. Yet the screenplay includes a scene of the Perlmans becoming intimate, initiated by Prof. Perlman, that was filmed but left out of the finished movie. So, who knows what that anxiety is about.

I mentioned this on one of the old CMBYN threads, but it's worth noting that a bisexual son learning of his own father's bisexuality is a thing in Andre Aciman's work - there is a revelation of such in his most recent book Enigma Variations, a collection of intertwined short stories focusing on the Elio-like character of Paul. And at the risk of being inappropriate, I've wondered if this has some kind of personal significance for Aciman himself - because if you've read his essays and other personal writing, it's pretty clear he was something of a ladies' man prior to his marriage, and it is implied that the same was true for Elio's dad ('We'd all heard about his women when he was young, but I'd never had an inkling of anything else.').

[quote]Oliver is who kept them apart.

Yes. Oliver's fears and internalized homophobia are what put the kibosh on them taking it further, really. That's why I get irritated with all the sunny claims of how there's no homophobia in the film, it's all acceptance - there's plenty of homophobia in the movie, both by Oliver and Elio, but it's on the inside, not the outside. Does ANYBODY, book reader or film-only viewer, think Oliver married his on-and-off girlfriend just a few months later because his love for her was greater than what he felt for Elio? He married her because she had the socially acceptable set of genitalia that could give him the sort of life he'd been taught was 'good'. He didn't have the kind of support that Elio had had all his life, and he couldn't bring himself to swim upstream, instead going with the flow.

[quote]The film is a gay story; the book is a story of sexual awakening.

The story was pruned very carefully for the film, to rid it of some of the more intense/difficult things for a general audience, so anyone who has watched the film only could be forgiven for thinking it's a gay story, a young man's coming out tale, that Elio is gay. His sexual relationship with Marzia is treated like youthful experimentation, discarded after he and Oliver are a thing. He's also a virgin that summer, whereas in the novel he has already slept with numerous girls - it's only men that he's a virgin to, though men have been hitting on him and expressing admiration for a couple of years by then. Overall Elio got a bit whitewashed for the movies. But I understand why they did it.

In the movie at least the father's regret doesn't seem to make sense unless he is talking about homosexual experiences.

The mother is very attractive, smart and warm and they seem to have good interaction. If he was completely heterosexual it should follow that he'd be very happy with her.

R8 Hot women are very judgemental, let me assure you. Of course, he was married so his words do sound suspicious.

R40 Well he could still have a great love he didn't pursue because it was socially forbidden or looked upon as undesirable. A man, a woman of color. Being married to a nice person and having a warm relationship doesn't mean any sort of epic passion or lifelong love towards them.

I would have explored the father's moist, inviting anus.

It would have been hotter if Oliver had, too.

I interpreted the father to have had some impulse to explore his sexuality with men but he didn't because he didn't find someone as special as Oliver,or the right circumstances like his son and Oliver did in Italy,you know shielded by judgement.

I think Elio was genuinely bi and Oliver a closeted case who didn't have any support from his family and actually feared to be outed with certain disastrous consequences. He had is career and future already set and it wasn't worthed to lose all that in order to pursuit a relationship with a younger guy who didn't even figure out his life yet. Being older and destined to be in an academic environment his options were limited unlike Elio who was completely free to do whatever he wanted also because way younger and more comfortable with both sexes.

I'm very sympathetic of Oliver if anything,he's the one who hold onto the memories the most.

[quote]I'm very sympathetic of Oliver if anything,he's the one who hold onto the memories the most.

That is a big statement to make. I mean we are inside Elio's head in the novel and he never gets over Oliver. He refuses to meet his family because he can't handle that. I mean it is pretty sad actually.

R45 Yes but he had many relationships after,some of them very meaningful. Think about what a shit life must have had Oliver unable to be himself. Elio was suffering but he was free. Oliver was suffering but in a cage.

I keep thinking the “does mom know” line might also mean “does she know you are (also) into men even though you never acted on it”. Because it seems fairly obvious she knows about Elio and Oliver, in a few spots throughout and definitely when she suggests they could spend a few days alone.

[quote]I keep thinking the “does mom know” line might also mean “does she know you are (also) into men even though you never acted on it”.

That is the only way that line makes sense to me in the movie. "Does Mom know about YOU". The movie makes it obvious that she knows about Elio/Oliver.

R47 I always interpreted these words as this only because it's was clear to me the mom knew about E and O, but since her husband was just "close to have what they had and never acted it out" there was nothing there to be suspicious about in the first place unless he told her.

I think one of the central themes - both literally and visually/secondarily, is Greek pederasty, the tradition of older young men having a younger/teen male lover. This is alluded to in the Greco-Roman visuals of the archeologist/classicist father and in Oliver's studies as well. And I believe the book really centers on this.

The talk between the father and Elio is just that - the father had an opportunity to have a pederast relationship with another young man and he did not take it.

Pederasty is an adult man having a relationship with a teen boy. You can make the argument the movie is like that due to Luca's casting choices, but Oliver feels very young in the book. Their 7 year age gap is purposely made to feel especially small since Elio is presented as is intellectual equal in many ways.

Armie Hammer reads older than he is too. I was surprised to read he is 31. I thought he was late 30s.

R52 That's been the conflict point for many and the source for thousands of posts here and elsewhere.

I think people have no idea how old people looked in Italy style-wise in the 80's....the haircuts,the dress code...Armie was styled to look like that,I'm sure they could have make him look younger for the movie but simply didn't. Also if the sequel happens their real age will reflect the characters's age and it will make more sense.

Robert Pattinson is his same age, Armie looks way better but in a more classic/old fashioned Hollywood way which automatically makes him look more mature.

r39, ALOT of whitewashing for the film occurred. The peach scene had to be tweaked for the film because a general audience would have been grossed out if the screenplay followed the novel's scenario verbatim, and alot of heterosexuals would have been just downright disgusted by the bathroom scene that took place in Rome. Elio's range of emotions is also difficult to translate to visual narrative - in the book, we can follow his complex objectification of Oliver with more personal and private emotional understanding, from his viewing Oliver purely as a sex object that he worships to someone that he fantasizes about hurting because his desire for him is frustrated; he even romanticizes an imagined Oliver as a bloated corpse being washed up on shore after drowning in a boating accident, the image of which tantalizes him. The complete range of complex emotions Elio runs through would have changed the entire film if they remained true to the novel.

The Roman-Greco imagery is strictly the film's interpretation; in the novel, we don't really get a sense of ancient pederasty and homoeroticism. The Roman Ovid is mentioned alot, but, as mentioned above, more for bisexual metaphors/sexual hybridity rather than man-on-man love. The ancient world doesn't provide a prominent presence in the book. The book relies more on modern classical references through music (Brahms, Haydn, Handel) and various literary figures from the modern period, most notably Shelley and Paul Celan. And, of course, Monet for the art crowd.

The film separates itself from the book by creating its own academic world rooted in Roman-Greco times, with an archeologist father and a sequence created just for the film in which an ancient artifact is brought up from the depths of the sea (depicting a beautiful androgynous boy that Oliver slowly fingers the lips of, something he will do later to a lying Elio on the berm).

The novel does not specify anything academic other than Oliver's work on Heraclitus and Elio's work on transcribing music. We aren't really told what kind of academic career Elio ends up in, only left to assume it has to do with music.

r45, and don't forget that in the novel, Oliver does not remember the call you by my name game. In the film, he tells Elio he remembers everything in the phone call from the States. In the book, Oliver doesn't remember (or at least acts like he doesn't so Elio gets the message that fun times are over now that Oliver has announced his upcoming marriage).

The older Oliver in the novel is obviously regretful but remains loyal to his chosen heterosexual life. He chooses to refer to it as living in a parallel universe rather than being in a coma for twenty years.

Anyone who read the book think Anchise the gardener was gay? I think that's what was being implied, right?

R58, yes, sort of. The implication in the book, especially after Elio expresses everyone’s surprise at how young Anchise really was when he died, is that nobody really knew him at all despite living so closely, for so long. People don’t trust Anchise, there’s something “off” about him, but nobody seems to know what it is.

Of course, the reader (particularly if the reader is gay) can recognize Anchise’s “oddness” for a familiar sort of wistful melancholy.

I think the gay rather than bi notion comes because of regret. They all basically end up with women but regret not ending with men. It's not bisexual imagery. It is a homosexual longing kind of imagery. There isn't a single male who chose a woman romantically, as in, out of passionate and erotic love for her.

Of course, you can say that choosing a woman would mean "the hetero victory", but my point remains: relationships with men are shown as romantic and dreamlike, relationships with women are either casual sex experimentation or boring "decent" marriages. There is no real romanticism or eroticism connected to females in the whole story.

R55 What was bathroom scene like in the book?

The book ending gives readers the option to choose whether Oliver will stay or not. His "I'm like you,I remember everything" could mean everything to him included "I know about the game but I con't do it". The book is Elio's perspective only so what's really inside Oliver mind is not fully developed. Personally I'm sure Oliver will surprise him by "calling him by his name"and stay,other more pessimistic will imagine a less romantic ending.

Anchise I don't see him as gay just ambiguous (not sexually) an outsider who observes and keep it to himself.

The bathroom scene...you don't have to be hetero to have a problem with that,plenty of gay people voiced their disgust with that part. I personally had no problem with it in the book but I'm glad it didn't make it in the movie. It would have taken away the attention from the peach scene.

[quote]I think Elio was genuinely bi and Oliver a closeted case who didn't have any support from his family and actually feared to be outed with certain disastrous consequences. He had is career and future already set and it wasn't worthed to lose all that in order to pursuit a relationship with a younger guy who didn't even figure out his life yet. Being older and destined to be in an academic environment his options were limited unlike Elio who was completely free to do whatever he wanted also because way younger and more comfortable with both sexes.

I agree with you - I think Elio is convincing as a genuinely bisexual man, but Oliver less so. Andre Aciman stated at a Q&A not long ago that Elio is indeed bi, and was surprised that there was any debate about it. He has always resisted labeling Elio and Oliver's sexuality, yet he has also stated that Oliver remains as much a mystery to him as he is to many readers. With that in mind, I've wondered if he realizes just how closeted Oliver seems, rather than a man who is genuinely attracted to both men and women. He uses the girls in the book as shields to hide behind, and as weapons against Elio - there's not a lot to indicate that he enjoys them very much for their own sake. He has absolutely nothing to say about the woman with whom he's spent 20 years of his life - she is a non-entity. And then there's Elio's implication, upon visiting Oliver at his university, that Oliver has tricked with men behind his wife's back.

[quote]and don't forget that in the novel, Oliver does not remember the call you by my name game.

I think he certainly DOES remember, but chooses not to play along because his wife and kids are nearby and can hear - so can Elio's parents. The fact that he breaks down crying during that phone conversation tells you he remembers all too well. And of course, at the end of the book, he tells Elio, 'I'm like you. I remember everything.'

[quote]The older Oliver in the novel is obviously regretful but remains loyal to his chosen heterosexual life. He chooses to refer to it as living in a parallel universe rather than being in a coma for twenty years.

And yet he also admits that meeting Elio after 15 years is like being woken from that 'coma'. It's understandable that he would be protective and even defensive about his chosen life, especially since it produced the sons he obviously loves very much. Plus, what's the alternative? Admit that because he failed in both courage and imagination, he's spent decades living a life that's less than what it could have been? But then there at the end, he has returned by himself to Elio and the place where it all began. Aciman said in an interview, 'At the very end, Oliver is the one who comes and visits him, and it’s not out of friendship.' It does seem like there's hope that he will indeed say the words Elio has longed for him to say.

[quote]Of course, the reader (particularly if the reader is gay) can recognize Anchise’s “oddness” for a familiar sort of wistful melancholy.

Exactly. Anchise lurks on the margins, watching other people live. And this is described as 'sinister' by the people around him, a characterization of homosexuality all too familiar to older gays. He's the first person to acknowledge Elio's pain over Oliver's departure, asking him if he's sad when he picks him up at the station, and telling Elio that he too is saddened by Oliver leaving. He recognized what was between them and wanted to comfort Elio, even though Elio can't really respond to it at that time.

[quote]Of course, you can say that choosing a woman would mean "the hetero victory", but my point remains: relationships with men are shown as romantic and dreamlike, relationships with women are either casual sex experimentation or boring "decent" marriages. There is no real romanticism or eroticism connected to females in the whole story.

This is very well put.

[quote] What was bathroom scene like in the book?

One of them takes a dump while the other is touching their body.

R65 is succinct. I'll be verbose.:)

The point of the bathroom scene is that Elio doesn't want there to be any secrets or barriers between them. It happens when they take their big trip alone together to Rome (Bergamo in the movie). He notes that they've never taken a shower together, never even been in the bathroom together at the same time. So I guess Oliver has used the toilet and Elio asks him not to flush, he wants to look. Then Elio tells him he wants him to see his too, so he goes as well, with Oliver watching as it happens, and as R65 says, rubbing his stomach as he does so. For Elio, the act leaves him feeling freer and safer than he has ever felt, now that there is nothing left to hide.

Needless to say, this would not have translated well to film - it barely works in the book. I get that Aciman was trying to illustrate just how deep their intimacy goes, how great their desire for such intimacy between them is, but...yeah. It was best left out

R66 Yeah I think maybe a "golden shower" kind of thing could have worked but crap is way too unpleasant for it to be accepted like that.

I'd have to say though, r60, that Elio's need for Marzia is just as erotic as his need for Oliver, although his desire for Oliver always wins out in the end. The novel Elio is quite a sexual animal, intuitively seeking out, for example, the sea smell of brine in women as he does in Oliver's swim shorts.

r59, and Oliver's closeness with Anchise is a hint as well. Anchise makes sure Oliver's wheels are well-inflated, he fixed him up when Oliver scraped his hip after a fall on the bike, and Oliver defends him as a "lost soul" when Elio voices his dislike of the man. Elio appears to be jealous of the two at one point.

Elio's dislike can be explained by a self-loathing - why some gay men choose to be homophobic, for example. Anchise is the one who picks up Elio at the train station after he returns from Rome, ironic because Anchise represents the lonely isolated oddball. He's the last guy Elio would want to see when he is feeling lonely and isolated after his gay lover has left him.

The only reason it worked for me, r66, is because we were taken on a ride through Elio's myriad sexual continuum from the very beginning of the book. He's his own Odysseus, going through an internal hell and back to get home, which is how he describes at one point what real sexual connection should be about: a homecoming. His need for Oliver transcended bodily need - it went deeper, almost frighteningly deeper, into a point where he wanted to MELD with Oliver (the metaphor of the whole "Call You By My Name" game - I'm you and you are me). It really is truly a frightening story on that level, but not on a horrific, FATAL ATTRACTION-level. The book plunges into a netherworld of sexual desire that most other works fail to truly articulate. By the time Elio announces he wants to see what has come out of Oliver's body and into the toilet, I get just how deep this connection between these two men really is, going beyond the language of academics and into a place where language cannot find the words to describe.

R68 Yet does he remember her after that? Does he want to be so "fatally intimate" with her? I'm not arguing that he is gay, it's obvious he isn't, but the overall tone of the story just feels gay-ish in its rejection of women and eternal longing for men.

You do make a valid point, r71, especially with your suggestion the book underlies a rejection of women. With the exception of Marzia, whose sexual appeal for Elio probably consists of a symbolic representation of his latent feminine side, and Mafalda, who may represent the constant threat of feminine intrusion, most of the women in the book are lacking any dimension. Chiara and the poet's wife Lucia and her three daughters are "types" used primarily for sexual representation. The mother, meanwhile, is almost completely non-existent, with the occasional dialogue here and there that really amounts to nothing. Art least we get to hear from her every now and then; Oliver's wife is relegated to the sidelines and never seen, not to mention never even named. CYBMN is a male-oriented world, where men - Elio, Oliver, the father, even the gardener (who worships Oliver)- are all searching for some kind of man-love.

Elio isn't gay? Ohhhhkay.

If his pee pee got consistently hard while having sex with girls he might very well be bi. Elio didn't have a reason to be delusional. He fucked who he wanted and the person who meant the most for him happened to be a guy.

[quote]it's obvious he isn't, but the overall tone of the story just feels gay-ish in its rejection of women and eternal longing for men.

It's a tone that feels influenced by the ancient Greeks - women are for procreation, domesticity, family but love between men is a higher form of love, nobler and more profound than anything one can have with a woman. Few if any of the women in the novel are presented as being the intellectual equals of the men. This is why I wrote somewhere around here that even though Aciman is very intent that we should view Elio and Oliver as beyond labels, bisexual if we must, the truth of the matter is that neither seems a particularly good bet for a woman, because there's little sense throughout that they regard a woman's mind and feelings with the same weight they give a man's.

[quote]The only reason it worked for me, [R66], is because we were taken on a ride through Elio's myriad sexual continuum from the very beginning of the book. He's his own Odysseus, going through an internal hell and back to get home, which is how he describes at one point what real sexual connection should be about: a homecoming. His need for Oliver transcended bodily need - it went deeper, almost frighteningly deeper, into a point where he wanted to MELD with Oliver (the metaphor of the whole "Call You By My Name" game - I'm you and you are me). It really is truly a frightening story on that level, but not on a horrific, FATAL ATTRACTION-level. The book plunges into a netherworld of sexual desire that most other works fail to truly articulate.

Even more ancient Greek influence (Plato). Yes, this aspect is one of the things that truly sets the novel apart - and of course, it's an aspect that was watered down in the film, as with most of the 'darkness' of the book. But I don't think that desire for melding is only from Elio - Oliver, after all, is the one who first asks Elio to call him by his name, in mid-coitus. There's an argument that Oliver loved Elio less, that he was the less obsessed and 'healthier' of the two in how he dealt with this lifelong connection that they have. But he in his way is just as obsessed as Elio.

I think it was just the author's fantasy of what he wished his parents would have been like, just like the whole movie was a fantasy. I thought it was totally unrealistic.

Unrealistic maybe, but I welcome a different interpretation to be set as an example for the audience to ponder over. Your son is gay. So the fuck what? Let him be who he is. It may not be a popular opinion, but the film presents a viewpoint through its artistic license to imagine a world where it shouldn't - and doesn't - matter.

I don't know if Luca intended this, but I watch CYBMN as just another love story. The fact that they are two guys end up being inconsequential. Heterosexuals have dominated the domain of tortured romances since the beginning of time. It could have been a man choosing another more socially acceptable woman over the woman who had his heart just it was Oliver choosing to marry a woman over the young man who had his heart. From one viewpoint of the film, homosexual politics don't really have to come into it.

In the book, Oliver also sticks his finger down a drunken Elio's throat to help him puke. Then finds all the unchewed peas he brings up funny. Now that's love.

[quote]but I watch CYBMN as just another love story. The fact that they are two guys end up being inconsequential.

No. What makes Oliver and Elio a story at all is that they are two guys. That is what causes the drama about whether they will get get together, that is what causes it be a clandestine affair, and that is what makes them a doomed romance.

[quote]It could have been a man choosing another more socially acceptable woman over the woman who had his heart

No. Oliver directly tells Elio how incredibly lucky he is to have his parents, and that his Dad would send him to straight camp. If Elio was a girl they would have managed to have a happy ending, but their same-sex love is doomed outside of confines of their summary together in this isolated villa.

R74 Yes, that's also the difficulty of creating a bisexual story. If your character ends up in love with someone of their own sex, then it is read as gay, as in this case. If it happens with someone of the opposite sex, then it is read as "het prevails".

R75 Yes exactly, very well put. The interesting thing is that I've seen it indeed among bisexual men, fluid men, call it what you want but men who are neither gay nor straight. Women are for mindless sex or a socially acceptable marriage. Men are for romance and intellectual interest. One of them actually fell for a woman and they have a relationship, but she is, I should say, rather masc. If she had a man's body, she wouldn't even make a femme impression, if you know what I mean.

I think the Father liked to engage in heavy finger banging from time to time

To me the “does Mom know” question from Elio is clearly about himself.... he’s not asking if she knows about the Dad’s possible attraction to men.

While we as the movie viewer may be well aware of her approving glances and quick recognition of Elio’s attraction to Oliver, suggestion to the Dad that Elio go with Oliver to Bergamo, etc. none of these things would be apparent to Elio himself... he’s totally wrapped up in his infatuation with Oliver to notice any of that.

To me, Elio asking his dad “does Mom know” at the end of that scene was a perfect moment of levity and seemed very true to life. Even through his dad’s comments have really touched him and they both get teary eyed, he’s still a kid and worried about “who else knew?”. It’s a very typical reaction and very endearing.

When Elio asks the question, Michael Stulhbarg plays the Dad’s reaction with a bemused pause and a 3 or 4 second blank stare as he considers how to answer. He knows that of course his wife knows about Elio, but decides for the moment to say “no” so Elio won’t feel embarrassed.

In the next scene when Oliver calls, Elio informs him “they know about us” meaning both parents. Most likely after Elio had gotten over some of his grief about Oliver’s being gone, his mom also let him know she was aware of their relationship and approved.

[quote]To me the “does Mom know” question from Elio is clearly about himself.... he’s not asking if she knows about the Dad’s possible attraction to men.

No, you're exactly wrong. She picked him up at the train station and watched him cry his eyes out over Oliver. In what world does she not know? You are completely, totally, 100% wrong.

Agree with R47

I thought the beauty of the “does mom know?” scene is that father and son take the same question to mean two different things.

Elio takes the answer (“I don’t think so”) as relating to whether Mom knows about his current love for Oliver. The father, having just revealed himself, is answering as to whether Mom knows about his long ago love for another man.

Reflection on their lost loves blinds each to the true question on the other’s mind.

Sexuality on DL is very black and white OP-- you're either gay or you're not. No middle ground.

In the real world, people get crushes on the same sex or the opposite sex and regret not acting on them.

So yes, the father is not a Kinsey 0 or 1, but seems to have a good relationship with his wife. He's portrayed as woke and open enough to appreciate what his son went through and tell him it's okay.

In both the book and the movie, you're supposed to take away that neither Elio nor Oliver knew what to do about this, that both of them were hetero enough to make the idea of being in a gay relationship extra scary, especially in the 1980s.

R84 I didn’t say she didn’t KNOW... I said Elios question to the Dad is asking if she knew. Because even though he was crying in front of her, I seriously doubt Elio thought she knew they had fucked!

This is hand down the best thread in the last couple weeks. I throughly enjoyed every intellectual discussion here. Wish we had more discussions like this on DL.

CMBYN is a beautiful and very sophisticated novel/movie, I must admit.

Because the mother in the book is such a vague character, when Elio asks "Does mom know" I think most would interpret it as knowing about E & O. Since she is much more present in the film, it is obvious that she does know about O & E, so it seems more if she knows about the father's missed opportunity and regret.

Aciman has said in interviews that he had his "Oliver" but never acted upon it, so I think the father's wistful thoughts of what might have been, reflect the author's own views of the road not taken.

As noted above, the whole thing about the imagery of the greek statues and their sensual desirability is totally a Luca/Ivory creation. When the father speaks of his chance of having what E & O have it's much more of a surprise in the book than in the film, because we had been given no prior clues.

There is no reason for Elio to ask anyone in the world at that point whether his mother knows about him and Oliver. And even if she didn't, it seemed obvious enough that Elio was asking Mr. Perlman if Mrs. Perlman knew about Mr. Perlman, not about Elio and Oliver. See the movie again if this is unclear.

r84, re-read r83's post.

[quote]Aciman has said in interviews that he had his "Oliver" but never acted upon it, so I think the father's wistful thoughts of what might have been, reflect the author's own views of the road not taken.

As I've read Aciman's non-fiction - Out of Egypt, his various essays - I've come across numerous autobiographical things that you can sort of see have been re-purposed, for lack of a better word, in Call Me By Your Name. I definitely think it is a kind of fantasy version of him and his 'Oliver' (Albio?). But something else that comes up repeatedly in his writing is the idea of a son learning about a great past love of his father's that had been previously unknown. This happens in CMBYN, Enigma Variations (in which both loves are male), and even in a non-fiction essay called A Late Lunch, in which Aciman's father, then in his eighties, revealed to him that he was in touch again with a woman he'd known 30 years before, back in Egypt. They talk about him going to visit her, and apparently he did, because Aciman has said that his father died with his mistress at one side and his wife on the other. Throw in whatever was between Aciman and his 'Oliver' that was so compelling he was moved to write CMBYN, and it's clear that this concept of the love that never came to the fruition it could have, the road not taken, has real resonance for him.

[quote]This is hand down the best thread in the last couple weeks. I throughly enjoyed every intellectual discussion here. Wish we had more discussions like this on DL.

I've really missed the deeper book and movie discussion that used to take place on the main CMBYN thread - they've gotten lost among the actor and fan-type stuff. I'm glad to see it revived on this thread.

Yeah, I am less affected by Chalamat and Hammer as I am by the actual film and the book. I have known guys who walked away from the film lusting after Timmy or Armie or having passionate feelings of rebuke for either, yet the film didn't inspire erotic feelings for either one of them in me. There was something else that got to me, and I have been looking for people to talk about the film/book on a more intellectual level. Who knew it would be Datalounge?

[quote]and I have been looking for people to talk about the film/book on a more intellectual level. Who knew it would be Datalounge?

There has been quite a lot of analysis of the book and film. It was just difficult to follow for outsiders I suppose since the thread series was long and unwieldy.

And I agree. I was not hot and bothered by either Chalamet or Hammer.

I agree this is by far the best thread about Cmbyn,there were so many things I didn't think had multiple interpretations and it's refreshing to see how this kind of universal story can lead you to different places.

I've been re-reading the book page by page in my language and english and even if I'm pretty fluent there were some subtle things I've missed and reading many of your interpretations it's like discovering the story again.

a lot of people care about both the book and the movie, and have valuable things to say, but it gets lost in all the timmy and armie fan shit and pursuit of dong.

I'm not totally against actor talk and have participated in some of it, but my primary interest in CMBYN is the book and the movie itself. Once the discussion threads on DL got swallowed by all the Timmy and Armie stuff, it pretty much shoved out book/movie discussion and the kind of things we're talking about here (I remember someone - clearly one of the fangurl types - complaining that we were 'overanalyzing' everything and it was boring). There used to be a better balance of all the topics in those threads.

Saw the movie, haven't read the book. I can appreciate the film-making skill behind it but it left me cold. So many people were raving about it that I thought I should give it a second viewing. Nope, same result.

I felt no real connection, sexual or otherwise, between the two leads. And yeah, the visual age difference was off-putting to me. The scene where they first have sex and Elio is climbing and pawing on Oliver like a kid at the jungle gym was one of the unsexiest things I have ever seen. And the pan away to the window when they are having sex was laughable. My favourite characters in the film were the parents.

I was surprised by how may gay men took this film very personally and considered it a 'gay' film. I thought it was clear that the film was about the bisexual male experience, from Oliver to Elio to, yes, the father.

R98 Well, regretting not being with a man when you are with a woman is a gay thing. Bisexuals are usually with a woman because they want to.

R86 If there was at least one character who was currently in a relationship with a man yet longing for some female lover, past or present. But all of them ultimately want to be with men. There isn't a single male-female relationship shown as deeply sexual, intense, a high and yet sensual sort of love. Basically in a free world with no social restrictions all of them would have had a male lover.

Not about bisexuals. About closet cases. Plain to see.

Remind me - the father was called Oliver, right? And the child was called Elio.

pedo trolls are why we can't have nice things, killed this thread like all the others

Who are you talking about, Pedo Troll Troll?

That horrible bad soap opera movie. I can't believe people are still talking about it.

R98 It's legit and normal to feel nothing. A rare minority of the overall experience but it happens.

R100 I think it's over simplifying how bisexuals live their sexuality. As I said before I think Elio was genuinely bi and Oliver more inclined to be a closed case. Elio loved both and some of his relationships were as important and meaningful, the only "problem" for him is the FIRST love happened to be a man he couldn't forget. It's about the impact of the first love more than a question of gender for Elio. Elio was under no pressure to date women to hide his sexuality or being delusional.

Oliver ends up with a woman but we don't know how that relationship was,it's simply not mentioned,nor we know if Elio will end up with a man...it's open to interpretation.

The book is about how Oliver impacted Elio's life.

They should've gone for a hotter dad.

I certainly thought that Elio was asking if his mother knew about his father's regrets for the "road not taken". Elio is too smart to be asking if his mother knew about his relationship with Oliver. His face made it clear he had cried all the way back in the car after Oliver left, if she didn't know before - which she did - that would have confirmed it. I thought it was a beautiful film beautifully acted by all concerned.

R108 she also made sure they both spent time together before Oliver left. She knew,no friend cries like that because his summer friend of few weeks leaves. He couldn't even speak on the phone at the train station. It was so clear to both parents knew they were lovers.

r107, no. The actor was just right, relayed the kind of aesthetic ambiguity needed for the type. Not everything has to be a porn movie.

I read Ivory's original script online and am fascinated by what Luca overrode and took out. The footsie scenes in the book are adapted to the script, but Luca chose not to do that - instead we have Oliver rubbing Elio's feet and giving them a kiss, which must have been improvised by the actors and/or director. Later, there is a scene where both the parents see the two playing footsie under the table and give one another a look. So glad we didn't have that scene, because leaving the parents' evolution of knowledge offscreen leaves us wondering when, where, how much they knew ...

The book may be a coming of sexual age where women are an option, but when Armie Hammer is cast as the love interest, it's going to be a gay love story.

So many of the gay guys who went to see the movie would LOVE to have had Armie's Oliver as their lover.

[quote]So many of the gay guys who went to see the movie would LOVE to have had Armie's Oliver as their lover.

I would have preferred Armie's Elio.

OMG Sufjan Stevens performed Visions of Gideon live for the very first time. 😲😲😲😲😲

And of course Mystery of Love ❤️ 😲😲❤️❤️

R115 thanks but this is not the place for this....please let this thread focus on in depth considerations on the book. Post them on the general thread for everybody to enjoy.thanks.

I think it's ok that r115 contributed something pertaining to the movie mystique. It provides a nice interlude to the intellectual discussion. And, like Simon and Garfunkel helping to create the identity of The Graduate, Sufjan Stevens deserves as much mention as he can get for helping to create the identity of CYBMN. Listening to the music puts me in another frame of mind to delve deeper in my relationship with the movie and the book.

Btw, this has been a discussion of the movie just as much as it has been about the book.

Well said R117. Sufjan is always enjoyable. I'm curious whether or not the book describes contact between Oliver and fis fiancée while he is in Italy? Does he write letters, telephone, express feelings of missing her? I wondered at the end of the movie, if he felt trapped because he had already proposed? Some people can't get out of their "entanglements" for whatever weak reasons. I don't recall any mention of her in the movie untill the very end.

The book is from Elio's point of view r118, the only thing we know of Oliver is what Elio sees. So no.

[quote] I'm curious whether or not the book describes contact between Oliver and fis fiancée while he is in Italy? Does he write letters, telephone, express feelings of missing her?

In the novel, we are made aware that Oliver sometimes receives phone calls at the villa, which he never discusses with anyone - Elio says he keeps them very short to the point of being curt. I always assumed this was the girlfriend. Then later in the novel, when he and Elio have arrived in Rome for their last few days together (the Bergamo trip in the movie) and are on their way to a reading at a bookstore, Oliver is very insistent that Elio go on to the bookstore while he makes a phone call, which he needlessly mentions is local. But Elio notes that he could have made a phone call when they were back at their hotel - it's pretty clear that Oliver is making a call he doesn't want Elio to overhear. Again, I assumed that this call was to the girlfriend. All of which makes one wonder just how 'off' he and the girlfriend were during his time in Italy, at least from her perspective.

Aciman gives us almost nothing at all about Oliver's gf/wife, beyond her bare existence. We know they have been 'on-and-off' for two years, and he apparently picks up with her within a fairly short amount of time after returning from Italy in August, since by Christmastime marriage is on the table. And they are still married 15 years later.

Thank you R120... Was he indeed engaged before leaving for Italy?

not r120, but no, or if so, readers were not aware of it

R117 yes it's ok in fact I thanked the user,I just told him to post the video in the general one so that everybody else can see them and warn him/her about the thread in case this one is the only one found. no big deal. I just don't want to turn this only one into something else.

[quote]Was he indeed engaged before leaving for Italy?

R120 here - there's no reason for the reader to think he was, as R122 says. My personal interpretation is that Oliver's rather speedy engagement/marriage was a direct response to what he experienced with Elio - it was a way to close the door between that love and the rest of his 'real' life going forward, and perhaps an attempt to close the door on attraction to men altogether.

Because, really - this relationship with the girlfriend was unstable for two years (it is interesting that the film makes it off and on for three years, not two) but suddenly, after having experienced this huge, powerful relationship with Elio, a scant few months later he's ready to go all in with her? What's the rush, and what changed? It's hard to interpret his choice as being about great love for her - which isn't to say he doesn't care. But knowing what we know about how his father would view his relationship with a man, I think it's probably a fair assumption that the wife DOES meet Dad's approval; Oliver throughout the novel is someone who struggles with taking risks, so he's not going to pick a wife who will lead to dissension. He's made a choice to follow the path of least resistance. What his feelings for her are within that choice is anyone's guess.

That's what's behind Oliver's "for you it's all fun and games; for me, it's something else I haven't figured out yet" (or something like that, it's been a few months since I read the novel for the 4th time lol). Marriage is a panicked reaction imo, trying to move on as quickly as possible.

R125 it's also the most common and easiest choice for bisexuals and unfortunately the only option for many closeted cases who have everything to lose by coming out.

That is similar to what therapists call a "flight into health", where a patient closes the door on their pain and pathology rather than do the work of exploring it further. They tell the therapist they are now feeling fine and therefore cured

[quote] That's what's behind Oliver's "for you it's all fun and games; for me, it's something else I haven't figured out yet"

Yes, the 'something else which I haven't figured out' is love, and his inability to put a name to it scares him, by his own admission. Oliver has fallen in love with another male. While he certainly has had sexual experiences with other guys, we don't know that love has ever been a factor before. There in the utopia of B., he is able to give in to it; at home, it's another story. When he returns at Christmas to break the news of his engagement, we can see that he's still quite tempted by Elio, and he once again must resist him and be 'good'.

R127, very interesting. I have used the words 'fleeing' and 'flight' to describe Oliver's actions in other posts, but wasn't aware of that therapeutic term. It's fitting.

I was appalled by the creepy father. The son should have hooked up with a boy around his own age.

Regarding the criticism of the age difference between the lovers, I can understand the initial reservations, but in the domain of literature (and film), you have to allow so-called taboos to be explored. Child sexuality is especially something that no one wants to talk about, and there really isn't a space to feel freely to talk about itwithout far of being labeled a pedophile or pervert. The book takes the stance of a sexually active 17 year old who acts primarily as the initiator, with the adult 24 year old male as the one resistant to pursuing a sexual relationship, which puts a twist on the conventionally accepted notion of adults as corruptors (sp?) of youth. We should allow art to examine the road usually not taken. From my own personal experience (I, myself, was sexually active from a very young age - playing advanced games of doctor with the neighborhood kids when I was in elementary school and even pursued a 30ish year old divorced man who lived next door when I was 16-17 motivated completely and solely by my own drive and desire), CYBMN was a breath of fresh air when I first read it. We want to think teenagers are not in full charge of their sexual awareness, and we want to think 24 year olds should be adult enough not to be confused as teenagers when, in fact, some blossom fast while in the phase of naivete and innocence and some blossom late in their maturity. I appreciate CYBMYN's originality and daring, and have read it four times already, grateful that it isn't just another ho-hum predictable tired old gay story.

To repeat comments that have been said a million times on this board, few people had an issue with the age difference in the book r130. It was Luca's casting of Armie that caused the problem, because he reads mid-thirties, not mid-twenties.

r59/r69 - Anchise is also said to have been kicked out of the army, which could suggest he was not "fit" to succeed in the traditionally heterosexual domain.

[quote]It was Luca's casting of Armie that caused the problem, because he reads mid-thirties, not mid-twenties.

Not only how much older he seems than 24, but also the size differential between the two actors. Oliver and Elio in the book are of similar enough size that they regularly wear each other's clothes.

They need to recast Oliver for the sequel.

Also, Elio looked like he was about 14, especially his torso. He could have played even younger. .

Back to Book Talk ... do you realize we don't know Elio's name until about 27 pages in, when Oliver calls him by his name during a conversation in the garden, ironic considering the title of the book.

We also do not know the story is set in the eighties until half-way through the book, when Elio writes an inscription in a book he gifts to Oliver: "Signed in silence, somewhere in Italy in the mid-eighties" or something along those lines (don't have the book near me to copy verbatim.

The film explicitly picks 1983 for some reason.

[quote]The film explicitly picks 1983 for some reason.

Because that makes it largely pre-AIDS hysteria.

Sometimes they pick a year because they can get rights or like the lyrics of a certain song that was big that year.

They picked 1983 for the same reason the story of Brokeback Mountain ended in 1983: to avoid having to deal with AIDS. It's not a coincidence that both stories chose that year.

Aciman's novel, as R136 says, mentions the mid-1980s, but I believe Aciman himself has specifically mentioned 1987. The book was published in 2007, and I guess if you do the reverse math of Oliver's and Elio's visits in the last section, 1987 is the year you arrive at. Which actually makes the lack of AIDS mention even more pronounced, given that Oliver was living in NYC and attending/working at Columbia during that time.

Even in 1987, it might be that “occasionally dabbling but basically straight men,” as Oliver had believed himself to be, didn’t really imagine they would be affected by a disease they assumed mainly struck “promiscuous” homosexuals.

Back to the question of "Does Mom know?" ...

In the book, the mother is completely insignificant to the action. Through the few mentions she does get, we get a sense of a woman who is pleasant enough but a very superficial and socially conscious woman, concerned more for appearances (Jews of discretion), as she labels Oliver "le muvi star" and disapproves yet is tolerant of his boisterous Americanisms. When Elio, who demonstrates no real emotional attachment to the mother in the book, asks his father "Does Mom know?", it is explicitly about he and Oliver as it is stated in the narrative:

"I wanted to ask him how he [the father] knew. But then how could he not have known? How could anyone not have known? "Does Mom know?" I asked. I was going to say 'suspect' but corrected myself. "I don't think she does." His voice meant, 'But even if she did, I am sure her attitude would be no different than mine.' "

It clearly states what "Does Mom know?" is meant to mean.

In the film, however, we have a much different scenario. Film-Mom, now given the name of Annella, is fleshed out to be a significant pivotal presence. She is not the novel's social matron; instead, she appears to be more of a product of the sexual revolution of the 60s/70s, perhaps a former flower child, earthy, cool, a little more "free-loving", and symbolically asserts her independence - and sexuality - through her incessant smoking. We know the mother knows everything that is developing between her son and Oliver just by her peripheral glances, and Elio has to know she knows as well after she tells him Oliver likes him more than he likes himself (this scene in the book was actually between Elio and the 10 year old girl who lived next door). Film-Elio reaches out to his mother to pick him up the train station (novel-Elio is picked up at the station by Anchise the gardener) - it is instinctive he turn to her. That beautiful scene between mother and son in the car as he cries and she comforts him in silence is indication alone that Elio and Mrs. Perlman are on the same wavelength, a psychic bond that need not speak. Hence, when film-Elio asks Mr. Perlman, "Does Mom know?", it is more likely that Elio is referring to Perlman's own past.

So there are two different scenarios: one for the book and one for the film. In the book, Elio is referring to himself and Oliver when he asks his father if "Mom knows?". The film rewrites the novel's intention by not changing the dialogue (the novel-father's speech is repeated verbatim in the film) but by redesigning the character of the mother and the part she plays in the entire story.

Oh, and on the original question of whether the father is supposed to be gay ... after the father and son have their intimate conversation, the book writes:

"We said good night. On my way upstairs I vowed to ask him about his life. We'd all heard about his women when he was young, but I'd never even had an inkling of anything else. Was my father someone else? And if he was someone else, who was I?"

Yes. Even the maid scissors the mom every now and then.

[quote]the story of Brokeback Mountain ended in 1983

What year did I kill Jack?

Guadagnino calls the film an "homage to fathers."

SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK: The mother in the book really is completely unnecessary to the whole story except as a traditional figurehead. She contributes nothing. When Elio is asking himself who could he talk to about his feelings for Oliver, he goes through a list of people in his head that starts with the housekeeper, his aunt, his cousins, his friends, his father, and then goes on to a teacher, a shrink, and even Oliver himself - in other words, everybody and their dog; he does not at all think of including his mother in that list. Interesting that at the end of the story, she is still living (the father has died) upstairs in her room unseen and suffering from dementia or Alzheimers, a fact that is just briefly glossed over without any sentimentality. Meanwhile, Elio and Oliver start to close the book waxing sentimental over Elio's late father's ashes.

One can argue that the book is an homage to not just fathers, but patriarchy in general - a man's world. But try as it might, the story cannot survive without feminine "interference", so we have the presence of the housekeeper, who is the real maternal part of this insular men's world and whom Elio simultaneously depends upon, appreciates, and occasionally resents for her over-protectiveness and intrusion in his life, something usually a boy feels for his mother growing up.

I posted this on another thread a while back, and I repost for those who never had a chance to watch it:

[quote]One can argue that the book is an homage to not just fathers, but patriarchy in general - a man's world.

I have argued for a while that the book has a woman problem. Few people want to discuss that aspect these days, since the book has gained so many female fans...but none of the female characters are anywhere near as fleshed out as the male ones. Luca definitely built Annella up from her book counterpart - I don't think we're ever even told what she does for a living in the novel (IF she does anything for a living). It is clear that Elio takes her love for granted in a way that's not the case with his father. Luca added on to Marzia too, though like Aciman, he still doesn't let her get angry over her shitty treatment by Elio. Chiara is a bit bitchy and not terribly bright in the novel - in the film she is at least given a moment of sympathy at the end for getting tossed aside by Oliver. Vimini is absent from the film, her most important contribution given to Annella, but even she gets screwed over by Oliver, who's such a good buddy to her but bails from Italy without saying goodbye to her, even knowing he may never see her again because she's sick...and is still rewarded with years' worth of daily correspondence from her. The women wait on the men and keep things running, and other than Mafalda's husband and Anchise (who are paid employees), all of the considerable work of keeping the busy summer household running is done by the women with zero help from Elio, Oliver or anyone else. And for all that Aciman wants to paint Elio and Oliver as bisexual, fluid, whatever, both are fairly dismissive of women's minds and emotions in general compared to their attitudes towards that of men.

Elio’s parents’ relationship would be what his relationship with Marzia would be if they married.

His mother is such a pretty, charming, clever woman and entertainer that you don’t really notice that maybe her relationship with her husband is lacking sexually in light of his monologue revelation. People upthread noticed the chain-smoking. Her lack of bitterness and seeming full acceptance of her husband and later of Elio and Oliver is unlike the usual portrayal of a wife with a bisexual husband.

Not having read the novel, my interpretation of the movie was that the father had had a string of "summer interns" who he wound up having brief sexual relationships with. His wife had long before accepted this but liked their comfortable life with their son so was happy with the status quo. Along comes Oliver, but for the first time, Elio is old enough or interested enough to hang around and be part of the conversation. I think in real life, the father would have been jealous of Oliver and Elio, but he's presented as being somewhat accepting of his age and declining sexual attraction. I don't buy that at all. People in their 40s are not ready to be put out to pasture. I think he just realized he was not Oliver's type when he saw him put his hands on Elio's body so he couldn't do anything about that and went along with the situation.