Gay dad in "Call Me By Your Name?"

Yes, the dad is either gay or bisexual. He once had something with a guy and regrets not pursuing it further.

Is he, though? I thought he could be referring to a woman - just that path not taken or a great regret.

Ugh I’m really resisting watching. Is it actually worth the time?

It's one of those movies I could only watch once. Not because it was bad but because it made me sad.

That scene made me bawl for literally an hour, OP. It opened up something inside of me and I will always love the movie for that. A father who is THAT understanding and loving is what every gay kid needs and I'm sure very few got (especially in the '80s!). Like R4, I will not watch that movie twice--similar to how I feel about Brokeback Mountain.

It seemed obvious to me that the father was referring to a guy from his past who he didn't pursue--or just not relishing that time in one's youth when things are fluid and you can try/have anything because you're probably as young and beautiful as you'll ever be. He seemed at most bisexual and at least bicurious, but too intellectually/culturally astute to be a closet case. That wouldn't really work for the movie, IMO.

I'd say it's worth it, r3. Watch out for the moronic fan base, though (I hear the faghags went crazy over this one).

I haven't seem any of the director's other films, but you can tell he was given free license to make interesting choices in this one. Chalamet's horny character is our hero---we experience everything he does, with the intensity turned up and little self-reflection, despite the teenaged mopiness. The other guy is more of a cypher---I think that Armie Hammer played his character as an uptight closet case; not much about him except a kind of furtive guilt is revealed to the audience.

"He seemed at most bisexual and at least bicurious, but too intellectually/culturally astute to be a closet case. That wouldn't really work for the movie, IMO."

Really? Why not? I think we're supposed to get the impression that being a closet case is a entirely viable option for any of the characters.

It's a poor adaptation of a very intense, psychological novel; but one that I suspect was retconned as empowering and life-affirming in the editing room.

I strongly suspect the original cut of the film was quite dark and ended with Elio's suicide at the waterfall. Chalamet said while preparing for it he watched DePalma's Obsession - an extremely dark movie. The movie premiered at Sundance instead of Venice where Guadagnino's movie's usually premiere, and the filmmakers seemed genuinely surprised by the rapturous reception there.

Had they kept the original dark tone, I suspect it would have been much closer to the experience of reading the novel, which is a little like "Endless Love" in that it has an unreliable narrator who may be crazy.

R3, I hated it. It was like a European travelogue coffee table book in cinema form. I made no connection to any character and found the performances uniformly flat and lazy, save for Michael Stuhlbarg as the dad.

After it ended (in the theater), I made a caustic comment to my friend, and then looked over to see an Eldergay in tears, and I felt terrible. So if you liked the movie, I’m happy for you and don’t want to take that away from you.

But I thought it was dreck dressed up as tasteful and tragic.

And I had to avoid 10k Datalounge threads on it for months.

For R8: there is a sequel to the novel, "Find Me", set 10 years into the future. Elio is a concert pianist in Rome, so definitely alive.

In the notorious “pan to the window” love scene, the shot before they pan away is kind of rape-y. Elio is going to be deflowered by a man for the first time, and Hammer - a physically huge man - looks like he’s going to thrust it in.

The book makes the point that Oliver was a sensitive lover and that Elio was the aggressive one. So it’s kind of odd that the love scene was handled that way, no?

Unless it was intentional. There are moments in the film in which Hammer is shot like an intimidating presence. The unusual cutting of the bed scene makes me wonder if the love scene was indeed staged to look rape-y, and when they retconned the film from a dark movie to a light one, they had to remove most of this scene.

R9 the novel was gifted to me by someone who liked to read too much into things and I can’t shake off the feeling it’s just more gays-can’t-be-happy dreck. Fair assessment?

Idiot at R10

I did not say he died in the novel. He does not die in the novel. I said he I think he was originally supposed to die in the film.

If you are familiar with Guadagnino's filmography, you know he has a lifelong fear of water and drowning. Many of his movies end with drowning deaths - I Am Love, A Bigger Splash.

There is no waterfall scene in the novel. The boys go to Rome together, not the mountains. Guadagnino changed it to a waterfall. Why?

If you watch the film, Guadagnino shoots the ascent with Elio scrambling ahead into the mist with Hammer hesitating and looking nervously back. Why?

BECAUSE HE IS REFERENCING ORPHEUS AND EURIDYCE. Orpheus looks back at Eurydice and dooms her back to Hades. Oliver is Orpheus and Elio is Eurydice. Elio was intended to die at the end of the movie.

It's worth watching at least for the cinematography, a nice looking film.

R7 - I'd say primarily because that's what Armie's character is for. I always saw it as Armie was the so-called "closet case" who fell in line with what he felt was acceptable in society, whereas Elio's father was more open-minded than that.

But the idea that the two characters could be direct parallels of each other--as you might be suggesting?--is an interesting one.

R5 that’s my take as well.

"[R9] the novel was gifted to me by someone who liked to read too much into things and I can’t shake off the feeling it’s just more gays-can’t-be-happy dreck. Fair assessment?"

Nah. Maybe "some gays can't be happy," but yje 27 year-old is fine. Yeah, he's upset when his lover calls him a year after seeing him to let him know he's marrying, but he would have moved on anyway.

I read the novel before anyone was even talking about making it into a movie. It never occurred to me for a moment that the father was referring to a gay relationship, but rather to a first love. The point of the scene is to show him as an understanding and accepting parent.

The novel was not great, but the script somehow managed to omit what little good there was in the novel, and as has been widely noted, Armie Hammer (who I think can be good in the right movie) was utterly wrong for the part he played.

R5 “literally” an hour

I liked the part where Elio puts the underwear on his face like a mask and started huffing uncontrollably. Relatable.

"European coffee table travelogue book" is a great way of describing the feel of the movie, r9. It was definitely more concerned with style and cinematography than character development. With the exception of the underwear sniffing, the two leads barely felt human.

"In the notorious “pan to the window” love scene, the shot before they pan away is kind of rape-y"

R11, I'm not 100% sure that we were necessarily meant to assume that it ended in penetration (because it cut away before anything starts), but I did---and it did occur to me that fucking your professor's scrawny 17 tear-old kid before a few oral sex and mutual j/o episodes would be risky, and in line with the behavior of an ambivalent closet case.

Two observations:

1. Oliver screwed him - hence the later “peach” scene.

2. The father (who showed a touch too much excitement at the statue of the male torso) obviously had a prior fling with a guy. As he hesitantly reveals it to soothe his son’s distraught coming out; Elio, worried about the extent of his own exposure to others asks, “does mom know”? Dad, misinterpreting the question as inquiring about his own gay affair, relies; “I don’t think so.”

The crisscross is perfect.

With Oliver soon to be engaged; the film gives all three, Elio, Oliver, and dad, permission to be gay and closeted to the world.

I've always thought Aciman views mens' sexuality as all being like his - open to a possible attraction or fling with a man in the bloom and excitement of youth, but ultimately predominantly straight in the end. I also think he writes like a straight man trying to imagine what a real male-male love and sex would be like. The scene in the book where Elio and Oliver watch each other shit and look at the turds (and Oliver rubs Elio's stomach while he shits) is what a straight guy would think male lovers do.

Yes, the dad hinted strongly that he felt for a man what Elio was feeling for Oliver.

It was, for me, a moving film. I think it somehow captured something very real about being gay and being in love at that time - the feeling of only being able to show a bit of it, and needing to submerge the rest until you could sequester yourself and your lover safely. There might also be threads of the universal feelings about a first love in the film, too, but it captured my experience on those years in the 80s more closely than I think any bit of art ever has (well, maybe bits of Parting Glances and a few other films did).

Oliver was a bit shallow, more hidden in the film, maybe more of a symbol than a fully realized person. But it resonated for me because I fell for a bi guy who looked so much like Oliver, down to the haircut and the sneakers. Both heart and libido opened up to a physically beautiful man, both made vulnerable in his presence.

[quote] As has been widely noted, Armie Hammer (who I think can be good in the right movie) was utterly wrong for the part he played.

He was a bad match with Chalamet, for sure. The characters were supposed to be 17 and 23 or 24, but Hammer looked much older and Chalamet could have passed for 15.

Hammer was apparently sexually abused by a 40 year old man when he was twelve. The House of Effie, who was his mistress while he was making it, said making the movie screwed him up.

Anyway my theory is that Hammer agreed to make it because it was supposed to be a dark movie and the Oliver character wasn’t coded as “good.” Then when it got retconned into a saccharine romance and people started shipping him and Chalamet, it screwed with his brain.

[quote] Ugh I’m really resisting watching. Is it actually worth the time?

No.

Now, that you mention it, at the end the father was very compassionate and caring when speaking with his son.

"Two observations:

1. Oliver screwed him - hence the later “peach” scene."

But Chalamet's character fucks the peach (in the book, he explicitly imagines it as the other guy's ass).

R3 I think it’s a very well done film. I love seeing film depictions of things I went through from another culture’s point of view. It’s worth watching, just for the sake of it being a very important mainstream film in LGB culture.

Everyone was bi, no one was gay except that gay couple that visited. Elio was fucking that girl Marzia, Oliver ended up marrying a woman and the father genuinely seemed thrilled the night they came back from bringing up the statue and Elio took off, hoping he was going to get lucky with Marzia and the father talked Oliver into going to have a drink, finally he was getting Oliver all to himself.

I think that Elio is bi, but still can't shake the perception that we're supposed to think of Oliver as a closet case. He seems too conflicted.

All three men are gay; but Elio’s at least a Kinsey 5

I didn't think the father was referring to a gay relationship at all.

[quote] when they retconned the film from a dark movie to a light one

There's proof this actually happened? Or is it some kind of speculation?

…it is speculation

Among other things, the film premiered at Sundance. The opening night reaction from the trades was that they couldn’t believe it was sent to Sundance.

Venice was (and is) Guadagnino’s home turf. If he and the producers had been completely confident that CMBYN was finished, polished, and aligned with his authorial vision, Venice would’ve been the obvious choice.

• Prestige: Venice is second only to Cannes in terms of arthouse clout, and it was already Guadagnino’s launchpad with I Am Love and A Bigger Splash.

• National pride: He’s Italian, the film is shot in Italy, and Venice loves showcasing Italian auteurs.

• Oscar springboard: Venice was becoming a major launch festival for awards contenders (Birdman, Gravity, La La Land). CMBYN would have fit right into that ecosystem.

So if they knew they had a major work, Venice was the logical move.

Why Sundance Instead?

Sending it to Sundance implies hedging:

• Uncertainty: maybe they felt it didn’t land the way they envisioned (too soft, too romantic, not mythic enough).

• Positioning: Sundance is about emotional discovery and buzz — less brutal than Venice/Cannes, where the wrong crowd can maul a film.

• Low-risk, high-reward: if it bombs, it’s just another indie at Sundance. If it connects, it becomes the “breakout queer romance” of the year.

Which is exactly what happened — but not, perhaps, what Guadagnino had been aiming for artistically.

The premiere reactions in Park City — the cast and crew looking stunned at the ovation — really are a tell. They didn’t look like artists expecting triumph. They looked like artists resigned to vulnerability who suddenly realized the audience loved what might have felt to them like a compromised version of their vision.

Back to this scene

Waterfalls, in mythology and literature, often represent a liminal space, a boundary between life and death. “Reichenbach Falls” is probably the best known example (Sherlock Holmes).

Notably, in Greek mythology, water represented the boundary between life and death - the River Styx. And like I said before, Guadagnino is alluding to Orpheus and Eurydice here. Orpheus looks back over his shoulder, dooming Eurydice back to Hades. Oliver (Orpheus) looks back, while Elio (Eurydice) runs headfirst into the ominous mist (death). This is foreshadowing. This is Chekov’s gun. Elio was intended to return to the waterfall and throw himself off it after receiving the phone call from Oliver.

That would align it with Guadagnino’s consistent theme of water representing Eros & Thanatos - sex and death.

I've watched interviews with the actors and director on YT and Armie does always seem uncomfortable in them. Strange to sign up to be in a gay movie and then act all weird about it.

He may have been subconsciously trying to recreate his abuse or get into the head of his abuser by doing the film.

I think the only valid interpretation in the film is that the dad was in love with another man in his youth and he never followed through on the attraction.

Because, In the movie his wife is practically the perfect woman - lovely, intelligent, generous, never-overstepping. When he says “I never had what you two have” when married to that her, well, that just sounds ungrateful, or makes him an idiot. But if he meant a young love with another man, that makes sense.

Of note, unlike most of the film's script the speech by the father is taken almost word-for-word from Aciman's novel.

I found the film to be rather cold and distant, with the exception of this final scene.

So a guy his 20s gets the hots for teen boy who enjoys the sex because the mature guy is really tall and big, but not down there. Just an average cock. In fact the skinny boy is packing but doesn't know the value of having a big cock. He likes his older lover and the sex feels good. Everyone is happy because the teen never points at the man's kind of little cock and laughs at it. This cruelty about dick size will come later, to the young man.

R42 have you been drinking?

R5 / R15 It struck a chord with me too. My parents were not understanding at first (they later were). I related to Chalamet's character -- all full of teenaged angst and boredom and yearning for a hot guy a few years older than I was -- and not being able to tell a soul about it!

For those who read the book, then...and say the scene as written was identical...was it any clearer what the father meant, in the book?

By the way, I found the people in the film insufferably intellectual. In their manner, I mean. The chain-smoking, boring mother and the father who seems to choose every word carefully. I just wanted them to tell some jokes, laugh, maybe get drunk.

I’m quite sure the speech isn’t identical

Okay, well, identical or not (I've read it's basically the same)...what was the conclusion of people who have read the book, here? Was he talking about being gay, or not? The question remains the same.

From the book, I assumed that the father was referring to a same-sex romance. I don’t think we’re meant to take it that the father is closeted or even bisexual: it’s just that he experienced a flourish of desire of when he was in his youth, it passed, but that these experiences are valuable and should be treasured - even the overwhelming and devastating disappointment, in Eliot’s case - as such feelings become increasingly infrequent as we get older.

What he’s telling his son is that the gender of one’s object of desire of less important than the fact it happened at all.

R13. Geez, calm down.

[quote] [R5] / [R15] It struck a chord with me too. My parents were not understanding at first (they later were). I related to Chalamet's character -- all full of teenaged angst and boredom and yearning for a hot guy a few years older than I was -- and not being able to tell a soul about it!

That’s where I felt the book excelled - a sketch of those summers of late teenage/not-quite-adulthood where you feel desire and fumbling reach for something without knowing how to do it.

The thing about the movie is that the guy planning the dad is really fey.

From the screenplay:

[quote]PERLMAN (in a very amused tone) No misbehaving tonight. When I tell you to play, then play! You're too old not to accept people as they are. What's wrong with them? I don't think it's very attractive of you to call them 'Sonny and Cher' behind their backs...

[quote] ELIO Mom called them that.

[quote]PERLMAN...and then accept gifts from them. Is it because they're gay or because they're ridiculous? Is that it? I hope not. And if you know as much about economics when you're Mounir's age you'll be a very wise man indeed and a credit to me. Now get into this.

In the movie, Michael Stuhlbarg didn’t have a very amused tone, he sounded really irritated with Elio for not being appropriately deferential to the gay guests.

The guy playing the dad reminded me of a few married men I hooked up with.....and a few guys who all came out, divorced their wives and became local theater directors.

In Find Me, the sequel to the book Call Me By Your Name, Elio's parents are divorced and his father, Samuel, meets a young woman with whom he embarks upon a passionate relationship. So, I suspect Samuel's wistfulness in Call Me By Your Name is due to a feeling of being trapped in a conventional marriage when he really just wants to flirt with attractive young women.

R53 local theatre directors! Oddly specific and completely accurate.

"Tell me about Rome," he said as soon as he saw me ready to sit next to him. This was also the moment when he would allow himself his last smoke of the day. He put away his manuscript with something of a tired toss that suggested an eager now-we-come-to-the-good-part and proceeded to light his cigarette with a roguish gesture, using one of the citronella candles. "So?" There was nothing to tell. I repeated what I'd told my mother: the hotel, the Capitol, Villa Borghese, San Clemente, restaurants.

"Eat well too?"

I nodded.

"And drank well too?"

Nodded again.

"Done things your grandfather would have approved of?" I laughed. No, not this time. I told him about the incident near the Pasquino. "What an idea, to vomit in front of the talking statue!

"Movies? Concerts?"

It began to creep over me that he might be leading somewhere, perhaps without quite knowing it himself. I became aware of this because, as he kept asking questions remotely approaching the subject, I began to sense that I was already applying evasive maneuvers well before what was awaiting us around the corner was even visible. I spoke about the perennially dirty, run-down conditions of Rome's piazzas. The heat, the weather, traffic, too many nuns. Such-and-such a church closed down. Debris everywhere. Seedy renovations. And I complained about the people, and the tourists, and about the minibuses loading and unloading numberless hordes bearing cameras and baseball hats. "Seen any of the inner, private courtyards I told you about?" I guess we had failed to visit the inner, private courtyards he had told us about.

"Paid my respects to Giordano Bruno's statue?" he asked.

We certainly did. Almost vomited there too that night.

We laughed.

Tiny pause. Another drag from his cigarette.

Now.

"You two had a nice friendship."

This was far bolder than anything I anticipated.

"Yes," I replied, trying to leave my "yes" hanging in midair as though buoyed by the rise of a negative qualifier that was ultimately suppressed. I just hoped he hadn't caught the mildly hostile, evasive, seemingly fatigued Yes, and so? in my voice.

I also hoped, though, that he'd seize the opportunity of the unstated Yes, and so? in my answer to chide me, as he so often did, for being harsh or indifferent or way too critical of people who had every reason to consider themselves my friends. He might then add his usual bromide about how rare good friendships were and that, even if people proved difficult to be with after a while, still, most meant well and each had something good to impart. No man is an island, can't shut yourself away from others, people need people, blah, blah. But I had guessed wrong.

"You're too smart not to know how rare, how special, what you two had was."

"Oliver was Oliver," I said, as if that summed things up.

"Parce que c'était lui, parce que c'était moi," my father added, quoting Montaigne's all-encompassing explanation for his friendship with Etienne de la Boé-tie.

I was thinking, instead, of Emily Brontë's words: because "he's more myself than I am."

"Oliver may be very intelligent—," I began. Once again, the disingenuous rise in intonation announced a damning but hanging invisibly between us. Anything not to let my father lead me any further down this road.

"Intelligent? He was more than intelligent. What you two had had everything and nothing to do with intelligence. He was good, and you were both lucky to have found each other, because you too are good."

My father had never spoken of goodness this way before. It disarmed me.

"I think he was better than me, Papa."

"I am sure he'd say the same about you, which flatters the two of you."

He was about to tap his cigarette and, in leaning toward the ashtray, he reached out and touched my hand.

"What lies ahead is going to be very difficult," he started to say, altering his voice. His tone said: We don't have to speak about it, but let's not pretend we don't know what I'm saying.

Speaking abstractly was the only way to speak the truth to him.

"Fear not. It will come. At least I hope it does. And when you least expect it. Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot. Just remember: I am here. Right now you may not want to feel anything. Perhaps you never wished to feel anything. And perhaps it's not with me that you'll want to speak about these things. But feel something you did."

I looked at him. This was the moment when I should lie and tell him he was totally off course. I was about to.

"Look," he interrupted. "You had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away, or pray that their sons land on their feet soon enough. But I am not such a parent. In your place, if there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don't snuff it out, don't be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we'd want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!"

I couldn't begin to take all this in. I was dumb-struck.

"Have I spoken out of turn?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Then let me say one more thing. It will clear the air. I may have come close, but I never had what you had. Something always held me back or stood in the way. How you live your life is your business. But re-member, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. Most of us can't help but live as though we've got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. But there's only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there's sorrow. I don't envy the pain. But I envy you the pain."

He took a breath.

"We may never speak about this again. But I hope you'll never hold it against me that we did. I will have been a terrible father if, one day, you'd want to speak to me and felt that the door was shut or not sufficiently open."

I wanted to ask him how he knew. But then how could he not have known? How could anyone not have known? "Does Mother 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.

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?

I didn't realize the book is set in a different part of Italy than the movie (near the ocean).

R58 Judging by that, I would say it's not meant to suggest he's gay. Maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't read it that way. I actually thought the father, at least in the movie, was taking a big step talking to Elio about his affair with what's-his-name. I think the dad is straight. The actor was a bit femmy, which was confusing.

I think r58's long quotation is meant to imply that Elio's dad had an intense relationship with another woman before he met Elio's mother. This was a passionate and meaningful relationship - far more meaningful than his marriage - but he'd never mentioned it to his family.

Andre Aciman himself said that he did not write the character of Samuel Perlman as having gay tendencies, but as a character who felt that his marriage wasn't quite right.

By the way, if you want to know what happened to the characters of Elio and Oliver, then read the sequel, Find Me.

Oliver married Lisa and they moved Hooterville.

[quote] We'd all heard about [italic] his women [/italic] when he was young, but I'd never even had an inkling of [italic]anything else.[/italic]

Related by a son who has just experienced his first, not quite clandestine, gay relationship.

Is that it, r56/57?

Not according to the person who wrote those words, r64.

[quote]Samuel does not explicitly say he had a relationship with a man like Elio did with Oliver, but Stuhlbarg’s interpretation of the monologue contains shades that had many fans wondering. Aciman tells GQ that is not the case, or at least not what he intended in the books (the monologue in the film is pretty much lifted verbatim from the book).

[quote]“This was not at all my intention when I wrote the book,” Aciman said. “The movie has basically validated that particular approach. And I have to say that I can see that this is equally a valid approach to the father’s speech. The father may have been attracted to men or not, we don’t know from the book. From the movie, you have every right to infer that. But not in the book.

Author of the book says that while he didn’t “intend” that interpretation; he acknowledges the movie’s alternative approach is equally valid.

Sounds like he's being polite, r67. Moreover, it's not clear just what Guadagnino intended, especially in the speech Samuel makes in the movie, which is about how intense love can be and how it's great that Elio has experienced such intensity. It's more likely that Guadagnino left it vague.

Yes, OP is about the movie, but the quotation at r58 is from the book. Most people will just see the movie, but if you've seen the movie and read both the books, then trying to interpret Samuel as having gay feelings, particularly feelings that he's still grappling with, doesn't really make work.

Hmm, upon seeing the movie I assumed he was referring to some woman he'd had a youthful fling with long ago when he was a person he regrets no longer being, but it's the written word at R58 that calls that into question for me.

I don't find Aciman speaking in 2019 as a "reliable narrator" of what he intended the book to mean when he wrote it. By 2019, the book and movie were both out and acclaimed, and he had written the sequel which had a story line of the father and another woman. He wrote the book due to popular demand that Oliver and Elio be given a chance to be together, and I think he retconned the dad a bit. In reality, I think when he wrote the book, he was writing the dad from his own slightly bisexual experience - someone who was open to men in his youth but ultimately predominantly straight in how he lived his life.

I can't get over r23's comment about how the book included an instance of the two main characters watching each other shit. What the fuck?

We had never taken a shower together. We had never even been in the same bathroom together.

“Don’t flush,” I’d said, “I want to look.”

What I saw brought out strains of compassion, for him, for his body, for his life, which suddenly seemed so frail and vulnerable.

“Our bodies won’t have secrets now,” I said as I took my turn and sat down. He had hopped into the bathtub and was just about to turn on the shower.

“I want you to see mine,” I said. He did more. He stepped out, kissed me on the mouth, and, pressing and massaging my tummy with the flat of his palm, watched the whole thing happen. I wanted no secrets, no screens, nothing between us. Little did I know that if I relished the gust of candor that bound us tighter each time we swore my body is your body, it was also because I enjoyed rekindling the tiny lantern of unsuspected shame. It cast a spare glow precisely where part of me would have preferred the dark. Shame trailed instant intimacy. Could intimacy endure once indecency was spent and our bodies had run out of tricks?

R69, you mean the written word that the writer of those words has stated is not about another man?

R70, why would any of that mean that Aciman would retrospectively need to put a different spin on the words he wrote in Call Me By Your Name? The father could still have been slightly bisexual, if that is how he intended him. Even in the movie, the focus of his speech is on intense feeling, which is missed by people trying to put a gay interpretation on it.

Aciman wouldn't be the first author to have a take on his own work that's not entirely supported by the text itself. Those last two paragraphs in the excerpt sound to me like Elio wondering if his father dabbled with the boys, an impression the film adaptation of the scene didn't leave me with.

"Does Mother know?" I asked.

When Elio asked this in the movie, I took it as asking whether Elio's mother knew of the father's unrequited desires, not did his mother know of his desires for Oliver. I thought it was pretty clear during the movie that the mother knew Elio and Oliver had more than just a friendship. That is why she suggested they go on a trip together. All those tears on the ride home from the train station, she would have had to be an idiot not to know.

When Elio and Oliver were talking on the phone about Oliver's engagement and the parents got on the line and said there were picking the new student to visit with them for next summer, and the mother said "and he is a she" I wondered if it was to keep Elio from sleeping with the next summer guest. I did wonder how that bathroom arrangement would work out if it was a girl though.