Call Me By Your Name, Ending Explained: Don’t Cut Away from the Feeling

What happened at the end of Call Me by Your Name? And what does the title mean?

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Transcript provided by Youtube:

00:05
Call Me By Your Name ends with a long shot
00:07
of Elio staring into a fire,
00:10
feeling his pain, and not turning away from it.
00:13
The camera likewise refuses to cut away from his face,
00:17
making us feel his pain for a long time.
00:21
The title comes on,
00:22
announcing that this whole film has been a cold open,
00:25
a prelude to a realization, and as the credits roll,
00:35
we still don’t cut away.
00:37
It’s a bold ending that stays with us.
00:41
But throughout this story of young, intense love
00:44
between Elio and his father’s American graduate student Oliver,
00:47
director Luca Guadagnino is following through
00:50
on the same philosophy of the closing scene.
00:53
The philosophy of not cutting away from our feelings.
00:57
Through his camera style
00:58
Guadagnino visually makes us feel
01:00
what Elio does and he won’t let us escape,
01:04
especially not when it’s uncomfortable.
01:06
We can’t cut away when Elio is waiting in anticipation
01:09
hoping that Oliver will come into his room and he doesn’t.
01:17
When he’s with the peach
01:19
and later when he has to undergo the shame
01:21
of Oliver discovering the fruit.
01:23
[Oh I see.
01:24
You’ve moved on to the plant kingdom already?]
01:28
[What’s next, minerals?
01:30
You’ve given up on the animals.]
01:32
[You know that’s me.]
01:33
In the key scene when Elio is finally
01:35
trying to admit his feelings to Oliver in the town square,
01:38
the camera is uncomfortably far away from the characters,
01:42
not cutting in close for the intimate moment we might expect —
01:45
just as they’re uncomfortably far away from each other,
01:48
in a public space for this most private of moments.
01:52
[Why are you telling me this?]
01:54
[Because I thought you should know.]
01:59
[Because you thought I should know?]
02:04
Even in his moment of confession,
02:05
Elio finds awkward phrases to
02:08
tell Oliver how he feels,
02:09
without really saying any of the actual words.
02:12
[And the distance that is in between them,]
02:16
[that is symbolized physically by this monument,]
02:20
[is the necessary distance that has to be covered]
02:23
[for the two of them to finally be united.]
02:25
[Because there is no one else I can say this to but you.]
02:42
[Are you saying what I think you’re saying?]
02:49
So we’re included in how excruciatingly hard
02:52
this moment is for him,
02:55
and because we’re there with him,
02:57
we remember how hard those moments are for all of us.
03:01
Especially when we’re young,
03:03
especially when it’s the first time,
03:05
especially when we like someone so much,
03:07
with the crazed paralyzing intensity that Elio feels for Oliver.
03:12
Throughout the movie,
03:13
Guadagnino and his DP use only one 35mm lens.
03:17
The limitation of not switching focal lengths
03:19
imitates the human eye,
03:21
which also can’t switch
03:22
between different perspectives in the same moment.
03:25
So the storytelling is never relying
03:27
on glib camera techniques to make us feel.
03:30
[Only one lens for everything, for the main titles,]
03:32
[for the entire shoot, for the part for the ending,]
03:36
[it’s one lens.]
03:37
[I wanted simplicity, I wanted to be straightforward,]
03:39
[I didn’t want to create technology in between]
03:43
[the camera and the performances.]
03:47
The consistent camera visually pins us
03:49
in the place of one person who’s present.
03:52
And this choice subtly builds a very strong emotional impact.
03:56
We’ve never been spared Elio’s discomfort,
03:59
so near the end,
04:00
the pain and the beauty of what he’s lived
04:02
hits us in a profound, personal way.
04:05
As if we are the ones who”˜ve lived it.
04:08
The movie also departs from the novel
04:10
in some key ways to heighten the immediacy.
04:12
First of all, it’s set in the present,
04:14
whereas the novel is recalling the past —
04:17
feelings are influenced by the passage of time
04:19
and later developments in Elio’s and Oliver’s
04:21
lives over 20 years.
04:23
Screenwriter James Ivory wrote a third-person
04:26
voice-over narration into the screenplay,
04:28
but the final movie leaves this out.
04:30
So the film is grounded in visceral,
04:33
visual experience —
04:34
how characters look, act, and respond in the moment.
04:38
And from that, we have to decode and perceive for ourselves
04:40
their unsaid invisible thoughts and feelings.
04:44
[I tried to rely on behavior and the physical space]
04:48
[where this behavior happens to unfold.]
04:51
As a side note, because the movie
04:52
doesn’t use all the parts of the novel —
04:55
that also means we may get more movies about Elio and Oliver.
04:58
Guadagnino has said he wants to make sequels.
05:01
[He’s such an interesting character.]
05:03
[To see him grow up and to become maybe a great pianist,]
05:07
[and to understand what will be]
05:09
[his interest in sexuality he’s interesting emotions]
05:12
[and how they gonna meet again,]
05:14
[Oliver and Elio,]
05:15
[all this is very interesting,]
05:17
[let alone the fact the book ends with a chapter]
05:20
[that is like 40 pages long where you follow]
05:22
[the characters for 20 years.]
05:28
In the final scene of the film,
05:30
the title finally comes up Call Me by Your Name.
05:33
Because we’re seeing this at the very end,
05:35
we’re able to contemplate the title
05:37
based on everything we’ve just seen.
05:40
And ask why the director chooses not to show it until now.
05:43
The phrase again ties in to the “don’t-cut-away” theme
05:46
of facing our feelings, and ourselves.
05:48
[Call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine.]
05:52
The words are a secret language between Elio and Oliver.
05:54
They say it in bed together.
05:57
[Elio.]
05:59
[Oliver.]
06:01
Oliver uses it to give Elio the gift of his shirt.
06:04
[For Oliver, from Elio]
06:08
And in their final phone call
06:09
when Oliver tells Elio he’s getting married,
06:11
they call each other by their own names once more.
06:20
And then Oliver says,
06:22
[I remember everything.]
06:28
The words “Call me by your name,”
06:30
express the way that falling in love
06:32
is a mirror into ourselves —
06:34
The truest love, this kind that comes around
06:36
only once if ever,
06:38
is like staring ourselves in the face
06:40
in a way that we’ve probably never done before,
06:42
in a way that we can’t on our own,
06:45
and in a way that for these reasons,
06:47
is incrediblely scary.
06:48
The momentousness of this explains
06:50
why they’re so terrified to act for most of the story.
06:53
The game of using each other’s names
06:55
is one way of breaking through the barriers
06:58
of their sexual insecurities.
07:00
Elio is anxious about exploring his sexuality
07:02
for the first time in his life.
07:04
Oliver understands his desire better,
07:06
but he’s trying very hard to repress it.
07:08
So as hard as it is for anyone
07:11
to admit and pursue a true love,
07:13
it’s even harder for them because of the context.
07:17
[We can’t talk about those kinds of things,]
07:23
[we just can’t.]
07:27
The act of calling each other by their own names
07:29
takes on even more meaning in this story
07:31
because it’s set in 1983,
07:33
and Oliver feels that he has to get married
07:35
and keep up an illusion of heterosexuality.
07:38
This moment in their lives,
07:40
thanks to the shelter of Elio’s accepting parents,
07:42
is a rare opportunity to love openly
07:45
and not hide themselves.
07:46
[…why didn’t you give me a sign?]
07:50
[I did.]
07:51
[When?]
07:52
[Remember when we were playing volleyball,]
07:54
[and I touched you…]
07:56
[Just to show you that I liked you.]
08:01
The true self that Elio and Oliver see in each other
08:04
is also their best self.
08:07
Near the end, Elio tells his father
08:09
[I think he was better than me,]
08:15
to which his father responds
08:16
[I’m sure he’d say the same thing about you,]
08:22
[which flatters you both.]
08:25
Their relationship is based on a deep and mutual admiration —
08:28
a desire to be more like one another.
08:31
Elio idealizes the older, more experienced Oliver.
08:35
He wants to be like Oliver–
08:36
cool, suave, independent,
08:38
projecting a happy and carefree persona.
08:41
He immediately notices Oliver’s
08:43
self-assured confidence,
08:47
he complaining that the casual signoff
08:49
[Later!]
08:50
as impolite and arrogant —
08:52
but then he imitates it with great joy.
08:54
[Just watch, this is how he’ll say goodbye]
08:55
[to us when the time comes.]
08:57
[With his “Later!”]
09:01
And he admires Oliver’s physical and emotional maturity,
09:04
which is understandable as Elio is on the edge of adulthood,
09:07
and the movie is a coming-of-age story.
09:10
Meanwhile, Oliver wants to be more like Elio,
09:13
he sees in Elio the freedom he desires
09:15
but feels he can’t have.
09:16
He admires Elio’s musical genius.
09:19
[I can’t believe you changed it again.]
09:23
[I changed it a little bit.]
09:24
[Why?]
09:25
[I just play the way that Busoni would’ve played it if he’d,]
09:28
[altered Liszt’s version.]
09:29
[What is wrong with Bach’s?]
09:31
[Bach never wrote it for guitar.]
09:33
[In fact, we’re not even sure it’s Bach at all.]
09:35
[Forget I asked.]
09:36
Elio’s knowledge and profundity.
09:37
[I never even heard of the Battle of the Piave.]
09:40
[Battle of Piave was one of]
09:41
[the most lethal battles of World War I.]
09:43
[Hundred and seventy thousand people died.]
09:45
[Is there anything you don’t know?]
09:49
And he admires Elio’s youthful,
09:50
unabashed thrill in his sexuality.
09:53
Even though he is younger and less experienced.
09:55
Elio is the one who acts on their romantic feelings.
09:58
And Oliver wishes he had Elio’s
10:00
open and accepting european family.
10:03
[You’re so lucky.]
10:04
[My father would have carted me off]
10:07
[to a correctional facility.]
10:09
So over the course of the summer,
10:11
Elio and Oliver actually become more each other,
10:14
each taking on the characteristics they love in the other.
10:18
Calling each other by their own names
10:19
is a way of signaling that they’re merging,
10:22
that they are each other.
10:24
Elio starts wearing his own
10:26
Star of David after Oliver does.
10:28
As we saw he imitates Oliver’s “Later!” signoff.
10:31
He joins Oliver in his dance
10:32
to “Love My Way” after watching him longingly for quite a while.
10:36
He wears Oliver’s shirt,
10:37
and gets into Oliver’s shorts and bathing suit.
10:39
And he imitates Oliver’s mannerism
10:41
on more than one occasion before they go for a swim.
10:44
Visually, at times, we also see them merging.
10:47
In a voiceover in the screenplay
10:48
which isn’t included in the film,
10:51
the narrator says near the end,
10:53
“They had become each other that summer.”
10:55
It goes on to say
10:56
“They had found the stars, Elio and Oliver.
10:59
And this is given once only.”
11:02
Call Me By Your Name is the third part
11:04
of a trilogy about desire,
11:06
with I am Love and A Bigger Splash.
11:08
[at the beginning I thought,]
11:09
[oh my god, it’s another movie]
11:11
[about rich foreign people lounging]
11:13
[in the Italian summertime.]
11:15
[And I really thought that desire in a way]
11:18
[is the force that motivates the characters.]
11:22
And Guadagnino ends his trilogy
11:24
on a note of self-knowledge.
11:25
[So I thought the conclusion of trilogy]
11:29
[about desire on a sweet note.]
11:31
So the title coming up at the end is an affirmation
11:35
that Elio, because of what he’s felt,
11:37
is now fully himself.
11:40
In a scene near the end,
11:41
Elio’s father beautifully articulates the philosophy
11:44
that corresponds to the film’s
11:46
“don’t cut away from the feeling” aesthetic —
11:48
He tells his son,
11:50
[We rip out so much of ourselves]
11:52
[to be cured of things faster,]
11:53
[that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty.]
11:58
[and have less to offer]
12:00
[each time we start with someone new.]
12:03
[But to make yourself feel nothing]
12:06
[so as not to feel anything -]
12:08
[what a waste.]
12:12
As we the viewers take in this conversation,
12:15
feeling by then that
12:16
have been through all of this ourselves,
12:18
his advice might awaken in us
12:20
a renewed determination to face life,
12:24
even and especially when it’s hard.
12:26
[At the end of the movie, yeah I got a Q&A,]
12:29
[someone said to me,]
12:30
[“Oh don’t you think it’s sad?”]
12:32
[No, it’s not sad it’s actually joyful,]
12:34
[because Elio becomes a man.]
12:37
So if there’s anything this movie teaches us,
12:39
it’s that when we feel the worst pain of our lives,
12:42
don’t cut away from that feeling —
12:44
because the feeling means we’re alive.
12:48
[Right now, there’s sorrow, pain.]
12:54
[Don’t kill it,]
12:57
[and with it, the joy you felt.]
13:06
Hi guys, Susannah here.
13:10
We’re excited about Guadagnino’s plan to do sequels
13:14
following Elio over time.
13:15
And we’ve heard this idea being compared
13:17
to François Truffaut’s series about Antoine Doinel.
13:20
A lot of you probably know of The 400 Blows
13:23
from 1959.
13:25
But Truffaut actually made four sequels
13:28
following the same character as he grew up,
13:31
all of them starring the iconic Jean-Pierre Léaud.
13:34
The series is a great precursor to the character-driven,
13:36
episodic TV we know and love today.
13:39
So while you’re waiting for more Elio,
13:40
you can spend a little time getting to know Antoine.
13:43
If you’re new here, please subscribe
13:46
and support us on Patreon if you’re able.

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