Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:


Oliver: Is there anything you don't know?
Elio: I know nothing, Oliver.
Oliver: Well, you seem to know more
than anyone else around here.
Elio: Well, if you only knew how little I
really know about the things that matter.
Oliver: What "things that matter?"
Elio: You know what things.
Oliver: Why are you telling me this?
Elio: Because I thought you should know.
Oliver: Because you thought I should know?
EliElio: Because I wanted you to know.
Because I wanted you to know.
Because I wanted you to know.
Because I wanted you to know.
Because there's no one else I can say this to but you.
Oliver: Are you saying what I think you're saying?
Oliver: Wait for me here. Don't go away.
Elio: You know I'm not going anywhere.

I'm feeling weirdly emotional today (i.e. being me) and reposting this passage of dialogue from Call Me By Your Name here on the occasion of Armie Hammer's 33rd birthday ain't helping. Can you believe it's been months since I've sat and watched CMBYN from start to finish? Months! I actually brought a copy of the blu-ray home with me this past weekend because a friend of mine is a projectionist at an art-house theater and I thought maybe I could sneak in a real honest-to-goodness theatrical screening of it, but time sadly wasn't on my side. But I think it's calling my name, beckoning me back to Summer 1983, Somewhere in Northern Italy...

The two-year anniversary of me seeing this movie is about five weeks away now -- in case you never read it or would like to revisit it here's my piece, knocked on my ass, from the NYFF screening where I first saw it. I was thinking about that piece a lot when I was home this past weekend because I passed through a few of the locations I mention in it and those memories, formative and unforgiving, came flooding back. Anybody watched it recently? "You know I'm not going anywhere..."


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks to your blog, I bought the book CMBYN, went to the theater, and bought the DVD. Wonderful! MY only complaint about the film was they didn't set it on the coast, like the novel.
I also bought "Man From Uncle" because of your blog. Love the interaction between Hammer and Cavill's characters.

Johnnie said...

This movie ripped my heart out - with Elio calling his mother to pick him up and his father telling him about his worn out heart. I read the book before the movie came out. It is wonderful. That sense of longing, desire and gut wrenching malaise afterwards. Such an amazing movie.

The only movie that struck me before this one was much was For a Lost Soldier, which needs to come out on Blu-ray. Some people don't like it, but I connected with it.

Unknown said...

There's a surprisingly large number of us who just can't shake this movie (and don't even want to try). Thanks for keeping that flame going, that next viewing will be special.