Media and Music: How the “Call Me By Your Name” Soundtrack Humanizes — and Romanticizes — Relationship Abuse
With its dainty classical sonics and Sufjan Stevens originals, the “Call Me By Your Name” soundtrack uses a nostalgic lens to capture the loss of innocence that comes with predatory relationships.
In Media and Music, our writers take a deep dive into how movies use scores and songs to engage viewers, give new meaning and tone to some of our favorite scenes, and establish themes. It almost goes without saying, but there are spoilers abound.
Written by C.S. Harper
Images courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Content warning: This article contains graphic language on sexual misconduct and intimate partner abuse.
“Call Me By Your Name” is a 2017 film directed by Luca Guadagnino based off of the André Aciman novel. The story follows a romance between Elio Perlman, a 17 year-old Italian-French-American, and his father’s 24 year-old graduate student assistant, Oliver. Though controversial for its romanticization of ephebophilia and grooming, as well as recent allegations of star Armie Hammer’s sexual misconduct and cannibalistic fantasies, the movie has since become a cult queer classic. Apart from its beautiful cinematography and award-winning screenplay, one of the most loved features of the film is its memorable soundtrack. Using curated classical pieces and original songs by indie folk singer Sufjan Stevens, Guadagnino immerses the viewer into the characters’ idyllic 1983 Northern Italy setting while enhancing the film’s narrative about relationship abuse and trauma.
Within the film’s first 10 minutes, the predatory nature of Oliver and Elio’s relationship quickly becomes apparent. Oliver arrives at the Perlman family’s summer vacation estate, and he soon makes himself at home — a little too at home. When Elio shows Oliver to his room ( formerly the teenager’s room), the graduate student wastes no time sprawling himself across Elio’s bed. “My room is now your room,” Elio explains to him, introducing a running motif of Oliver consuming and becoming him. Throughout the film, Oliver weaponizes his charisma against Elio and the Perlman family to gain sole, intimate access to their son. He immediately charms Elio’s parents upon his arrival, impressing them with his philological knowledge and expansive vocabulary. When Elio’s mother offers Oliver an egg during breakfast the next day, he says, “No. I know myself too well. If I have a second, I’m just gonna have a third, and then a fourth,” foreshadowing his predatory, consummatory nature.
Despite Oliver’s clear red flags, Elio’s parents allow the two young men to spend time alone together in the small town of Crema, where they get to know more about each other’s interests and Jewish background. Their sexual tension begins to blossom, as their bikes awkwardly collide when they leave the town before Oliver says, “Later!” The peppy piano chords of “M.A.Y. in the Backyard” by Ryuichi Sakamoto play in the background, making the men’s romance feel like innocent puppy love at first. However, the track ends with banging staccato keys, indicating something much more sinister at play.
However, Oliver and Elio’s burgeoning relationship quickly turns sour. After the graduate student makes unwanted sexual advances at Elio in a scene where he rubs the latter’s shoulder while hanging with youths at a park, the teen starts disliking him. Elio asks his parents, “What if I grow to hate him?” but his mother quickly dismisses the idea. The Perlmans ignore their son’s concerns about Oliver, allowing their guest to continue his predatory behavior. The film starts showing the Perlmans’ controlling behavior towards Elio further in the next scene, as they publicly shame him into playing the piano in front of their friends. Reluctantly, Elio plays Erik Satie’s “Sonatine Bureaucratique.” The overly optimistic, tongue-in-cheek tone of the song makes it feel almost like Elio’s middle finger at his parents for continually undermining his cries for help.
Helpless in his predicament, Elio turns to music to empower himself. In a later scene, he plays J.S. Bach’s “Postillion’s Aria” on the guitar while lounging in his family’s orchard. Oliver overhears him and asks him to play it again. In an act of defiance, Elio drops his guitar and instructs Oliver to follow him to the house’s study room, where the teen plays the same tune on the piano. In contrast to his exasperated performance of “Sonatine Bureaucratique” in the previous scene, Elio plays the piano with overwhelming passion, his renewed sense of agency enabling him to sway his body to the music.
However, Oliver is annoyed that Elio alters the song to sound “The way Liszt would have played it if he’d altered Bach’s version,” so he asks him to play it again. “Oh, you want me to play the thing I played outside?” Elio says sarcastically before playing the tune “The way Busoni would have played it if he’d altered Liszt’s version,” his face contorting with a mix of ecstasy and mocking fury while doing so. Irritated, Oliver leaves. Pleased that he has taken back control of their relationship, Elio finally plays the original arrangement for Oliver, luring the latter back into the study. “It’s young Bach,” the Italian teenager says. “He dedicated it to his brother,” he explains further, introducing themes of youth, oneness, and brotherhood in relationships, once again mirroring the loss of identity that Elio experiences in his relationship with Oliver.
The turning point in “Call Me By Your Name” comes when the men bike to a nearby lake, where they lie next to each other as Oliver begins stroking Elio’s lips. They begin making out, but Oliver pulls back and repeats his phrase from earlier in the film: “I know myself.” Despite Oliver’s growing interest in Elio, the former abandons the 17-year-old to go on sexual escapades with women. This hurts the teenager, who sits alone at his family’s orchard, looking devastated as Sufjan Stevens’ “Futile Devices (Doveman Remix)” plays. At this point in Elio’s coming-of-age story, he has begun pursuing Oliver rather than the other way around, and the song’s lyrics reflect this. Mellow piano chords accompany Stevens’ breathy voice as he sings, “I would say I love you, but saying it out loud / Is hard,” alluding to Elio’s previous inability to express his desire for Oliver. Compared to the original, the remix creates a sense of nostalgia and pain, as the muted piano keys and reverb highlight the sense of yearning that Elio feels. The song continues when Oliver returns to the Perlmans’ home, and Elio angrily whispers, “Traitor!” over the aggressive, banging piano keys of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Germination.”
However, the pair reunites several days later to consummate their relationship, as the melancholy piano keys of Sufjan Stevens’ “Visions of Gideon” plays in the background. Given how much time the film spends building up to this moment, one would expect Guadagnino to choose a more lively piece to accompany it, but he instead selects the muted sounds of Sufjan’s piano to emphasize the overwhelming guilt that Elio feels after having sex with Oliver. However, the lyrics feel more idyllic, “I have touched you for the last time / Is it a video?,” once again highlighting the mixed emotions that Elio feels about the relationship and the rose-tinted glasses through which he views it.
Near the end of the film, the soundtrack continues romanticizing Elio and Oliver’s relationship. The pair goes to Bergamo alone together for Oliver’s research, where the delicate guitar arpeggios of Sufjan Stevens’ “Mystery of Love” accompany a supercut of breathtaking scenes of the men hiking across the town’s landscape. “Blessed be the mystery of love,” Sufjan sings softly, indicating that Elio has come to erroneously view his relationship with Oliver as a genuinely loving one.
Several months after Oliver leaves Italy for the United States, he calls Elio to tell him that he has gotten engaged and is due to be married in the coming spring. Saddened by the news, Elio sits by the living room fireplace as he muses on his romance with Oliver, crying silently as “Visions of Gideon” resumes over a lingering close shot of him. This time, “Visions of Gideon” truly feels devastating as it was originally intended to be, contextualizing the abuse that Elio experienced through the entirety of the relationship. “I have loved you for the last time / Is it a video?” Sufjan sings in a bare whisper, his voice fading as the end credits roll and Elio and Oliver’s relationship comes to an end.
On the surface, the nostalgic aesthetics and verbose screenplay of “Call Me By Your Name” makes the film seem like a series of vignettes about a fleeting, somewhat problematic romance between a teenager and a young adult. But its soundtrack tells a different story, offering a candid look into predatory relationships and the lasting psychological damage they can cause survivors. Transitioning from upbeat classical music to quietly devastating Sufjan Stevens tracks, the soundtrack portrays how a seemingly innocent relationship can actually be destructive. As talks of a sequel continue to dominate the conversation about the film, here’s hoping Luca Guadagnino will do fans a service with better LGBTQ+ representation and a more nuanced, positive approach to depicting relationships in the next film.