Comparison Of Call Me By Your Name And Brokeback Mountain

“People who read are hiders. They hide who they are. People who hide don’t always like who they are.” “Do you hide who you are?” “Sometimes. Don’t you?” “Do I? I suppose.” (Aciman, 115)
Both novel and film made a point to discuss identity. It plays a key role in the text not just as the character’s sexuality, but their faith as well. Both Elio’s family and Oliver are Jewish. Though they all wear the Star of David around their necks, one scene depicts Elio’s mother covertly covering his necklace with her hand. In a later scene, Oliver and Elio walk hand in hand. Wanting to appear eager, when they approach a group of young women dancing, Oliver runs forth to dance, leaving Elio behind. This increased level of concealment and questioning of

identity is what eventually causes Elio and Oliver to explode, beginning their secret love affair. In Molly Haskell’s review of “Call Me By Your Name” for the Film Society of Lincoln Center, she discusses how “Call Me by Your Name” narrates romance through a quiet, serious, and gentle voice.

She makes the argument that “Call Me by Your Name” is successful as a peaceful romance because it too takes place outside the confines of society. Films such as “Call Me By Your Name” and “Brokeback Mountain” both feature nature as a character, allowing their seclusion to aid in becoming truthful and living as their honest selves. Partially due to this comparison, (as Variety reported at the film’s New York premiere) both Armie Hammer and Timotheé Chalamet agreed that to call the film “groundbreaking” would be an overstep, with Hammer describing the story as in fact archaic, “one of the oldest stories that we can tell, of two human beings falling in love.” When asked how he believes this film will read to American audiences in this contemporary political climate, Chalamet stated that the film is simply “an unabashed celebration of love.” This unabashed depiction of love and pride is a central theme in “Call Me By Your Name.” Like in it’s predecessor “Brokeback Mountain,” the term gay is only stated once. It is stated

jokingly, in reference to another couple, who are close family friends as well as colleagues. In the film, Elio jokingly refers to them as “Sonny and Cher,” and his father disapproves of the remark. If anything, this couple serves as the perfect foil to Elio and Oliver, who’s relationship is centered around seclusion, secrecy, and hiding. This further contributes to the film’s representation of passing. Just like “Brokeback Mountain,” this film’s characters are only allowed to go through transitional times of identity questioning because they feel safe and free in their surroundings, away from the problems and sorrows of society. This reiterates Chalamet’s stance, as the film centers on the universality of love, not its specific gay interactions, but its total humanness.

It is an interesting parallel that both “Brokeback Mountain” and “Call Me By Your Name” were criticized for not being a “gay” film, as they both focus on characters who are passing.

As if expecting this criticism, filmmaker Luca Guadagnino instead chose to present queer desire through a new and innovative lens, by choosing to present it without tragedy. Elio’s parents are not only supportive, but downright obliging. From Elio’s perspective, he gets to explore his identity as a gay man with his parents support, his quasi-girlfriend’s compassion, and all the love and attention he could ever receive from Oliver. Elio is able to explore gay love and sex without an identity crisis, which is groundbreaking in a gay film, though it is crucial in defining the “queer experience.” As explained in an article for the British Film Institute, the “gay experience” consists of common actions and emotions, such as confusion, repression, denial, and fear. Some critics argue that perhaps this is what made both “Call Me By Your Name” and “Brokeback Mountain” so successful, that universal identity quest we all go on, paired with the youthful yearning for love that makes a story so compelling. In both films, this paradisiacal idea of love ends in heartbreak. Both films read like a dream, with beautiful scenery, scores, and dialogue. Moments fly by in both hot summer days and cold winter nights, with no end in sight. Yet, both endings leave the audience wide awake, heartbroken, feeling as if

they’d awoken from a nightmare. In “Brokeback Mountain,” Jack realizes his relationship with Ennis can never be, due to Ennis’ fears of living openly as a gay man. When Ennis later attempts to reconnect, he is told by Jack’s wife Lureen that Jack has died. Lureen tells Ennis of Jack’s death, that he was changing a tire when it exploded and killed him. Yet, while Lureen is speaking, Ennis imagines Jack instead being beaten to death with a tire iron by a group of men. The nightmare is Ennis’ fears come to life, and it feels horrifyingly realistic. The film foreshadows this hypothetical death by beating in an earlier scene. At a bar, Jack tries to flirt with a man who in response, gathers his friends in the corner of the bar. As they speak in low voices, they eye Jack with pure hatred. As he listens to Lureen, Ennis’ theory begins to make sense. The film makes no attempt to comfort, explain, or alleviate any of the anxieties the ending brings on, leading the audience to believe that Ennis was right to be paranoid. The ending of “Call Me By Your Name” is, though less violent, equally as devastating. The much discussed final scene depicts Elio, having just learned through a heart-breaking phone call that Oliver is getting married in a few months, sitting in front of a crackling fire, experiencing his emotions. While there’s a certain tragedy to the way the film ends, it’s at least far more open-ended than the book. The dream is perhaps allowed to continue. Yet, the ever present theme of passing still runs strong in both films and texts, that this false dream is just that: a dream. The choice of setting in both stories was deliberate. This type of utopian love can only exist in places beyond the confines of society.

This type of world has no identities, no rejection, and no heartbreak. It is a world with no labels, in which love can flourish without any of the confinements society forces unto us. In this love utopia, sexual identities are equally as irrelevant as personal identities, becoming downright interchangeable. This is symbolized in “Call Me By Your Name” both in title and dialogue, in which Oliver tells Elio to “call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine.” This identity is portrayed in “Brokeback Mountain” through Jack's two bloody shirts, symbolizing this loss. One of the shirts is stained with Jack's blood, and the other being a shirt Ennis swore he’d lost, which Jack had taken as a secret reminder. The novel depicts Ennis’ identity wrapped up in the shirts, stating that he “put the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one" (Proulx, 146). After being denied Jack’s ashes, it is clear that these shirts are the only link Ennis has to Brokeback