Call me by your name / da intimidade / The words to say it

Conversation with Author André Aciman

"The most beautiful thing that can happen in life is really being intimate with another person. Being completely, shamelessly intimate with somebody else."
[minuto 15:57]

"For me, the most important thing is the sentences, the style. What does the style do to someone. In other words, if you're a decent writer, anything you say, provided it's done in a certain kind of style, with a particular kind of rhythm and cadence, what you're asking the reader to do is to follow in your footsteps. You're giving them your hand, you're walking them and you say, 'Ok, now we're going to stop because there's a comma here. But don't stop walking. We'll take another few steps further. Now there's a semi-colon. We're going to stop a bit longer and catch your breath', and once you do that to a reader, what you're forcing them to do is to believe everything you say, trust in what you say, and basically, to use a clichet, you're introducing the reader to himself or herself. That's the point of the whole exercise, as far as I'm concerned as a writer. I'll say things about myself and lay myself open to whatever but, in fact, what I'm trying to do is, by doing that, I'm forcing you or, at least, inviting you to open yourself up to what I have to say. And at some point we'll become really like very close friends. And you'll say, 'I've always known this about myself, you're not telling me anything new, but I never quite considered it'.
André Aciman


Call Me By Your Name Monologue + Transcript

"Right now you may not want to feel anything. Maybe you never wanted to feel anything and maybe it’s not me you want to be speak about these things but feel something you obviously did. Look 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. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of 30 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! Have I spoken out of turn? Then I’ll say one more thing it'll clear the air. I may have come close but I never had what you two have. Something always held me back, her stood in the way. How you live your life is your business just remember our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once and before you know it your hearts 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, pain don't kill it and with it the joy you felt."