Call Me by Your Name Page #5

OLIVER:

The same one.

The tall, half-naked OLIVER, hanging over him intimidatingly,

causes ELIO to get up and enter the house through the big

door.

15 INT. LIVING ROOM -PERLMAN VILLA -DAY 15

ELIO plays the piece on the piano. OLIVER leans on the door

looking in. The music sounds very different from when he

played it on his guitar.

OLIVER:

You changed it. What did you do to

it? Is it Bach?

10.

ELIO:

I just played it the way Liszt

would have played it if he’d

jimmied around with it.

OLIVER:

Just play it again, please!

ELIO begins playing the piece again. OLIVER listens, then

speaks:

OLIVER (CONT’D)

I can’t believe you changed it

again.

ELIO:

Not by much. That’s how Busoni

would've played it if he’d altered

Liszt’s version.

OLIVER:

Can’t you just play the Bach the

way Bach wrote it?

ELIO:

Bach never wrote it for guitar. In

fact, we’re not even sure it’s Bach

at all.

OLIVER:

Forget I asked.

ELIO:

Okay, okay. No need to get so

worked up.

ELIO begins to play the Bach in its original form. OLIVER,

who had turned away, comes back to the door. ELIO says,

softly, over his playing:

ELIO (CONT’D)

It’s young Bach, he dedicated it to

his brother.

He plays it beautifully, as if sending it to OLIVER as a

gift.

16 INT. ELIO’S BEDROOM -PERLMAN VILLA -LATER 16

ELIO is writing his diary, the wind is moving the curtains.

He then puts the open diary on the bed and goes into the

shared bathroom to pee, shutting the door behind him. The

camera moves close on to the diary and we read: “...I was too

harsh when I told him I thought he hated Bach...”

11.

The wind blows the pages of the little book, then dies down

so that we can go on reading: “What I wanted to say was that

I thought he hated me...”

17 EXT. STREETS/CARD CAFE -TOWN STREET -DAY 17

Another day.

OLIVER and ELIO walk down a street; OLIVER steps into a cafe.

Some men inside are sitting at two or three tables with

playing cards. Waiters bring coffee and other drinks to the

customers, the place is lively.

NARRATOR:

Taking in summer guests was Elio’s

dad and mom, The Perlmans, a way of

helping young academics revise

manuscript before publication.

Summer residents didn’t have to pay

anything, they were given the full

run of the house and could

basically do anything they pleased,

provided they spent an hour or so a

day helping Professor Perlman with

his correspondence and assorted

paperwork. Oliver manuscript was on

Heraclithus and already had found a

publisher in Italy for a translated

version. Elio’s father loved

nothing better than to have some

precocious rising expert in his

field of study helping him.

Some of the men look up and nod at OLIVER. A game is starting

at one of the tables and OLIVER is asked to join. He sitsdown to play.

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