James Ivory is unhappy with 'Call Me by Your Name' director for lack of nudity in gay drama
Ivory, the screenwriter of the film, has called out director Luca Guadagnino for skipping frontal nudity in the adaptation of Andre Aciman's novel.
By PTI |
LONDON: James Ivory, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "Call Me by Your Name", has called out director Luca Guadagnino for the absence of frontal nudity in the critically-acclaimed gay love story.
Guadagnino had said that display of nudity in the film, which features a breakout performance by Timothée Chalamet opposite Armie Hammer, was irrelevant but Ivory has a different take on that.
"When Luca says he never thought of putting nudity in, that is totally untrue," Ivory, 89, told The Guardian in an interview.
Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet in a scene from the film. (Image: imdb) "He sat in this very room where I am sitting now, talking about how he would do it, so when he says that it was a conscious aesthetic decision not to -- well, that's just bullsh--."
Ivory, who adapted the story from Andre Aciman's novel of the same name, said avoiding nudity in films always seemed "phony" to him.
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"When people are wandering around before or after making love, and they're decorously covered with sheets, it's always seemed phony to me. I never liked doing that. And I don't do it, as you know," he said referring to his 1987's film "Maurice".
"The two guys have had sex and they get up and you certainly see everything there is to be seen. To me, that's a more natural way of doing things than to hide them, or to do what Luca did, which is to pan the camera out of the window toward some trees."
'Call Me By Your Name' is a coming-of-age story about 17-year-old Elio who falls in love with Oliver, an older intern who's come to spend the summer working with Elio's father at the family's Italian villa.
