The films of Italian director Luca Guadagnino are at once gorgeous, voyeuristic immersions in haute bourgeois life and deeply humanist excavations of the nature of desire and identity. With his latest film, Call Me by Your Name—an adaptation of André Aciman’s novel by the director and James Ivory—Guadagnino has continued to refine the sensibility evident in his lush dramas I Am Love (2009) and A Bigger Splash (2015), and proved himself to be a master stylist and storyteller. Set in the sun-dappled Lombardian countryside in the mideighties, this portrait of a brief but extraordinary romance between a young man and the graduate student who comes to stay with his family for the summer holiday is a stirring depiction of self-discovery and love’s ability to shake the foundations of our lives.
While he was in town with Call Me by Your Name at the New York Film Festival in October, Guadagnino stopped by our office to talk about inspirations, style, and dancing, among other things.