‘Call Me By Your Name’ Screenwriter is Disappointed There’s No Male Full Frontal Nudity
Zack Sharf
“Call Me By Your Name” has taken the film world by storm ever since its rapturous Sundance premiere at the start of the year, and audiences will finally be able to check out the romantic drama in theaters next month. There’s a lot to see in Luca Guadagnino’s sensual film, from the gorgeous Italian countryside to that headline-making sex scene involving a peach, but one thing you absolutely won’t see in “Call Me By Your Name” is a penis.
The contracts for Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet prohibited any full frontal nudity from being featured in the film, much to the dismay of the script’s original writer James Ivory. Ivory was originally attached to “Call Me By Your Name” as the writer and director, but Guadagnino replaced him in the director’s chair after originally boarding the film as a location consultant. The filmmaker revised Ivory’s original script and apparently he took out a majority of the film’s nudity.
“Certainly in my screenplay there was all sorts of nudity,” Ivory told Variety in a new interview. “According to Luca, both actors had it in their contract that there would be no frontal nudity, and there isn’t, which I think is kind of a pity. “Again, it’s just this American attitude. Nobody seems to care that much, or be shocked, about a totally naked woman. It’s the men. This is something that must be so deeply cultural that one should ask: ‘Why?’”
Guadagnino teased at a press conference during the New York Film Festival that including so much male nudity would’ve prevented the movie from being made in general. “It was a different film which didn’t meet the standards of the market,” he said of Ivory’s original version. “I have to be blunt, that’s it”
“Call Me By Your Name” opens in select theaters November 24. And yes, butts are on full display.
