Universality, Difference, and Spectrality in Call Me by Your Name

abstract: Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino, 2017) exemplifies a transnational mode of filmmaking that aspires toward a universal form of legibility, one that seems to dilute both historical and spatial specificity. This article interrogates the relation between the present that Call Me by Your Name has been called on to represent by some critics and the past from which the film would seem to have moved away. At stake in discussing Call Me by Your Name as an exemplary film about the present is the opportunity to question the value of a progress narrative about queer film history.