Star of David

A few weeks ago, at the Gateway Theater in Fort Lauderdale, my husband, Franklyn, and I saw the movie, “Call Me by Your Name.” It is an intensely beautiful, erotic (not pornographic) gay love story between a precocious seventeen-year-old American-Italian boy, Elio, (played superbly by Timothée Chalamet) and an American man in his twenties, Olivier, (a very sexy Armie Hammer). They meet in the summer of 1983, at Elio’s family’s home in Northern Italy where Olivier, a graduate student in Greco-Roman culture, has been invited to spend six weeks studying with his professor, Elio’s father (Michael Stuhlbarg). Elio is smitten with Olivier from their first meeting, but disguises his attraction, not very successfully, with irritation at Olivier’s blunt American ways. Soon, however, Elio’s growing interest is signaled when he begins wearing his own Star of David, very like the one Olivier wears on a chain around his neck. When Olivier asks whether Elio is a Jew, Elio says his mother (Amira Casar) calls the family “Jews of Discretion.” This very short exchange passes quickly, and their love grows, even as they attempt to reassure themselves of their heterosexuality through sexual encounters with some of the girls and women they meet. The six weeks go by quickly, and they spend their last days together on a hiking trip in the Alps, where we see a roaring waterfall symbolizing their now passionate love. Soon, however, they part; Olivier must go back to America, leaving Elio devastated. We later see a beautiful snowfall on the lake where Eli and Olivier once swam. Coming into his house, Elio revels in the smell of latkes frying; we see the menorah’s glow. It is Hanukkah. The phone rings, Elio answers. It is Olivier who announces his upcoming marriage to the woman he left behind when he came to Italy. As the movie ends, Elio is looking into the fire, crying. Why does the movie make Elio and Olivier Jews? The movie is certainly not about religion. Their Jewishness seems at first unnecessary to the story of their love, but as Franklyn and I talked about it, a parallel emerged. For many people, religious or ethnic identity is a given; it is just the way things are. This is probably true for many, if not most, Jews, like Olivier, for example. By contrast, in Elio’s very intellectual, upper-middle class family, it was a matter of “discretion.” Elio choses consciously to claim his Jewishness by wearing his Star of David in response to his love for Olivier. Some people have homosexual feelings; such feelings come unbidden. However, being gay is an identity, one that can be claimed or not. Elio and Olivier clearly had homosexual feelings for each other, but Olivier used his “discretion” to “be straight.” He ended his affair with Elio, went home, and was getting married. It is 1983, after all, and his career it likely to go better if he’s married, rather than if he is out as a gay man. What’s in store for Elio? The movie doesn’t tell us. His love for Olivier led him to claim his Jewish identity. Will it lead him to claim his gay identity?