Early on, Luca Guadagnino revealed that the first cut of Call Me by Your Name was significantly longer than the version eventually released. Over time, behind-the-scenes stills and production details began to hint at scenes that were filmed but never made it into the final cut. Some changes were introduced during shooting, others later in the editing process, and not every decision has been fully clarified.
Guadagnino later explained that certain completed scenes were deliberately held back, as he wanted to reserve them for possible future use rather than include them on the DVD. While much of the original material remains unseen, a small number of deleted scenes have been confirmed and even screened privately — though they have never been officially released to the public.
Elio’s gift to Oliver – Stendhal’s Armance
This deleted scene would have added context to a small but meaningful detail that later appears only in passing in the finished film.
The scene
In this scene, Elio rides into town and gives Oliver a copy of Stendhal’s Armance, with a handwritten note tucked inside. The book later reappears briefly at the breakfast table the morning after their night together, suggesting a continuity that remains implicit in the finished film.
“We rode our bicycles to town that morning.”
“In years to come, if the book was still in his possession, I wanted him to ache. Better yet, I wanted someone to look through his books one day, open up this tiny volume of Armance, and ask, ‘Tell me who was in silence, somewhere in Italy in the mid-eighties?’”
Excerpt from the script
We’ve seen behind-the-scenes images of this scene, showing Elio giving Oliver the Armance book with a handwritten message inside. Oliver later appears holding the book at the breakfast table the morning after they make love. Without this deleted moment, that brief detail remains unexplained in the finished film.
Zwischen immer und nie – Poem by Paul Celan:
Perlman’s bedroom
This deleted scene would have briefly shifted the focus away from Elio and Oliver, offering a parallel moment elsewhere in the house.
The scene
While Elio and Oliver are together in the garden under the moonlight, the film cuts to Mr and Mrs Perlman in their bedroom. From inside the house, they hear the muted sounds drifting in from outside. What follows is a quiet, intimate exchange between them that unfolds at the same time as the scene in the garden.
“The scene happens at the same time as the father and mother are in their bedroom, hearing the muffled voices coming from the garden. The mother is putting creams on, the father is reading a book, and they are looking one another in the eye and smiling. She goes to the bed, he touches his wife, he smells the creams on her, and they start to make love.
I’m sorry for cutting the scene because it’s quite beautiful, and it’s beautiful to see adults having their moment of sex.”
— Luca Guadagnino
In a later interview, Timothée Chalamet was asked which deleted scene he most wished had remained in the film. He pointed to this one, not for its narrative implications, but because he felt viewers would have appreciated the production design of the Perlmans’ bedroom.
Together, these scenes remain part of the film’s unseen material.
Deleted scenes images and featured image: Call Me by Your Name Japanese deluxe brochure