Sep 10
Luca Guadagnino Reveals Whether 'Queer' Will Live Up to Sexpectations
Emell Adolphus READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Luca Guadagnino's latest film "Queer" is already proving that it is not going to be the same as his previous "Call Me By Your Name" when it comes to sex scenes.
At "Queer's" premiere at the interview at Toronto International Film Festival on Monday, the director talked about his difference of approach between the two films.
For example, in "CMBYN" the camera pans to a window just as stars Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer begin having sex. But in "Queer," the camera reportedly pans to a more intense angle as stars Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey begin having sex, reported IndieWire.
The film, based on an adaptation of a William S. Burroughs' novel in which the protagonist, suffering from drug withdrawals, has a torrid, life-altering affair with a much younger man.
There was some criticisms over the way the director handled the sex scenes in "CMBYN," but Guadagnino insisted, "I don't think I was thinking this way, even though it was fun to make a cut to the window."
"It's more about these characters and the kind of urgency of finding a way to communicate through the bodies after all this longing," he added. "And so for me, the way sex plays in the movie, it's specific to the way in which this story needs to be told more than in contradiction with the other movie."
Pop star Omar Apollo also appears in the film and reportedly has a sex scene with Craig. According to Guadagnino, he holds his own opposite the veteran actor.
"Omar is divine," said Guadagnino. "You know, this character ... in the book, that is the first person that Lee actually meets in the movie. [It] was so important to be very precise and, at the same time, very iconic."
He added, "I always [have] been a fan of Omar ... I thought that he could bring this feeling of contemporaneity to a movie that is set in a period that is far from us, because I think a great period drama behaves in relation with the present of the making of the movie. So I think Omar brings that."
"Queer" set to be released under A24, does not yet have a theatrical release date.
