A Triumphant Return
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How Jane Campion’s Triumphant Return To Cinema Carefully Tells A Story Of The Deepest Human Needs
After a 12-year hiatus from feature films, Jane Campion has once again set alight the global film world with her latest success The Power of the Dog, a heart-breaking exploration into the lives of complex and deeply layered characters set in 1920s western America.
The film, which has been embraced by the industry and audiences worldwide, debuted as the #1 movie globally on Netflix when it was released on the platform on December 1, 2021. The title re-entered the top 10 films chart after it scored 12 Oscar nominations, making Campion the first woman in history to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar twice.
The New Zealand director’s return to cinema sees her do what she does best: exploring the subtle tensions and power dynamics between men and women, resulting in a turbulent yet intricately nuanced work of art with a punching ending that brings audiences together in a way only art can. Campion delicately flips a traditionally masculine genre on its head, executing an intimate character drama against the sweeping backdrop of a Western.
“When a story really excites me, I sit up,” says Campion of her first read of Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel.
“I just read the book and thought it was incredibly detailed and that whoever wrote this, they had lived this experience,” she says. “It’s not just a cowboy story from 1925 ranch life. This is a lived experience and I think, because of that, I felt a real trust for the story. I loved how deeply it explored flawed masculinity and that it’s also about hidden love.”
The Power of the Dog centers around Montana rancher Phil Burbank, played in the film by Benedict Cumberbatch, who delivers a career-best performance. Burbank is a charismatic, hyper-masculine figure who inspires fear and awe in those around him. When his gentler brother George (Jesse Plemons) marries, Phil sets his domineering sights on George’s new wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her sensitive son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). But Phil’s cruelty soon unveils an agonizing inner struggle, which once exposed, could be his undoing.
“I just loved the description of Phil Burbank,” says Campion. “I think he is one of the all-time great figures of American fiction. He’s so complicated and cruel but, as mean and unkind as he often is, he’s also the tormented lonely lover safe only by treasuring feelings from a long gone past. It’s incredibly painful and complicated.”
It feels fitting, in many ways, that Campion, who is largely considered a pioneer in the directing field being the first woman to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the second woman to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar (both for The Piano), would be bold enough to tackle a story about masculinity while layering multiple genres – the Western, the love story and the psychological thriller – into one film.
“The major preparation for me was to embody this work and get to know the characters,” says Campion. “That was interesting for me to feel and discover and honor these difficult characters.”
Campion carefully crafts a film where Montana is as much a character as the lead four actors in this dark and compelling story.
Bold visuals move into this world with distinction. There are the soaring aerial shots that swoop into the Montana landscape (the film was shot in New Zealand) and her trademark attention to detail in every frame. She masterfully highlights desire and makes it come alive cinematically throughout the film.
“I obsess with creating a visual world and so many people brought so much to this project,” says Campion, pointing to cinematographer Ari Wegner and production designer Grant Major. The result of their collaboration is the perfect juxtaposition of the vastness of the setting and the claustrophobic nature of the house.
Wegner, now the second woman to be nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar, spent a year in prep with Campion to explore the visual palette of the story and she says, it all started with questions.
“I found him moving and I found the relationship between him and the boy [Peter] exciting and satisfying and I loved how it moved and changed and you didn’t know what was happening. I had never really felt those feelings before.”
The film’s performances are beguiling – each multi-faceted, nuanced and riding turbulent currents. Cumberbatch shows audiences a physically and intellectually prepossessing Phil, a rancher whose cruelty masks the pain felt by his inability to be his authentic self. This is a stark contrast to his younger brother George, played by Plemons in another acclaimed performance, who is undistinguished and mild-mannered.
Likewise, Peter, played by Smit-McPhee in a breakout performance, is soft-spoken and initially underestimated by Phil and the ranch hands around him. His mother Rose, played by Dunst in a stunning turn, is a widowed proprietress who runs the local inn, where she first meets the Burbank brothers.
The narrative is subtly turned on its head as audiences see these characters begin to unravel after George and Rose marry and relocate to George’s estate with his brother. Phil enjoys psychologically torturing Rose, tormenting Peter and loudly asserting his masculinity. He recoils from Peter’s softness and becomes unhinged upon hearing bedroom intimacies between the newlyweds through the wall. Drowning from Phil’s cruelty, Rose descends into alcoholism.
But there are skeletons in Phil’s closet that he refuses to acknowledge. Deep down, Phil is an empathetic and pained character, unable to reconcile his deepest desires with the image he thinks he must present to the world.
Campion’s careful handling of this story coupled with the performances result in a rich palate of complicated and layered relationships. It’s a story of strength versus vulnerability and the repressed secrets that bubble over in anger and torment the soul.
“One of Jane’s real gifts is making invisible emotions visible,” says producer Tanya Seghatchian.
“We thought, how do we tell this very complex story with very interwoven narrative points and character development with a really strong atmosphere?” says Wegner. “Color was one of the big early conversations. We knew there would be certain things from nature that would be in the film. There would be the grass, then you’d have the cattle and the color of the timber of the barn and the dust.”
Also, movement of the camera was important. Wegner notes that it was important that the camera “felt patient.”
“When a frame holds, you can really examine it and get all of that information,” she says.
Major’s production design succeeds in creating a feeling of discomfort that saturates the entire film. The juxtaposition between Montana’s vast and open landscapes and the Burbank’s suffocating and dark home is constantly evident. The barn and house, says Grant, were built from scratch.
“I quite like the idea that rather than it being milled timbers, there was a rawness to it and a strength to it,” says Grant. “It’s almost like part of Phil’s psychology and personality.”
Sound editor Robert Mackenzie was equally as careful to focus on the contrast of the intimate sounds of the characters as the sweeping sounds of the Montana land – such as a knife slicing through rawhide leather, Peter plucking his comb, and Phil’s boots.
“Phil’s boots were something very early on that Jane wanted to focus on because it embodies his masculinity, his aggression and his dominance,” says Mackenzie. They also served as a psychological device used to torment and warn others that he is near.
In the house, the creaking of the staircase, the doors, the wind through the gaps are all identifiable macro sounds that contribute to the tension that is ever building. There’s a unique sound to this film that almost has its own voice within the story.
Jonny Greenwood’s distinctive score offers an atonal sound that has now become synonymous with this standout story. “I can get really emotional when I feel music and I feel it through my body and can hear it and feel the mood of it,” says Campion. “That’s the only way I know how to relate to music and with Jonny it was the original quality of his work and his voice and his way of working that really resonated with me.”
The Power of the Dog leads this year’s Oscar race with 12 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. To date, it’s the most honored film of the year with more than 160 critics wins, including 28 for Best Picture and 39 for Campion’s as Best Director. It has received 10 Critics Choice nominations, been named one of the films of the year by AFI, took home the Golden Globe for Best Picture – Drama award.
It’s a powerful exploration of desire told by an expert storyteller, who cracks open the deepest parts of her characters, and her audience. “The challenge of directing and the freedom of it is to go really deeply into something, bring all your discernment, all your psyche, all your dreams, everything,” says Campion. “It’s how I love in the world and it’s what I want to give an audience. I received that from filmmakers when I was growing up and I want to give back like that too.”
