1158 The Power of the Dog

[therewillbeblus]

The Power of the Dog



Jane Campion returns to the kind of mythic frontier landscape—pulsating with both freedom and menace—that she previously traversed in The Piano in order to plumb the masculine psyche in The Power of the Dog, set against the desolate plains of 1920s Montana and adapted by the filmmaker from Thomas Savage's novel. After a sensitive widow (Kirsten Dunst) and her enigmatic, fiercely loving son (Kodi Smit-Mcphee) move in with her gentle new husband (Jesse Plemons), a tense battle of wills plays out between them and his brutish brother (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose frightening volatility conceals a secret torment, and whose capacity for tenderness, once reawakened, may offer him redemption or destruction. Campion, who won an Academy Award for her direction here, charts the repressed desire and psychic violence coursing among these characters with the mesmerizing control of a master at the height of her powers.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• 4K digital master, approved by director Jane Campion, with Dolby Atmos soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Interview with Campion about the making of the film
• Program featuring interviews with members of the cast and crew and behind-the-scenes footage captured on location in New Zealand
• Interview with Campion and composer Jonny Greenwood about the film's score
• Conversation among Campion, director of photography Ari Wegner, actor Kirsten Dunst, and producer Tanya Seghatchian, moderated by filmmaker Tamara Jenkins
• New interview with novelist Annie Proulx
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• English descriptive audio
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Amy Taubin

[Pavel]

The Power of the Dog is exactly the kind of mature, deliberate drama you’d hope for from a master filmmaker at the top of her game: careful, precise, and surprising as it keeps a tight focus on four meticulously well-drawn central characters even as it revels in its stunning landscapes and the details and objects of the 1920s West. Benedict Cumberbatch gives far and away his best performance as a tightly braided rope of a man who lashes like a whip, doing damage without being easily visible.

Going in completely blind, without having any pulse on the source material or reading how others interpret this film thematically, I was absolutely bowled over by where my sympathies lay within the third act of this bizarre tonal enigma, capturing the hardened attitudes' elusive relationship with their yolks' disoriented identities in the Old West. This is a true western, one that nails what Anthony Mann set out to achieve in his psychological examinations, dutifully leaving the indefinite exploits bare without 'explanation' that would disingenuously dilute the meaning of the psychosocial inertia destroying those who allow themselves to 'feel' beyond superficial routine.

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I expect that some members will be taken aback by me saying this, but I thought Cumberbatch was easily the character who most earned our compassion. We're trained to point our sympathies at Dunst and Plemons as the two 'innocent' victims of his passive abuse, or Smit-McPhee, as the effeminate (by western standards) traumatized step-son. However, throughout the film, we can comprehend and affirm Cumberbatch's jealousy and loneliness, communicated in a manner that is messily empowering. Early on we see his only sense of power comes from provocation. He's always relied upon his brother's weak nature to feel good, but he loves him, and since he himself cannot bring himself to love (again, after his uncle- or so he thinks…), he understandably resents his brother's docile movement into a seemingly loveless union of marriage with a stranger.

That's not to say that this is a film about justification; it's not, and Campion continually subverts any attempts audiences may have to achieve this mirage, without deceitfully inciting us to look in that direction. This isn't a typical story of an envious sibling who wants what the other has; it's a very relatable story of a man who experiences emotions so strongly in a body, and a world, that doesn't reinforce or provide outlets for that expression, and consequently becomes infuriated when those who are complacent and passionless achieve markers of passion. To Cumberbatch, Plemons and Dunst don't deserve their clumsy halfhearted relationship because there's nothing fervid; no tempers rising, personalities bouncing off of one another violently, no signs of 'life' existing within this humdrum contract intruding in on his structure. It's both a violation of Cumberbatch's familiar and safe personal space, and a violation of his ethos for how emotions should be expressed: loudly (even if externally quiet)- whether in coarsened actions of tough labor and interpersonal confrontation, or affectionate transparency of one's true thoughts and feelings. Their marriage is an insult to their uncle's teachings, temperament, and belief in taking life by the horns with all you have. Cumberbatch doesn't castrate cows the way he does because he's vicious, he does so because he is driven to nakedly brush up against this world- that's its meaning, its existential value, and it's what he demands of himself and others around him to be deemed 'worthy' of belonging to the beautiful and harsh milieu we inhabit. The late scenes between Cumberbatch and Smit-McPhee demonstrate just how open-minded he really is to the potential in this kid, as well as his willingness to say exactly what is on his mind, not as a defensive ego-play but because it 'feels right'.

We've utilized stereotypes from narratives to initially misread Cumberbatch's philosophy as simplified when he really believes that everyone has the potential to be weak or strong, at least up to a point. He is simultaneously the most aloof character and the most sensitive one, but his perceived ‘inaccessibility’ is a ruse. The film seems to be arguing that the sensitivity he has is far more valuable than, say, Dunst’s or Plemons’ shallow sensitivity that starts and stops at the surface, without the depth or resilience of Cumberbatch’s vulnerable core. I'd go so far as to say that Cumberbatch's drive -hell, need- to say what's on his mind in those moments with Smit-McPhee, and meet him on the level he's playing on, as Smit-McPhee morphs and changes before his eyes, illustrates a very spiritual characteristic that nobody else in this film seems to embody. No wonder Cumberbatch is so lonely- and we slowly begin to realize, despite that part of us desperate not to face the music, that he may be right.. maybe Plemons and Dunst are too weak (and unconscious as non-participants) to deserve sympathy, to deserve the fruits this world has to offer. Campion (and presumably the author) certainly doesn't think they deserve much of our attention!

And instead of the hair-raising feeling I imagine some get from the ending when Smit-McPhee emulates Cumberbatch, I found it incredibly optimistic, heartening, and life-affirming. The kid found a father figure, and an identity that will serve him well. He can embrace stoicism, conquer fears hindering his ability to speak his mind, and look out over the people he cares about who can't see the peripheral possibilities, or access the skills, that he now can- even if they're his parents. I think he'll take Cumberbatch's key assets and mix them with that still-developing empathy that Cumberbatch tragically lost too much of, scraped off from the rough friction of life's terrain.

The shifts we see in both Cumberbatch and Smit-McPhee during that final act as they play off one another -oscillating between empowering and submitting to the other with immediacy and conscientious subliminal communication of respect and intimacy- speak of love. Whether this is romantic or sexual love, or another nebulous kind altogether, hardly matters; it was, and is still- even after death- love. The kind that shapes a life, that makes the dead man's life meaningful (given the act of poisoning himself killed him, after he was able to love again- was it perhaps even intentional when running his hands in the water?) and that will continue to influence the kid's as he grows into a man, interacts with the world, and until he dies. Rinse, cycle repeat; it's a routine, but it can be a fiery one, if we tap into the profound layers of existence- whether participating in greeting the external landscapes of our environment or introspectively facing our own inner truths with courage.

Another predictably eclectic and subtly masterful score from Jonny Greenwood too. Pavel, did you finish the book? I’ll be curious on your general thoughts and specifically whether or not the novel supported any definitive readings of some of these more abstract elements of the film!

I did not finish the book — not because I wasn't interested, but I went on a trip and didn't take it, and generally have a slower pace with reading as of late. I really love your analysis however. What I responded to the most when the film ended was the clever subversion of a fairly conventional conceit, not only in the direction the film ultimately takes but in the way it indulges it in the first half

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the music duel and Phil's refusal to bathe — or at least acknowledge bathing which he perceives as weakness, a way of distancing himself from the harsh, animalistic nature of the world in which he thrives as a strong leader — are really the biggest acts of "violence" he inflicts on Plemmons and Dunst, hardly what I expected from the set-up and the menacing way in which he is photographed. The damage he inflicts is much less direct than the "I'm about to ruin this woman"-nature of the synopsis. But your analysis delves much deeper into what there is to love about the film. Back to the topic of washing up, I believe we see Cumberbatch bathe in secret shortly before refusing to do so for the dinner. That's very much in keeping with the interpretation of Cumberbatch's character as someone who is willing to embrace his inner sensitivity — be it weakness — as long as it doesn't damage his status as a strong leader. So the boy walking in on his lake bath is one of the signs of how the boy involuntarily makes him reveal a side of himself he wants to keep private, and his lashing out serves as an immediate attempt to rekindle his strength. The scene in which Peter immediately sees the dog's face in the mountain, making Phil see true potential and react happily even when his status as a superior leader — the only person except Bronco Henry who can see that way — shows that he is genuinely ready to lose a bit of his apparent strength in order to give it to the boy and is one of the best, most telling scenes about the character's inner sensitivity. In that sense his relationships with the two people he "loves" — his brother and Peter — are almost polar opposites. On one side, someone weak who he uses to fuel his strength, and on the other someone with the potential for strentgh for whom he is willing to part with some of his power.
The fact that Peter kills Phil, delivering "his soul from the sword, his darling life from the power of the dog", perhaps shows that he has achieved the truest strength in the film — that the remoteness, fear of weakness and general viciousness of Phil might not be healthy and always the solution, but that once mixed with sensitivity and empathy can create a balance to lead him through life — to use it when need be, but to not let it cloud his good nature. Phil becomes Bronco Henry and Peter becomes a better version of Phil. There are clearly similarities between young Phil and Peter — perhaps Phil was also an effeminate boy (which is where the gay angle comes into place) hardened up by a mentor who loved him in, as you say, a romantic, sexual or nebulous altogether way ("naked?"). Which is not to say this is a full circle ending, but rather an "improvement" one in which he achieves both what Phil could and couldn't. That is how I see him putting the rope under his bed but retaining his white canvas shoes instead of putting on the boots.

I am now very excited to get back to the book

[therewillbeblus]

Excellent writeup, Pavel!

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I admittedly am a bit lost on the level of intent Peter has in his culpability for Phil's death, and what fueled the motivation behind it. Did he poison the water, and did Phil knowingly poison his hand in it? I sensed the latter, and read their symbiosis in that scene as completely intimate but also unnerving as they switch positions of power on the submissive spectrum, yet both with consent. Did Peter need Phil to be gone to save his mother, and yet still have the perspective to comprehend Phil's humanistic value and usurp his positive qualities, in addition to authentically connecting with him? And, clearly ambiguous, if he's capable of switching off his empathy to make these hardened pragmatic choices, what else is he capable of... repeating the cycle?

[DarkImbecile]

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I thought there wasn’t much ambiguity about Peter’s intent, or about Phil’s lack of awareness of what he was doing. It’s certainly true that there appears to be intimacy between them, though it’s less clear the degree to which that is authentic or a ploy by Peter that he knows he can use to manipulate Phil.

The question I had was whether Phil was Peter’s first victim, or if his story about discovering his father’s body maybe left out some salient details...

[Pavel]

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So the water was contaminating by the dead animal Peter went to dissect, right? Hence "Anthrax? He never handled diseased animals" I don't believe he willingly put his hand there knowing it was going to kill him; my question is whether Peter decided to kill him from the moment he arrived (or more likely when Cumberbatch suggested they started off on the wrong foot, which immediately made it seem like Phil was the one doing the plotting) or during Phil's outburst about his mother's alcoholism? I forgot exactly whether the scene where he goes to the deceased animal precedes the outburst about the hides but even if it does I think it could also be interpreted as him going there to practice his surgeon skills and only later deciding to use it to poison him. A friend suggested the scene immediately follows the one in which Cumberbatch cuts himself, suggesting that he was planning something all along and that's when the opportunity arised.
Also, I don't think the ending (and film in general) works nearly as well if Peter has killed before, though I confess that my immediate thoughts while watching the ending were "damn, is this suggesting he might kill Plemmons now?" which would be a much cheaper "twist"

[senseabove]

Fascinating little contradiction:

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At 5:45 into this interview, discussing adapting the characters from the novel to the screen, Dunst says that she and Smit-McPhee had a “secret” that Peter killed his father, but Campion denies it and seems amusingly displeased by the idea, laughing “They didn’t really do that” to which Dunst emphatically replies “We did!”

I entirely side with Campion, and narratively I don’t think it makes any sense, but I can also easily see how it would intensify the actors’ sense of their characters’ desperate connection.

[ellipsis7]

Interesting The Power of the Dog feature interview with Jane Campion in The Observer...

[hearthesilence]

Well worth watching, Sofia Coppola talks with Jane Campion (from the public NYFF talk for this film).

[sponto]

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If you enjoyed the movie, I highly recommend reading the book. It's excellent, lyrical, and a quick read. It also answers every question about each character's intent. Peter doesn't kill his father. He loves his father and mother unreservedly. He wants his mother to be happy with George, he has no intention of harming him either. The author of the novel, Thomas Savage, was closeted for most of his life, and it's probably not wrong to read a little bit of him in Peter. Peter is probably gay. It's no explicitly stated in the novel, but subtext, sure. He's also deeply intelligent, in a cold and calculating way that scares his mother, but that his father praises him for. Throughout the novel he's slowly figuring out how to kill Phil in revenge for driving his father to commit suicide and for torturing his mother. Which he does! Peter allows Phil, who he knows is a closeted homosexual, to believe he's interested in him in order to gain his trust so that he can trick him into killing himself with the contaminated rawhide. Phil is basically an illustration of the famous line from Mother Night: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Like Peter, he's savagely intelligent, but due to the time he lives in and the world he inhabits, he's too terrified to accept what he is, so he's become hard and monstrous. And when he finally thinks he's going to get what he wants, a relationship with Peter like he had when he was young with the older Bronco Henry, it leads to his rightful downfall. He's a tragic and complicated character, but he's also as clear an illustration of HUBRIS as you could ask for.

[zedz]

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So the water was contaminating by the dead animal Peter went to dissect, right? Hence "Anthrax? He never handled diseased animals" I don't believe he willingly put his hand there knowing it was going to kill him; my question is whether Peter decided to kill him from the moment he arrived (or more likely when Cumberbatch suggested they started off on the wrong foot, which immediately made it seem like Phil was the one doing the plotting) or during Phil's outburst about his mother's alcoholism? I forgot exactly whether the scene where he goes to the deceased animal precedes the outburst about the hides but even if it does I think it could also be interpreted as him going there to practice his surgeon skills and only later deciding to use it to poison him. A friend suggested the scene immediately follows the one in which Cumberbatch cuts himself, suggesting that he was planning something all along and that's when the opportunity arised.
Also, I don't think the ending (and film in general) works nearly as well if Peter has killed before, though I confess that my immediate thoughts while watching the ending were "damn, is this suggesting he might kill Plemmons now?" which would be a much cheaper "twist"

I didn't find this ambiguous at all, but in terms of plot it's a bit ropey:

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Peter goes out looking for cattle that died from anthrax. He had already heard that they're out in the backlots, and uses his very green riding skills to go find one (NEON METAPHOR: he nearly tumbles going down a slippery slope). He knows not to touch the animal (he puts on rubber gloves), so he knows what it died of, and harvests its hide to make strips of anthrax-riddled rawhide. It's the rawhide, in the water, combined with the open wound, that does Phil in. Peter is aware of this all the way through, and at the end of the film still won't touch the rope ungloved. And yet he doesn't dispose of it, leaving it for the housemaid or somebody to stumble across (another clue that he's more likely a nasty little psychopath rather than an avenging angel).

My problem with the film is that the plotting of all this stuff is really obvious and over-egged (like the "omigod, I can't play piano at the dinner party because of the duelling banjos in my head!" existential dread scene and Dunst's subsequent helter skelter descent into hopeless alcoholism), or reliant on a whole lot of coincidences. The transferral of the infection is a case in point, as when Peter harvests the lethal rawhide, he has no plan for infecting Phil with it. But by some wild coincidence his drunken mother gets rid of every other source of rawhide on the ranch, so Phil is forced to use the tainted stuff Peter conveniently has on hand to finish the rope, on the very same day he's got a massive gash in the hand he'll be using to work the rawhide (and not on his thigh, or further up the arm).

[MongooseCmr]

Slightly embarrassed to say I didn’t get a single hint of that while watching. I took it at face value as a blunt melodrama about masculinity so rigid it collapses as soon as it begins to soften, but if the spoilered text was the intent I don’t think I missed much. Extremely silly stuff there.

[senseabove]

There's certainly a lot of extremely silly stuff here, but one of the things I like about it was just how extremely silly it's willing to be in the midst of all the gruff manliness everybody seems focused on. At the festival screening I caught, I seemed to be alone in stifling cackles and muttering to myself "It's camp, folks!" over this hilariously unsubtle moment from about ten minutes in:

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And there's no ambiguity here: the shot is immediately preceded by one of Cumberbatch looking directly and pointedly at McPhee serving another table, and immediately followed by McPhee eagerly rushing over to him, thinking Cumberbatch is admiringly fingering his "flower."

[hearthesilence]

There's certainly a lot of extremely silly stuff here, but one of the things I like about it was just how extremely silly it's willing to be in the midst of all the gruff manliness everybody seems focused on. At the festival screening I caught, I seemed to be alone in stifling cackles and muttering to myself "It's camp, folks!" over this hilariously unsubtle moment from about ten minutes in:

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Yup. It was a nice little surprise how Phil came off like a perfect character for a Douglas Sirk movie, at least to me. Once that hit me, everything about the movie seemed to lock into place and what seemed like cringe-inducing flaws no longer bothered me so much.

[zedz]

Slightly embarrassed to say I didn’t get a single hint of that while watching. I took it at face value as a blunt melodrama about masculinity so rigid it collapses as soon as it begins to soften, but if the spoilered text was the intent I don’t think I missed much. Extremely silly stuff there.

I was also underwhelmed, and my major takeaway was that when Campion tackles Masculinity In Crisis, she does her worst work (see also: Holy Smoke).

Secondary takeaway was that Central Otago looked an awful lot like. . . Central Otago. Was that landscape really a good stand-in for Montana? Because this film looked like a Grahame Sydney exhibition.

I'm kidding: you don't have to see Holy Smoke.

[therewillbeblus]

Man, I'm glad I saw a completely different, more enigmatic and abstract film on my watch, as the contrivances or unsubtle attributes some have pointed out kind of ruin that power! However, despite the arguments for the narrative turns destroying ambiguity (which are all fair), I think there's still an acidic, understated messaging in Campion/Savage siding with Phil/Peter as the stronger characters (for very different reasons, given the reveals) vs. the diagnosed 'weaker' characters in Rose and George, which we've been trained to root for as unfairly declared such, but where- at least in the case of Phil's virtues- we come to see as only superficially vulnerable, skating on the peripheries of a beautiful and harsh world that demands to be greeted with equally-extreme actions. I wrote more about that in my spoilerbox at the top of the page, but I still find that perspective audacious and welcome.

[tenia]

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I don't think him keeping the rope means he's rather a psycho than an avenger, but that like Phil with Bronco's saddle, he's keeping it as a physical token related to his mentor. I however do think the movie also is mechanical in its unfolding, including being overly reliant on convenient coincidences like described above, or asking us not to think about what could happen after the movie with this rope.

[Brian C]

Secondary takeaway was that Central Otago looked an awful lot like. . . Central Otago. Was that landscape really a good stand-in for Montana?

As someone who saw this in a movie theater in Montana (the Roxy in Missoula), I can say with some authority that ... it's not bad. It had me suspecting that it wasn't actually shot in Montana, but because of fairly subtle differences in vegetation, etc. It's very similar terrain to a lot of places around here, definitely close enough by the usual standards of the movies.

[Robert Chipeska]

The most interesting character aspect of this, for me, was not the gradual revelation that Pete was

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capable of murder (whatever the motive or means) but rather the timing of that act. Phil's engaging of Pete may be at first interpreted as demeaning, if not outright physically threatening. But there was as well an openness that developed between the two, which I think actually took more openness and self-examination from Phil than from Pete. Whatever Pete gained in understanding from his time with Phil, his mind seems to have been made up by that point to punish him. Watching Phil interact with Pete in these latter scenes, I sensed a conflict between malice and seduction. Seeing Pete follow through with his plan despite Phil's increasingly genuine overtures made me feel contempt for the former and sympathy for the latter.

[therewillbeblus]

Exactly, the way the film orbits around Phil with nebulous empathy in that final act is the highlight

[RIP Film]

I didn’t see Peter as a psychopath, there’s that scene between him and Phil with the rabbit. He seems to calm down the rabbit, petting it before breaking its neck (foreshadowing?). The stuff with the animals intimates more of a logical coldness than sadism. Textually it’s a bit on the nose, he wants to be a surgeon, he sees Phil as this malignant thing that must be removed for his Mother’s well being. He even has some narration in the intro about wanting to protect her after his father passed. His father’s suicide no doubt gave him his emotional indifference; you get the sense he would have withstood all the abuse Phil and the boys gave him if not for it affecting Rose.

The film works best when being its most honest; I can’t say I appreciated the coyness around Peter’s character or Greenwood’s score, which while effective, constantly insinuates a lynching is around the corner. I’m not familiar with Campion’s work but all of the misdirects really added up and I’m not sure to what end— as if its trying to subvert genre expectations instead of just being what it is. Especially since the modern western seems to do nothing but reexamine and dissect itself. This all comes to a head in the final scene, did they really need Peter looking out the window while Mom and Dad kiss? It’s practically Home Alone in its messaging, and I half expected him to look into the camera while pulling down some sunglasses in an iris shot. At least there was the graceful note of him saving the rope.

The yin and yang between Phil and Peter is the main interest, and I’m not sure what’s gained by obfuscating Peter’s intentions. There’s a fair bit of manipulation in the last act, as has been discussed, and it basically builds Peter into this dark horse who deftly removes an “obstacle”. The complexity of Phil’s character is as easily disregarded and waved away as Peter’s is in the beginning, a stereotype. We’re not really confronted with the choice Peter makes, or given to contemplate what it means; it’s almost just a matter of winning. For a film that examines the grayness of masculinity it’s an ironic note to end on.

[MitchPerrywinkle]

Not that you have to read the novel to enjoy the film (I have a few family members who didn't and either really liked or loved Campion's film), but some of the criticisms lobbed against the film in this thread betray an unfamiliarity with the source material while unfairly criticizing Campion for the moments she lifts from the novel. To respond to RIP Film's critique

did they really need Peter looking out the window while Mom and Dad kiss? It’s practically Home Alone in its messaging...

this is taken directly from Savage's novel. In the book it conveys roughly the same emotional register I picked up from the Campion film, which isn't a joyful reunification of the family unit but rather an ambivalent portrayal of familial unity as a means of surviving what was an ostensibly savage (no pun intended) milieu. The major difference here is that we, the reader, don't quite know what exactly happens to Phil until the very last sentence. It's an effective twist, and one lost in Campion's adaptation which telegraphs the importance of Anthrax from the very beginning. But as a result, I think the film does (as some other users have articulated so eloquently) ultimately render the relationships between its characters as ones which aren't strictly defined by their status as "obstacles" (in the parlance of Peter's father, himself a more prominent character in the novel) but which are nevertheless untenable for sustaining any equilibrium within this precarious household, not least because of Phil's own penchant for excoriating those he deems either hypocritical (the governor and his wife) or beneath him (George and Rose).

In many respects, the film is a throwback to the western's development as a generic tool for psychologizing the cultural narrative of industrious fortitude synonymous with American expansion, rather than dramatizing simplistic dichotomies between civilization and barbarism (however, one quibble I have with the film is its excision of a passage from the novel which humanizes the indigenous characters rather than relegating them to a fleeting appearance in the film. As it stands, I felt they were regrettably reduced to a deus ex machina, and it doesn't dispel the problematic presence of BIPOC characters in Campion's earlier films). The comparisons to Anthony Mann are apt, with The Furies and The Naked Spur coming to mind (Stewart's performance in the latter definitely prefigures the pervasive rage of Cumberbatch's Phil). I'd also argue that echoes of Johnny Guitar can be seen in Campion's own depiction of these characters and their circumspect articulations of their desires and loneliness. Where Ray pinpoints the psychosexual intensity of his classic in grandiose images of location and costume, Campion's closeups (like, as senseabove singled out, that shot of Phil with the paper flower) serve as a stylistic contrast which I personally found rewarding as a subtle reconfiguration of Ray's operatic aesthetic. It's not subtle as a diegetic device, as are other objects of desire caressed or handled with care by hands weathered and soft throughout the film. But these ephemeral mementos do, to paraphrase Savage's prose, serve as an accumulation of trivia which is equated to art. At her best, Campion's films are about the function of art as a manifestation of twinning strains of beauty and brutality and how those facets are emblematized by the objects afforded meaning by us. By retaining that sensibility whilst engaged in a paratextual dialogue with some of the aforementioned films from decades prior, The Power of the Dog is one of the richer genre films I've seen in a year replete with bold deconstructions of genre.

[pistolwink]

Her privilege manifests itself all through her films. Her disdain for the characters, even the women. Her disinterest in the mechanics and the details of genre and narrative shaping....

It's fair play if you see evidence of Campion's "privilege" in her films, but the same is unquestionably true in the case of Visconti. However, if you find Campion's "details of genre and narrative shaping" lacking, it's unlikely that can be chalked up, deterministically, to her family background and education, any more than the brilliance of Visconti's films can be reduced to his even more privileged, indeed aristocratic, upbringing. She's just the lesser filmmaker.

I think one thing that makes An Angel at My Table my favorite of her films (and I really do admire it a lot) is that it utterly lacks the stridency of many of her other films. She has obvious gifts, at setting mood, offbeat characterizations, striking framings and uses of music... but in something like Top of the Lake it's all betrayed by how dumb and obvious the whole conception is, including the ludicrous relevation at the end. The Piano isn't nearly as bad, but there's a similar dynamic at work.

It's hard to overstate, btw, how influential The Piano was on a certain vein of art cinema of the 1990s (you can even see it in Bill Forsyth's much more sympathetic Being Human).

[Robert Chipeska]

It's hard to overstate, btw, how influential The Piano was on a certain vein of art cinema of the 1990s (you can even see it in Bill Forsyth's much more sympathetic Being Human).

While I was watching it for the first time recently (having seen all of her other works previously -- I deliberately avoided The Piano at the time of its release due to the ubiquitous praise among my jackoff art school compadres as well as all the usual in-the-pocket critics) I kept wondering if it was actually an influence on Malick's post-sabbatical work. Obviously his influences run very deep (Murnau, Kirsanoff, Mizoguchi, etc.) but the swoony, moony, dreamy form draped over heavy classical themes with no shortage of idiosyncratic touches sure seemed similar.

[therewillbeblus]

This is off-topic, but for those who enjoyed this or were left frustrated by its tidy final implications alike, I strongly recommend checking out Robert Altman’s early effort That Cold Day in the Park. Altman crafts a similarly enigmatic relationship dynamic, but succeeds in its more unsettling cumulative effects of the bait-and-switch by treating the unsuspecting character with careful depth yet unavoidable repulsion, where -as I wrote up after my first viewing (don’t read if you haven’t seen it yet though)- even Altman’s camera is afraid to get too close! The deliberate pacing transforms the narrative effect from uninvolving and puzzling to agonizingly relentless in its disturbing sense of powerlessness to resolve psychological mystery for the character or ourselves, which both repels and magnetizes us to the screen (something as subtle as the repetitive editing of glances in the rearview mirror of the taxi in the last act are unabatedly demanding!) It’s a far more layered and perversely-pitying and disarming portrait of an antisocial personality disorder type.

Anyways, I realize I’m alone in considering this film one of Altman’s greatest, but it’s the one that Campion’s film most reminded me of, and only made me appreciate the Altman more. It’s also a 60s film destined to be orphaned, so this is absolutely a last minute selfish recommendation as well, though a timely one with the Campion release!

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

Man, did I dislike this one. I agree with zedz about the plotting seeming way too coincidental and by-the-numbers. I haven't read the book, but hopefully it would help me appreciate the film a bit more. The supposed campy-ness of some scenes that are discussed in the thread... Are you reallly sure that this was intended, and not a bi-product of stereotypical characters or bad directing? I'm probably being too rough, but to me it almost seemed like Campion had forgotten how to make a film. Maybe the book is not very adaptable, or maybe Campion chose the "wrong" sections? I found the film to be badly paced, and at times it felt like a tv-series edited down to film length.

But really, what turned me off the most, in addition to the stereotyped characters and the plotting, was the direction itself. The chapter structure... Why was this necessary? Other than perhaps to tell us that we are watching a book turned into a film? Regarding the pacing, some scenes dragged on and on while some seemed too short or badly edited, and many times throughout I felt like a was transported from one section in the book to another leaving out important stuff. Also, I really hated the cinematography. The film was definitely more "beautiful" (meaning the setting was beautiful) than "beautifully filmed" with generally tedious shots sometimes with inserted light arthouse aspiration (at least the masturbation scene in the lake stood out as a true cinematic moment as opposed to the film's general made for Netflix look). The worst was probably the repeated establishing drone shots of the landscape. Every time I waited for David Attenborough to say something about Australian nature.

And sorry, but I find the comparison to Mann's and Ray's masterpieces off. If anything, it reminded me more about newer revisionist films like Brokeback Mountain (both thematically, landscape, and cinematographically) or There Will Be Blood (English lead actor, Greenwood's score -- which I also found plodding in this film). Sorry for sounding so "I want my 2 hours back!", but I really struggle to find anything I liked about it.