Jane Campion calmly, hilariously shuts down Sam Elliott’s Power Of The Dog whining
Campion didn't mince words—but did spell one—about Elliott's comments at the red carpet for tonight's DGA Awards
Aux News Jane Campion
Sam Elliott’s apparent attempt to set himself as the arbiter of all cowboy-based fiction has run into a host of healthy opposition over the past week, none more robust than from the woman he most directly criticized: Jane Campion, director of Oscar-nominated Western The Power Of The Dog.
While many of the stars of Campion’s film have attempted to keep away from Elliott’s comments—both Jesse Plemmons and Kodi Smit-McPhee seemed to wave off the inevitable questions this weekend, and Benedict Cumberbatch diplomatically labeled them as “odd” earlier this week—Campion herself confronted them, calmly and comically, head-on at the Directors Guild Of America Awards this evening.
Asked about Elliott’s various assertions that her movie was “a piece of shit,” an “evisceration of the American myth,” and that Campion, as a woman from New Zealand, had no place making it, the director didn’t mince words—but she did spell one. “I’m sorry, he was being a little bit of a B-I-T-C-H,” Campion told Variety’s Marc Malkin. “He’s not a cowboy, he’s an actor.”
Noting, as many have, that some of the best Westerns ever filmed were made by non-Americas, filming outside America, Campion was completely uncowed by Elliott’s disdain, which he vented on a recent episode of Marc Maron’s WTF. Per Deadline, she later stated that he had “hit the trifecta of misogyny and xenophobia and homophobia.”
Campion is viewed as a strong contender to win Outstanding Achievement In Feature Film at tonight’s DGAs, which are being held, untelevised, in L.A. this evening. (Judd Apatow is hosting; we’ll have a winner’s list up in a bit.) If she wins tonight, past evidence suggests she has a fairly solid lock on winning Best Director at the Oscars in a few weeks, in which case, it’ll be her first win in the category, after being nominated in 1993 for The Piano.
162 Comments
if being born in Sacramento in 1944 doesn’t make you the arbiter of all things cowboy then what are we even doing here
That was funny! His parents were high school teacher. I love the guy and I’m bummed by his attitude.
I want him to be more like Ron Dunn from Parks & Rec. His comments bummed me out.
Seriously, Christ Pratt and Sam Elliott just need to keep their faces shut and let me imagine they are actually Andy and Progressive Ron!
24,000 people lived in Sacramento in 1944. Not exactly the prairie.
that IS the magic number that confers knowledge, doncha know…
You know the OP was being ironic, right?
Just out of curiosity, what is the correct population of “a prairie”?
You might want to look up because something apparently just went right over your head.
It actually was a bit of a cultural thing for middle-to-upper class Sacramentoans from that era to plant a weird flag of ownership on pioneer history, like “obviously I come from the people who succeeded at that, so I’m the proper keeper of memory here.” See, Joan Didion’s attachment to the Donner Party
Joan Didion’s attachment to the Donner PartyWhy, was some of them still stuck in her teeth?
They have that big honking railroad painting in the Amtrak station!
Or like about every other Texan ever.
But also – and this disappointed me about Marc Maron in the lack of discourse in the whole interview when he brought it up – arguably, it’s not a cowboy movie. I mean, it’s not The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. There are some pretty major themes around performative masculinity, sexuality, rich men playing at being cowboys and misusing resources, resentment, jealousy and abuse. It’s almost like the things he disliked about the characters were kind of the point. The fact that at no point Maron was like “Hey, but wasn’t that kind of the point?” was pretty disappointing. Maybe he didn’t know either, but if that’s the case why bring it up? Was it only because you expected Sam Elliott to say something not great.
I don’t know – Maron seemed as surprised about Elliott’s vehemence as anyone. And he did try to steer the discussion in asking Elliott to consider the film as an art film that was exploring certain themes rather than a typical western, only to have Elliott double down. You can almost hear Maron audibly shrug at that point, probably hoping to avoid a Gallagher-style walkout.
Actually, Marc did say “Yeah, that’s what it’s about” early on in Sam’s tirade. I think he didn’t want to sidetrack the interview too much, as he was interviewing Sam about his life and career, not his thoughts on someone else’s movie.
And given the tone of Elliot’s comments, I assumed (and assumed that Maron assumed) that Elliot was being deliberately curmudgeonly. I believe that he didn’t like the movie but his reasoning why seemed like a little bit of a put on.
I honestly can’t imagine being disappointed by Marc Maron
You raise an interesting point. What is a “Western” anyway?
I grew up in Stockton during the 70/80/90s and, yes, there still was a strong “cowboy” culture. It was known as Pombo country after our then Republican congressman. I was part of the campaign team that beat him.Even in my teens, it wasn’t odd to see someone riding a horse along a major street next to our mail. These people still exist and make politics hell for us. Trumpers!
Personally I support anyone that makes it difficult for “Trumpers” if he gets “elected” again it will be the death of our great country. Sam won’t have to worry about criticizing these type of movies because they will be outlawed by the far right. Then again Trump may be just who Sam would like. A misogynistic/ homophobic/sexist/xenophobic/ racist/bigoted narcissistic sociopathic facist wannabe king/ dictator self absorbed giant angry toddler that throws a temper tantrum anytime he doesn’t get his way. He’sbrought out the uglier side of America and made it the norm for people to spew whatever vile things pops into their head. I sorely miss the days when even if you disagreed with the other side you found ways to work for the betterment of the country.
Talking shit about “Trumpers” as if they don’t make up over 60% of the U.S. population, and growing. Now I never voted for him, and I don’t agree with everything he says, but he’s been the best candidate as president of the past 20 years. GTFO of here with your TDS (Trump derangement syndrome.) Orange man only bad for the fake woke extremists that literally make up less than 5% of the total population.
I thought it was funny in the clip from Maron’s WTF, that Sam Elliott’s going on about how she is from NZ, and what would she know about realistic portrayals of the American West?How about you, Sam? Do you truly know just because you’re an actor in that genre, do you know because of vibes? You moustachioed child.
Make him a better judge of it than – checks notes – a spoiled rich kid from New Zealand whose fundamentalist Christian daddy and heiress mum paid her way into the film industry.
Has anybody asked John Travolta’s opinion of the film?
Normally, when I read these “so and so shut so and so down hilariously” articles, usually it’s some cutesy thing, not really hilarious. But this one was actually pretty hilarious. And yes, he’s an actor, not a real cowboy.
It was that little teeth-sucking thing she did after “he’s an actor” followed by that head tilt. It’s very New Zealand.
It’s apparently very SW Michigan too, because as I read your post, I realized I was doing “that tooth sucking thing”. 😀
There’s a movie coming out about how immigrants from New Zealand actually turned Michigan into a state. So you’re not far off.
As someone from Michigan, I can confirm. There’s a reason Michigan is considered to be apart of the “mid-west”. 😛
And you’re 100% wrong with literally everything you said. He may be an actor, be he is also a cowboy, he owns multiple ranches and works on them, and rides horses all the time. Not to mention the place and time he was born was quite literally the wild west at the time…
He was born in 1944. That’s long after the “wild west” period was over.
That’s cute.
LMFAO! I see what you’re doing there.
Yeah, but he has a bushy mustache. That changes everything.
Wow! Two adverbs? She really told him.
This but unironically
You skipped the good part.
I didn’t read the body of the article. Did she also respond powerfully?
She said he, “hit the trifecta of misogyny and xenophobia and homophobia.” Are ad hominems considered powerful these days? Even if he is all those things, it doesn’t make him wrong about her film.
Does make him a cunt though
fuck you
What you described is not an ad hominem attack.
None of those are ad-hominems, and they are absolutely accurate. And even if he was none of those he’d STILL MISS THE POINT OF THE FILM.
Yes it does… Unless you agree with those perspectives..
There is a special place in hell for d-bags that comment on articles without reading them.
You mean Reddit?
Is it adjacent to the place in hell for CEOs of private equity firms that guy beloved pop culture websites, fire all the writers, and replace them with scabs?
*gut beloved pop culture websites
I see even the edit feature has been fired from this dumpster fire.
I also didn’t read the article. I assume that Sam Elliott, old white guy, made an offensive sexist/homophobic/xenophobic/racist comment. Twitter got furious. If possible, the AV Club links back to all his past transgressions and the Internet Court of Outrage retries the case.Then someone brings up Star Wars and everyone forgets his crimes.
Wouldn’t reading William Hughes’s writing be punishment enough?
How would you know?
Keep practicing, and maybe someday you’ll be able to get through an entire page – don’t give up!
I’m going to side with Elliott on this. I tried watching Power of the Dog and never developed enough interest in it to lose interest in it. Some movies are slow to get going. I’m not sure this one ever got going…because I realized I had better things to do with my time and turned it off.
Perhaps being born in Sac’to does not make you a cowboy. I was born in a small fishing village in another country and became a rocket scientist in the US, so I don’t get the point of bringing up his birthplace. Had Elliott’s work revolved around acting as a brain surgeon, I might have less sympathy for his comments. However, he’s been cowboy adjacent for decades. He owns two ranches, and has seen far more hours on a horse than the actors in PotD. I will agree that it was an dreadful movie. Beyond that, if Campion believes Elliott hit a trifecta of phobia, then I think she is admitting that she built a movie out of her philia for those non traditional elements of life. She seems to believe her western truth is better than our traditional western truth, even if it is all a myth. I can’t believe that script ever got green-lighted, but at least nobody forced me to watch it.
I go back to the old sawOpinions are like assholes, everyone has one
“Beyond that, if Campion believes Elliott hit a trifecta of phobia, then I think she is admitting that she built a movie out of her philia for those non traditional elements of life.”Wow, that’s some impressive pretzel logic.He reacts with homophobia because she was trying to shove her gay agenda down his throat? Grow up.
“She seems to believe her western truth is better than our traditional western truth, even if it is all a myth.”But if it is a myth, why does someone get personally offended that someone has another take on the myth? The thing about myth is that not real, so someone having a different take and getting it “wrong” is silly on its face.
I think he’s being sarcastic with that last statement.
You forget, go tell the Scotsman’ from Loch Ness, that Nessie is a myth. It might be true, but it’s not his truth. Cultural destruction should be treated with the same distain as Cultural appropriation. If something is part of your culture, why do you have to change it based on the views of an outsider?
So you side with his blatant homophobic comment as well? Well since you felt the need to randomly include that you’re a rocket scientist, I guess that means you’re smarter than everyone else here. Congratulations on being the smartest person here, rocket scientist person. I’m glad that makes you feel good about yourself. Good for you. That’s great for you actually.
“ I was born in a small fishing village in another country and became a rocket scientist in the US, so I don’t get the point of bringing up his birthplace.”
they literally explained why they brought it up
Why you so cis-phobic bro
I watched the entire movie about a month ago. As far as a rating, my opinion is that it was a good movie, just not Oscar-worthy. None of the performances stood out besides Cumberbatch’s jerk cowboy. Even so, I guess he only has one American voice because he was Doc Strange the entire time. Honorable mention goes to Dunst for being crying/drunk throughout the film.That said — having watched the movie (and plenty of other movies/shows over the last two decades), I see what Elliot was griping about. Reading his “rant” was kind of entertaining. Only one of my friends has also watched the movie, so I hadn’t gotten many other people’s opinions.
Saying a show / movie is a “piece of shit” and “an evisceration of the American myth” is FAR from being homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic. The only people who throw such hateful accusations around, are those that have no real defense and they just want to put all the blame and focus on ghosts. This is coming from a bisexual person too (me). We’re tired of your fake wokeness, virtue signaling, tokenization of our communities, along with other communities, and we’re taking it back. We’re rebranding ourselves back to being just LGB because literally everything afterword has been a glaringly huge mistake, and has hindered our progress to be treated and seen as equals. Literally everything after LGB that has been tacked on, is only supported by pseudo-science and opinions. GTFO of here with your condescending fake ass.
You should probably take the time to listen to the entire Elliot interview. He clearly wasn’t being homophobic or sexist. The thought police on the left is so stupid—I’m a hardcore dem btw…shame everyone has to qualify every opinion now. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion. Feelings aren’t facts. Grow up. Sam Elliot didn’t ask anyone to care about his mostly accurate assessment of the film. His actual entire opinion boiled down to the fact that there were too many elements that took him out of it to be believable and that it didn’t tread new ground. He actually said he greatly admires Campion’s work. Moreover, he was being critical of OTHER peoples opinions about the film.
Still….it’s not exactly brain surgery.
“She seems to believe her western truth is better than our traditional western truth”lol the fact that she wants to explore other perspectives than the exact same ones we’ve been told again and again doesn’t make her believe she’s better. you’re just as much as a homophobe/women hater as Sam if you’re siding with him here. People act like women and queer people didn’t exist in your “traditional west”, surprise, they were always there.It was an amazing movie that will have a lasting imprint and influence on cinema.
Just because someone hates a show, and it happens to be made by a woman, doesn’t make them a homophobe, sexist, or transphobe. Also, as a bisexual person with a fluid IQ of 151, and loved taking history classes of our country, NO, no there were not gay people in the wild west, and if there was, they were extremely closeted. Or did you forget that our people got the shit kicked out of them or murdered just for coming out as being gay, all the way up until like a decade ago. We’re talking about a time period that took place roughly 100 years ago. Let me guess, you’re one of the morons that thinks 10% or so of the population is gay or bi, or trans, when in reality only 1 in 33 people is gay or bi, and only 1 in 26,000 are trans, the rest are trans-trenders who have infiltrated our community, and have been actively sabotaging it from the inside out.
I can already kind of tell we’re probably not gonna have any meaningful conversiation here but uhhh two things)1) movie is an adapted screenplay from a novel in the 60s that I would not argue as radically different thematically, so the “she thinks her view of is better” at LEAST has to be qualified as “she thinks Thomas Savage’s view of…”2) the “exposing her philia of” stuff is a super weird either/or that feels like it is tacitly admitting a lack of consideration towards the MASSIVE gulf between, say, “I am extremely fearful of blood and detest the sight of it” and “damn I fucking LOVE seeing blood.”And that feels like the charitable read, lol, because otherwise I’m not sure how to interpret that statement other than “having appreciation for a group that is nontraditional and otherized is no better or even different than finding it fearsome and resentful” which even beyond the ethics of it is just fucking wild logic
That’s a lot of thought and energy for something you didn’t care about.
Perhaps being born in Sac’to does not make you a cowboy. I was born in a small fishing village in another country and became a rocket scientist in the US, so I don’t get the point of bringing up his birthplace.She didn’t bring up his birthplace. But he brought up hers, questioning what a woman from New Zealand knows about the American West, the answer to which is identical to how he knows about the American West: from the mythology invented mainly by cinema.
I mean…the point about her being a Kiwi was firmly related to the fact that she filmed a movie set in Montana in NZ…which looks nothing like Montana.
I guess he forgot about Sergio Leone.
He’s a hypocrite since he’s currently starring in a show that has a lot of historical inaccuracy itself. People bring up his birthplace because he brings up Campions birthplace as a way to invalidate the quality of her directing. She never, at any point, insinuates that her “truth” is superior to “traditional” western truth (whatever that is). It’s just another take on the genre, of which there are many, many throughout cinematic history.
Dunning-Kruger alert!
As an outsider, fascinating to me to see Americans still insist that a multimillionaire is “cowboy-adjacent” just because he’s bought himself a house in the countryside.
I guess by that measure I’m an expert on mediaeval lifestyles, because living in England I’m “knight-adjacent”…
Sadly we did the same thing when George W. Bush, whose ex-president daddy gave him a silver spoon lifestyle and a trip to Yale, purchased a ranch for some photo op moments a few months before he campaigned for president. Suddenly he became “a cowboy you’d like to have a beer with” instead of a blue blood rich guy who had everything handed to him.
You’re basically right.The Power Of The Dog fails because it is inauthentic; a cartoon made by people with little to no understanding of ranching or cowboys or the personalities involved in those pursuits.As far as Sam Elliot being from Sacramento as some sort of disqualifier, that only shows people’s ignorance. Both sides of his families were ranchers form Texas since it was its own country, and his dad worked for BLM doing varmint control (basically running a crew of men hunting coyotes, wolves and such).If any of my ranching/roping/mining cowboy/cowgirl family members had seen this movie, they would have thought it was a comedy. And a poorly executed one at that.And don’t get me started on picking Benedict Cumberbatch as a badass cowboy.
Despite Sacramento still being a cowtown with metropolitan aspirations, Sammy is not the solon of all things western. He should have checked out all the spaghetti westerns that came before him. Once Upon a Time in the West is still my touchstone, but maybe he’s heard of this guy named Clint Eastwood, who starred in a few of them. Sammy’s spurs are missing a few teeth.
“She seems to believe her western truth is better than our traditional western truth, even if it is all a myth.”
Framing her comments and the film as a claim of “betterness” is just a way to manufacture an attack narrative, one you just made up. Like you’re just projecting that out of nowhere. Sorry you feel personally attacked by a movie…
It is funny Sam Elliiot thinks the Western genre should be known for its harsh realism. Frontier times were pretty much over by the time the movie takes place (1925). Everything since has been masc posturing, myth-upholding, leaning into genre tropes, and the fetishizing of it all. And nothing says fetish like chaps. Not too different from Phil’s copy of Physical Culture magazine really.
“Beyond that, if Campion believes Elliott hit a trifecta of phobia, then I think she is admitting that she built a movie out of her philia for those non traditional elements of life”How the fuck did 14 people star this comment?
What that poster, and Elliott, either overlooked or didn’t bother to find out, is that Campion didn’t build this movie from the ground up with some sort of “philia for non-traditional elements of life” or an agenda for “eviscerating the American Western myth”. No, she adapted it from a semi-autobiographical novel by Thomas Savage that incorporated a lot of his own real truths of growing up as a closeted young man on a ranch in the middle of nowhere Utah in the early 20th century. He published it way back in 1967, and people who hate on Campion’s film act like it was written and directed by the “left wing elite” for some culture wars BS.
Campion did make some of the repressed homosexuality a bit more explicit, but that’s just because sometimes a director has to literally show things that are woven into subtext in a book.
Exactly. All of this. Where the fuck did all the homophobes in this comment section come from?
Yeah I’ve seen some people defending Elliott by saying “just because he hated a film that happened to be made by a woman doesn’t make him X” and it is like, did you read the interview? He spends maybe a bit questioning the accuracy of the film and then most of the rest saying “that woman” or complaining about homosexuality etc. So the majority of his reasons for being against the film are rooted in that trifecta that Campion identified.
Nah, see, we just misread him, apparently. Him comparing a gay narrative to a fetish on the part of the director? Referring to it as “non-traditional?” Totally not dog whistle shit!It’s funny, because these fuckos almost ALWAYS think they’re way smarter than their actions indicate.
Campion built her movie out of truth… as she adapted it from a semi-autobiographical novel (it incorporated many elements of from the author’s experience of growing up as a closeted gay man on a ranch in the early 20th century) by Thomas Savage that he wrote way back in 1967. So Campion isn’t foisting “her” Western truth on the audience, she’s adapting the truth that Thomas Savage put to paper about his own life, a guy who actually grew up on a ranch and didn’t buy one after he got to be a rich actor. I’ll give it to you that Power of the Dog is kind of slow, but the pace mirrors the novel’s pace, Campion actually streamlined a lot of it.
I did watch it till the end and while I can appreciate the fact that the film is well made it just didn’t do it for me, but Elliot criticizing the director being from New Zealand is horse shit. In my humble opinion the best western of the last decade with the exception of maybe Bone Tomahawk was the Danish produced and directed The Salvation shot in South Africa and starring mostly European actors. Slow West like TPOTD also shot in New Zealand was also a good film. Does Elliot regard these films as cow plops too? Simply because of who or where they were made. I understand not liking the story (I didn’t) but that’s a pretty broad stroke.As far as “Authentic American West” is concerned let’s bash any Cowboys and Indians film that has Native Americans attacking circled wagon trains by riding round and round whooping it up and getting picked off like ducks in a shooting gallery. Cause I’m pretty sure that isn’t terribly accurate.Now I’m sure Ole Sam is a fine actor and maybe even a good judge of horse flesh but when your most notable – at least to me -western is probaby Tombstone (which, honestly, with the exception of Kilmer’s Doc I found kinda dull) then you’re opinion shouldn’t really carry any more weight than any regular yahoo regardless of whether he portrayed a gunslinger or Frodo.
You do realize the book it’s based on was written by someone who actually lived through the period in question, but sure you speak for it better I’m sure. Just say you don’t like the gay stuff everyone knows that’s really your issue, you do not hide it well nor does Sam.
As a Texan, with a grandfather who had ranch, and who was raised among rednecks on rodeos, bbq, and country music, I found the movie fantastic. The world portrayed was, of course, far more complex than what is typically churned out by the California industry. But the real southwest has, it may shock you to learn, indeed contained all manner of stories—and not just the same dichotomy of stoic sheriff versus gang of rustlers, over and over ad nauseum.
But even if you and Sacramento Sam only wish to see variations on the same romantic theme, it’s still worth considering how you frame your view of the movie as the definitive one, i.e: “it was a dreadful movie,” rather than: “I found the movie dreadful.”
And isn’t that a bit weird? Particularly when the movie was self-evidently not dreadful, by any reasonable person’s metrics, namely every rating, review, and awards aggregator reporting strong majorities of positive response and the highest accolades.
Reading y’all’s replies is much better entertainment than what I saw of the movie. It’s like misheard song lyrics meets movie critic.
Perhaps if the movie had something interesting going on in the first half hour or so, I would have stuck with it. It is a boring movie. I’m pretty sure I’m not any of the names I’ve been called. Those who cannot create a decent retort often resort to name calling. You probably don’t think of yourselves as bullies. Consider that. I’m not calling you a bully, but you’re mimicking what bullies do.
Between half of you reading comments into my comments and the other half not reading my comments (or not understanding them), and those who starred the misread comments, this is just making my day.
Between half of you reading comments into my comments and the other half not reading my comments (or not understanding them), and those who starred the misread comments, this is just making my day. Ah. So you were trolling, and are now enjoying the “fruits” of that.Maybe you can help me: why do people see something as pathetic as trolling – an impulse that reasonable adults abandon with other impulses of a toddler-level vintage – as a legit hobby? Depression? Just plain giving up on actual, adult conversation? As to “reading comments into your comments,” here:
I think she is admitting that she built a movie out of her philia for those non traditional elements of life.You invoked the word “philia” and used dogwhistle language about homosexuality. If you think that people are “misreading” you here, you’re either trolling or you’re a fucking moron who has no idea how communication works. Which is it?
You sound like a fucking piece of shit.
I think she is admitting that she built a movie out of her philia for those non traditional elements of life. Oh fuck off with this nonsense.
You left a few salient points off your resume, Dr. von Braun. “Another country” indeed!
Geez, first Van Morrison turns out to be a covidiot, and now a cowboy actor is the arbiter of all things Western? Sigh.
Elliot is realizing that he and his ilk are an anachronism and irrelevant…
This makes them lash out
WTF is Elliot’s problem? Its a freaking make believe movie Sam. Its not a documentary on the West and claiming to be the most accurate portrayal of cowboy life every filmed. Its a fantasy made up story you moron.
While it isn’t a documentary it is an adaptation of a semi-biographical novel by a guy, Th0mas Savage, who actually grew up on a ranch in the middle of nowhere Utah during the early 20th century, and was a repressed gay man, so even if Campion isn’t personally an expert on all that stuff, I’m sure Savage was back when he wrote the novel in 1967. I agree with you though, this is like British Royalty getting up in arms about “The Crown” even though it is definitely a work of fiction and not remotely marketed as a true life documentary etc.
I was not aware of that and my apologies for mis-speaking regarding this being fantasty. Thank you for the information here.
I’ll blatantly generalize, most actors crave attention, and this was just a symptom of him clumsily trying to squeeze some for himself out of a film he had nothing to do with. WTF is an appropriate response to him, it was mean spirited and idiotic as you rightly suggested.
Everyone knows that movies are a big cultural keystone. So a movie with A-list actors grabs attention, and when the film maker is a woman, some of the characters are gay and the themes toy with the false American narrative that cowboys are awesome, then patriarchs are threatened. Sam is an iconic white patriarch that built his brand around being “old fashioned.” He feels his identity and history are being attacked, so he attacks the source of the film and demonstrates his identity in the modern culture war.
Honestly a story about a rich guy in the 1920s pretending to be an old west cowboy to hide his homosexuality is probably way more realistic then the cowboy movies Sam Elliot has been in. Hollywoods idea of the old west is about historically accurate as those sword and sorcery movies from the 80s.
Most of his comments were weird, but then I did share some of his observations. Why were they wearing chaps and spurs all day and night, regardless of location or activity? That part did seem like an outsider’s assumption of the cowboy aesthetic, and it got it so wrong that I found myself laughing out loud. The movie was accidentally silly so often that it became distracting.
Phil Burbank is the outsider, he’s a city boy playing at being a cowboy. His reverence for the aesthetic is the reason that he wears chaps and spurs all day and night, he doesn’t actually fully understand or belong.
Or arguably it’s Phil Burbank’s assumption of what a real cowboy does. Most of the other characters do not. George Burbank certainly doesn’t. It’s almost like that whole aesthetic might have been part of the point.
Agreed, Phil leans so far into that role of what he believes the idealized cowboy should be, stemming from his Bronco worship, that he sometimes does things that seem silly. He’s always “on” and can’t turn it off, for fear he’ll soften up and let his repressed side out. But he did remind me of Kevin from “Daria” who wears his football pads everywhere haha.
It’s like if someone made a movie about a baker and the main character always wore an apron and oven mitts everywhere they went all the time.
It’s funny that the character is shown doing things a cowboy wouldn’t do and people’s response is “the director is dumb” instead of realizing he’s shown that way on purpose for you to realize he’s a fake. He’s a rich kid playing cowboy.Like, you’ve literally seen what you’re supposed to see and rather than connect the dots, you’re purposely misunderstanding to try and make yourself seem smarter than the director.
I don’t know any bakers but I refuse to believe they don’t.
If the point of the movie was that the main character thought that’s what bakers did then – yeah, you’d have a point.
I’d trade the old Hollywood cowboy mythos for an entire genre of masc daddy power bakers in aprons ANY DAY.
They don’t?
Or like Kevin from “Daria” haha
You get that he wasn’t “really” a cowboy but an education rich dude who was just playing at it right?
Sam Elliott himself wears chaps indoors in at least one cowboy film.
I love Jane Campion and liked the movie, but I couldn’t figure it out.It was set in 1925; that puts the “old west” far behind it. Was Phil’s character meant to be a lone outpost of traditional ways against a West moving in a direction he didn’t like? That’s usually a sturdy storyline of Westerns (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hell or High Water) and makes for a pretty good internal and external struggle of the main character. I didn’t really get that in POTD. Still liked it, but never really got the sense it mattered much whose West won in the end. When you take society out of the picture as one of the big antagonists for the lead character (Phil, I guess), the main conflict feels more like a squabble than a real contest of important values. For me, the story felt pitched a little below the magnitude that’s typical for Westerns.Would still like to see Campion win an Oscar.
The movie was not a Western and was a pile of dung.
It’s almost like part of the point was… Cumberbatch’s character was just playing at being a cowboy and you’ve totally missed the point of him being dressed inappropriatey on purpose.
I would argue that Phil fetishized his idea of what a cowboy is and does (Bronco Henry, chaps and all), along with a masculine ideal (fitness magazines). Through projecting that ideal he was able to maintain a tight hold on how the ranch operated and how the people on it were to behave, to the point that most other characters feared him enough to have little choice but to submit to his demands. He needs to feel powerful to prove his manliness, but also to hide his desires, and also to control others. This is what bullies do and he is depicted as a bully throughout the entire film. So I wouldn’t argue the cowboy aesthetic being and outsider’s perception – outsider being the filmmakers, but more a character’s perception, one with something to prove and whose reality is informed by myth and how to be SEEN as powerful. But yes, very much a comment deliberately being made about WHO and WHY a man like him would be doing so and WHAT that says about genre, culture, masculinity, and power.
Yeah it was nothing like those other movies that are also not based in reality which I take seriously because they reaffirm my beliefs.
Why was Sam Elliott wearing his fucking hat indoors in the Big Lebowski? A real cowboy would’ve taken that thing off when he went into the bowling alley.
He was right about the chaps thing tho, it was pretty dumb looking.He’s an actor, but having been in so many of these things himself, I think as far as at least the wardrobe part, he’s probably got a lot more right than wrong when it comes to that.
He expressed his opinion. Some people agree. Some people disagree.
Didn’t you hear? Only liberals are allowed to give their opinion these days. They say they believe in freedom,%. I’m not sure he ever said he was a cowboy, but if he does whats the problem? It’s OK with liberals if a man/boy considers himself a woman/girl and visa versa. The man gave his opinion, which for the time being is still allowed in America and in truth he knows more about the American west than the Aussie ever will.
Did someone say somewhere he can’t give his opinion? Giving an opinion doesn’t mean that others can’t respond to or criticize your opinion.
You forgot the /s tag
You registered for THAT?
Man, you’re an idiot with your whataboutism response.That alone tells me you’re an idiot.
Gotta love this dishonest bullshit. Who said Sam Elliott wasn’t allowed to express an opinion? He can say whatever he wants. But that doesn’t make him immune to criticism. He’s not getting arrested, he’s getting roasted on the internet. “Freedom of speech” goes both ways.And more to the point, freedom of speech only protects you from government reprisal. Conservatives are free to say whatever they want. But there’s no law protecting them from repercussions in society. The fact that this feels tantamount to getting thrown into a gulag shows how goddamn thin-skinned conservatives are.I didn’t even particularly like Power of the Dog. But Sam Elliott’s take was bad. And Jane Campion is from New Zealand; you’re not insulting her by calling her an Aussie, you’re insulting yourself by sounding stupid.
Your response is pure trash but the real cherry on top of the poop pile is you can even get her country of origin right. She’s not an Aussie
His claims were objectively false, not to mention homophobic.
Thank you for that nuanced take.
Longfellow couldnt have said it better.
Sam Elliot was interested in politics from a very young age.
To paraphrase Harlan Ellison, Sam Ellott is entitled to his informed opinion, not his ignorance, and Elliott’s opinions are definitely uninformed. And in this day and age there’s no excuse for an uninformed opinion.
For one thing when he went 0n about a foreigner making Westerns, he glossed over the famous, cornerstone works of Sergio Leone in the genre. For another, when he complained about all the homosexuality spread through the film as “an evisceration of the myth of the American West” he overlooked that Campion didn’t write the film herself, she adapted it from the semi-autobiographical 1967 novel by Thomas Savage. Savage grew up on a ranch near a very small town in Utah during the early 20th century, was a repressed gay man most of his life, and wrote the book based on his own experiences. N0t some abstract myth.
So either Elliott failed to do his research before shooting his mouth off or was willfully ignorant in forming/sharing his opinion.
Maybe Sam is upset he wasn’t cast as Bronco Henry…
Yeah, when Brokeback Mountain came out, just as with now and Elliott, the same xenophobic, homophobic, comments were made, how can X know about Y bull-farble.
–
They’re all actors and directors, and sadly, being ‘part’ of a culture makes you no more or less likely to make a good movie, but claiming someone does, or gatekeeping by those rules, does make you much more of a close minded bigot.
Geeze, people, did George Lucas need to travel in space and become a Jedi?
COME ON.
Yeah I mean Elliott gives a lot of his vitriol towards a foreign woman, a woman director for goodness sakes! But I don’t see him anywhere complaining about there being a pale British dude playing a cowboy (Cumberbatch was awesome though) or an Italian guy being a cornerstone of the genre. So I can tell what has him up in a dander, a lady directing a manly cowboy movie.
Anyway, he’s also dumb because the film was just an adaptation of a semi-autobiographical n0vel by Thomas Savage, way back from 1967, that incorporated his real life experiences of growing up a repressed gay man on a ranch in the middle of nowhere Utah in the early 1920’s. Instead of merely buying a ranch after becoming a rich actor and using that as justification to be a gatekeeper on cowboy shit.
Those words (among others) have been slung around so much over the last several years in an attempt to use them as a cudgel against someone of a differing opinion that they lost the real meaning behind the words. Pretty sure Elliott doesn’t have an irrational hatred or fear of women, anything foreign or gay people for that matter. Disliking certain elements moving into a market area because you lack the creativity to come up with something new other than ‘let’s make it about a man who is really gay struggling with his toxic masculinity and keeping it hidden as he is hanging around others who are not so overt about it. Hey, I know let’s make it a western.’ Other than it’s niche audience, the movie really is s***. FFS anime has started to become more appealing and creative in storytelling than live-action.
I remember a time when the only comments on the original Elliott article would’ve been a jpeg of Grandpa Simpson shaking his fist ar a cloud.Why the FUCK are people engaging with these idiots at all?
My wife and I both watched Power of the Dog the other night and came away wondering what was so special about it. Neither of us think it should be the subject of such adoration, as the film was pretty dull and uninteresting.We both feel that Benedict Cumberbatch nailed the American accent, but I can’t figure out why Kirsten Dunst signed on to play George’s wife. The part is not a good vehicle to showcase her talent. And who in the world thought that casting Kodi Smit-McPhee as her son was a good idea, when he stands almost two heads taller than Dunst. Unbelievable.
Campion’s comment that Sam Elliot is not a cowboy should be thrown back in her face. She isn’t a cowboy either, so criticism of her interpretation of what a cowboy should look like and act like are fair game.I know the Academy has been criticized in recent years for its male-dominated Oscar awards. But I hope that members of the Academy will exercise better judgment in the future. There are women directors who merit the accolades the Oscars will give, but Power of the Dog is not the most worthy effort upon which to lavish their praise.
My wife and I both watched Power of the Dog the other night
and came away wondering what was so special about it. Neither of us
think it should be the subject of such adoration, as the film was pretty
dull and uninteresting.We both feel that Benedict
Cumberbatch nailed the American accent, but I can’t figure out why
Kirsten Dunst signed on to play George’s wife. The part is not a good
vehicle to showcase her talent. And who in the world thought that
casting Kodi Smit-McPhee as her son was a good idea, when he stands
almost two heads taller than Dunst. Unbelievable.
Campion’s
comment that Sam Elliot is not a cowboy should be thrown back in her
face. She isn’t a cowboy either, so criticism of her interpretation of
what a cowboy should look like and act like are fair game.I know the Academy has been criticized in recent years for its male-dominated Oscar
awards. But I hope that members of the Academy will exercise better
judgment in the future. There are women directors who merit the
accolades the Oscars will give, but Power of the Dog is not the most
worthy effort upon which to lavish their praise.
“He’s not a cowboy, he’s an actor” is a GREAT response.
“Hilarious” is a bit strong.
This article currently sits alongside “SNL hilariously takes on Amazon Go,” so maybe it’s part of some new editorial style guide.
And if there’s one thing Hughes has consistently shown, it’s that he’ll do whatever Spanfeller tells him…then ask for more.
Nobody was whining and your continued “articles” about this non-issue continue to be horrid.
An elderly couple from somewhere “back east” is driving through Arizona on a vacation trip, and they stop at a local bar to have a beer and cool off. A guy that looks like a cowboy walks in, and the husband starts a conversation:“Excuse me, sir, but you appear to be a real cowboy – we’re from Ohio, and we’ve never actually seen a real, working cowboy.”“That’s right – I’m a cowhand at a ranch just down the road.”“Would you mind if I asked you a couple of questions?”“Sure, why not.”“ I don’t understand why you wear those big “ten-gallon” hats.”“Well, they keep the sun off my face and neck, and I can use mine to give my horse water.”“How about that scarf around your neck?”“That’s my bandanna – I can pull it over my mouth and nose on a dusty trail ride, and I can soak it in water to keep my neck cool.”“And those leather covers on your pants?”“Those are chaps – they keep my jeans from being torn up by the sage we ride through.”“And how about those Adidas tennis shoes?”“Oh – that’s so people don’t think I’m a fucking truck driver.”
Elliot’s assessment was actually kind of funny to read. Watching the movie, I thought, “this dirty bastard is really just going to jump in the bed like that?!?” 😂
Soooooooo brave.
I can’t think of a better actor to play Bronco Henry in the prequel.
Just listened to the WTF podcast. I didn’t know Elliott was such a hater. He views himself as a man’s man Cowboy but I’ve only ever regarded him as some ‘cute’ old dude. Calling Campion “this woman” several times is code for “that bitch” so he can get on his hoss and skedaddle because this town’s too big for you, old fucker.
He also said he loved her other work. My takeaway was that he watched the movie but didn’t love it because it fell into that uncanny valley that movies sometimes do when they use some topic you’re intimately familiar with as a context to make a larger point without getting all the details exactly right so you end up distracted by all the little discrepancies rather than focusing on the story. Then he went on Maron and griped about it partially tongue in cheek, like he was playing a curmudgeonly, old, cowboy character, mostly for humorous effect.
The man is also well-versed on The American Lifeguard. And on Doctors Who Are Also Spies (played one on Mission: Impossible, the series). And if you want to make any film about Evel Knievel, ooh, you better go through him first.
An important factor that it seems like Elliott, and even this article, overlook, is that Campion didn’t write and direct this movie all by herself. It is an adaptation of a 60’s Western written in a somewhat autobiographical manner by an author, Savage, who grew up on a ranch and had similar experiences as a closeted gay man. So it isn’t like Campion made a gay cowboy film to push any “evisceration agenda” she merely adapted a novel from 1967 into a fine film.
I am glad that Hughes mentioned that many important cowboy movies have been shot outside of the US by foreign directors, something Elliott seemed to conveniently forget.
How many fucking articles is AVclub going to write about one off-handed comment some old dude made?
Good lord, people are still talking about this?Maron asked Sam about the movie because Maron enjoyed it and had a really good interview with Benedict Cumberbund. Sam didn’t like it at all, and spent maybe two or three minutes talking about it in the same way that Sam talked about everything in the interview: with a lot of f-bombs. Marc didn’t want to dive deeper into the disagreement, so they moved on.Calling Sam a bitch is neither raising the level of discourse (which is apparently half the reason for this brouhaha) nor proving her point. Seems they were the only two that moved on.
And now there’s a whole OTHER Jane Campion brouhaha to talk about! It’s Campion Week at the A.V. Club!
Reading y’all’s replies is much better entertainment than what I saw of the movie. It’s like misheard song lyrics meets movie critic. ~A Fucking Moron Who Got “Amused” That People Took His Bullshit Homophobia At Face Value
Then, boy oh boy, what she says next!
I don’t want to be the old man yelling at clouds here but there was a time when the commentariat here was known for its thoughtful takes on pop-cultural phenomena. Now it’s just bigots and trolls. Now that the writing staff has been gutted, along come the trolls to destroy the only good that remains of this site. Honestly, it’s incredibly depressing.
i think the most pathetic thing about all this is how jane plain and simple just made a boring self-absorbed and tbh very naive film, but instead of saying “i fucked up i could have done a better job” she resorts to saying they’re “homophobic and transphobic and xenophobic” and whatever other phobic word just so she doesn’t have to break her delusion that she did AMAZING and THOUGHTPROVOKING worki dont get how people dont see through that? it’s the most manipulative, disgusting shit you see in hollywood now. “IF YOU DONT LIKE AND BUY OUR PRODU- I MEAN MOVIES… YOU ARE AN EVIL EVIL EVIL PERSON!!!!! EVIL!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE PROOF OF THE WHITE PATRIACHY!!”please learn to overcome that tactic, you are not a bad person because some EXTREMELY spoiled loser decided to cobble up a guilt-trip, USING people’s very real problems in order to line people like her’s pocketsthey are not good people. they are manipulating you for money and notoriety. they are fake, soulless husks of life. a computer is more human than they are.