LOS ANGELES — With her nomination for "The Power of the Dog," Jane Campion becomes the first woman ever nominated twice for the Oscar for directing.
Campion's previous directing nomination was for 1993's "The Piano." Steven Spielberg took the Oscar that year for "Schindler's List," but Campion won the Oscar for original screenplay.
When she was nominated as director for "The Piano," Campion was only the second woman ever recognized in the category. (The first, Lina Wertmuller, died in December of last year.) In the years since "The Piano," five other women have been nominated for directing, with two — Kathryn Bigelow ("The Hurt Locker") and Chloé Zhao ("Nomadland") — winning the award.
Campion, 67, was also the first woman to win the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the Palme d'Or, for "The Piano." The second, Julia Ducournau for "Titane," won the prize just last year.
Set in 1925 Montana (though shot in Campion's native New Zealand), "The Power of the Dog" is the story of a brooding rancher named Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch), a Yale graduate who spends his time working hard amid the ranch hands. When his brother, George (Jesse Plemons), brings home a wife, Rose (Kirsten Dunst), and her son from a previous marriage, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Phil sets about psychologically and emotionally tormenting the woman any way he can. He then shows an unexpectedly tender side when Phil seems to take Peter under his wing, much as an older cowboy known as Bronco Henry had done for him in his younger days.
When the film premiered at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, Campion was awarded the best director prize, and she and the film have continued to rack up accolades ever since, including eight BAFTA nominations, 10 Critics Choice nominations, three wins at the phantom Golden Globes awards and numerous critics group prizes, including best director from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.
Since "The Piano," Campion has continued to make stirring, challenging work, including the Henry James adaptation "The Portrait of a Lady," the willfully flaky "Holy Smoke!," the controversial erotic thriller "In the Cut" and the poetic romance "Bright Star." She also made two seasons of the TV series "Top of the Lake," starring Elisabeth Moss.
"The Power of the Dog" is the first of her films to feature a male protagonist and unsparingly examines the roots of toxic masculinity, fashioning Phil Burbank as both a villain and a tragic victim.
As Campion put it in an interview with The Times last year, "Why would I now go in this direction? For the first time in my life since my time in Cannes with 'The Piano,' there are so many more women in this space doing some of the best work out there. We've crossed over the line, and everyone wants to be on our side. No one is saying, 'That's too hard for women.' The Berlin Wall is down, and it's not coming back again."
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