“Art should be genderless”, the cinematographer Ari Wegner told the Guardian in a joint interview with film director Jane Campion. The pair are both up for Oscars for their work on The Power of the Dog, the western based on a 1967 novel by Thomas Savage, which is the deserving frontrunner in advance of the ceremony later this month, with 12 nominations.
The film, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, is a subversive and visually stunning story of disturbed domestic relationships on a Montana ranch, which turns inside out the macho conventions of one of cinema’s classic genres. Desire, sexuality and the complex forms of attachment between people are, as in Campion’s previous films, including her masterpiece The Piano (for which she won a best screenplay Oscar in 1994), the heart of the matter.
