Sam Elliott might not have enjoyed the simmering sexual tension and grand, glorious vistas of The Power of the Dog, but the veteran actor is pretty much the only one. Jane Campion’s first full-length feature in 12 years ruthlessly did away with the gung-ho tropes of traditional westerns and replaced them with something altogether more subtle and tense. “The fascination of The Power of the Dog lies in its ambiguity and its depth of characterisation,” wrote Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent’s review back in September 2021. “Nothing is obvious here, not even the title.” Such complexity allowed both Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst to turn in career-best performances, while newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee scored himself a well-deserved nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of a troubled young man coming to terms with the suicide of his father and teased for his effeminacy.
One of those adaptations seemingly destined to never get made, Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel had been optioned five times by various producers over the past 50 years. At one point Paul Newman had intended to bring the book to the big screen, but it was Campion that finally got the project over the line, working on the screenplay while in correspondence with author Annie Proulx, whose 1997 short story, “Brokeback Mountain” – which went on to become a successful film in 2005 – drew heavily from Savage’s original novel.
