2021 #1 Film of the Year The Power of the Dog

 

Director Jane Campion

Cinematographer Ari Wegner (left) with Campion

Campion checks with Kodi Smit-McPhee and Kristen Dunst

Campion checks the camera on the set

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE POWER OF THE DOG                        A                                                                        USA  Great Britain  Australia  Canada  New Zealand  (126 mi)  2021  ‘Scope  d: Jane Campion                                                                                                                                                                                                        Deliver my soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog.                                         —Psalm 22:20, King James Bible

Beware the unseen power of a scorpion bite, as that insidious poison infects the overall storyline of what we see, as there’s an underlying sting of macho dread and horror that underlies every frame of the film, haunting some, if not all, where a noxious male influence spreads untouched, like a Biblical plague that pervades throughout the land, wreaking havoc, destroying lives, literally running roughshod over the women, yet the story is beautifully told with a carefully calculated and complex mastery, producing a surprising outcome, imbued with such an understated discretion that it may leave viewers perplexed.  Her first feature film since Bright Star (2009), and her first male-led picture, Campion immerses her audience into a very specific time and place, the vastly underpopulated Montana in 1925, though sumptuously shot in ‘Scope in the Otago region of the South Island of New Zealand by Ari Wegner, capturing the breathtaking beauty of the surrounding landscape, whose enormity is captured in ways not seen since William Wyler’s THE BIG COUNTRY (1958), speaking a language all its own, literally dwarfing the human presence to solitary figures of near insignificance.  Adapting the Thomas Savage novel of 1967, Savage is an American author who described the conditions of the American West, while Campion’s film celebrates the rampant masculinity of the Western genre, but turns it on its ear, subverting the topic through a feminist lens, but couldn’t be more subtle, expressing a rare mastery of the Western landscape that exerts its own mysterious power, as the sheer look of the film is simply extraordinary, yet more than any other Campion film feels indebted to The Piano (1993), exposing the human flaws of the people attempting to tame the land, revealing a carefully calibrated characterization that typifies stories of the Old West.  We are introduced to two brothers who couldn’t be less alike, wealthy ranchers Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberland in the role of a lifetime), a lone wolf, malicious and homophobic, college educated at Yale yet used to working with his hands, displaying all the standard markers of Western manhood, grace in the saddle, wit in the saloon, and an apparently unlimited tolerance for pain and discomfort, and his more generous brother George (Jesse Plemons) who manages the business, remaining steady and decent, honest and simple, but wears a suit in the saddle, constantly referred to as “Fatso,” with Phil bullying his brother, apparently, simply because he can, where an openly displayed derision is built into the dynamics of their relationship, despite sleeping in the same bed for nearly forty years.  Together they manage the day‑to-day running of their huge cattle farm, evoking some of the more spectacular scenery in the vast and open range as they herd their cattle back into familiar pens when the weather turns cold.  When George marries Rose (Kristen Dunst, his real-life partner), a kind, yet sad and overly anxious widow with an effeminate teenage son Peter, Kodi Smit-McPhee, grown up from the 10-year old kid following Viggo Mortensen around in John Hillcoat’s version of Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic The Road (2009), also Slow West (2015), Phil is appalled and explodes with a virulent anger, tormenting Rose and her “sissy” son with cruel mockery, emotional cruelty, and threats of violence, pitting a cold, Machiavelli-like superiority complex against what he perceives as weakly and undeserving intruders, turning Rose into a closet alcoholic as her own protection from a man she views as a beast.  A vicious, yet spectacularly filmed movie, this overblown toxic masculinity that Phil represents influences every scene of the film, literally carrying the picture with its own infectious energy, providing the nuance and rhythm of the film, yet subverted by a feminist touch, extremely rare to see, especially done as well as this.  Premiering at the Venice Film Festival, it won a Silver Lion for Best Director, and may be the most important film Campion has ever made.    

A rich and challenging psychodrama broken into chapter headings, offering brilliant character development, the film is a picture of restraint, yet thrives in its own brooding intensity, where Cumberland mirrors the misanthropic amorality of Daniel Day-Lewis’s Daniel Plainview, offering an early capitalist counterpoint to the enthrall of Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (2007) set in the same time period, similarly scored by Jonny Greenwood with an unsettling musical soundtrack that captures the essence of the underlying tension with simple guitar strums, expanded to a more abstract musical accompaniment that accentuates the emotional strains below the surface, turning this into a quietly sustained horror movie, filled with an underlying dread.  Yet the film’s first lines (differing from the book, omitting the first third of the novel) come from Peter in an unseen voiceover during the opening title sequence, pondering “When my father passed, I wanted nothing more than my mother’s happiness.  For what kind of man would I be if I did not help my mother?  If I did not save her?”  This quotation stands alone, never referred to again, and is seemingly forgotten over time, in stark contrast to the daily scenes of cattle ranchers leading a hardscrabble life out under the hot sun, roping, fencing, branding, pitching hay, and castrating cattle, which Phil proudly performs without wearing gloves, the only one who scorns that practice.  So their calloused hands are used to getting blisters, cuts, and splinters, making this the brother’s twenty-fifth year together driving cattle from the southwest Montana plains.  Yet Campion adds an alternative female gaze perspective, showing the men stark naked while bathing in the creek, then lounging on the rocks afterwards, sunning themselves in nothing but their birthday suits, with their hats carefully placed over their privates.  It’s the kind of scene never shown in earlier Westerns, which would instead accentuate the male bonding experience, where spending time out in the open range allows men time to think and ponder their existential situations.  Yet there’s very little of that here, as the men are indistinctive, becoming a Greek chorus of conformity, led by Phil as their leader, following his every move.  Phil takes great care to acknowledge his predecessor, Bronco Henry, recalling the glory days of his dead mentor, the original leader of the pack, where a shrine in his honor rests out in the barn, along with his saddle that Phil fastidiously keeps polished and clean, unlike his own body that he rarely ever bathes, perhaps once a month in the creek, never bathing at all in winter.  Rose runs a boarding house in nearby Beech, a small town where her husband used to practice medicine, serving patients who often couldn’t pay, yet his late descent into alcoholism and depression is a disturbing revelation, where his early demise has left Rose to raise her son alone, where Peter is seen displaying extraordinary patience and a skilled artistry in creating paper flowers from cut paper that are extremely lifelike, with Rose proudly placing them on the tables for her customers.  Yet when Phil brings his ranch hands into town, Peter quickly becomes the object of Phil’s derision, mocking his voice, his hand towel, and for painstakingly crafting the delicate flowers, using one to light his everpresent cigarette, dumping it in a used glass, while his men join in offering more scorn, with Rose scurrying to collect the table arrangements before more are destroyed.  Peter storms out the back, trying to ignore what happened, leaving Rose weeping in the kitchen, comforted by George, who remains in the background for the most part, yet is forced to apologize for his brother’s open cruelty.     

There’s an unsettling nature to the depiction of male masculinity as being intentionally cruel and hurtful, which only escalates when George decides to marry Rose, viewing her with an affectionate tenderness Phil would never understand, railing against her with all his will, refusing to welcome her to the family, calling her “a cheap schemer,” certain that she’s after their money, becoming a menacing force, particularly when they all move into a huge, cavernous ranch house with two servants, Geneviève Lemon from Sweetie (1989) and Thomasin McKenzie from 2018 Top Ten List #5 Leave No Trace, turning into a chamber drama, much of it shot through doors or windows, reminiscent of John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS (1956), where the floor creaks and every door and window can fly open any second, feeling a bit haunted to Rose, particularly when her bedroom is located right next to Phil, who can hear every sound, seething with anger in what has been his own personal domain, master of his own house, now infested by a women he perceives to be an interloper and gold-digger.  When Peter comes home from medical school and joins them, Phil immediately identifies him as “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” mocking his slight lisp, with the Greek chorus joining in with the catcalls, calling him “Nancy Boy,” instantly thought of as soft, a young man smothered by his mother’s affections, labeled a gay blade.  Decorated to the hilt with slim jeans, a white shirt and an oversized white cowboy hat, the kid fits the part, yet he has a secret life unknown to the others, as he’s studying to be a doctor, catching rabbits only to dissect them for practice, something Rose forbids in the house, as it can be viewed as a gruesome hobby.  George proudly delivers a baby grand piano for Rose, who once played in the pits for Silent movies, continually prodded into playing by her husband, as if turning her into a spectacle that she has little interest in becoming.  Nonetheless, she awkwardly practices the Radetzky March, Johann Strauss Sr.: Radetzky March piano - YouTube (2:55), continually playing the wrong notes, a metaphor for her excruciating struggles, yet what’s worse, Phil is sitting in his room playing the same tune on the banjo, only playing it better, always having the upper hand, whistling the tune when he sees her, where his psychological campaign of terror leaves her exhausted and emotionally depleted, continually feeling diminished and weak, driving her to drink, shrinking back to being a little girl, living in a delusionary world of her own, losing all grasp of reality.  Yet Rose is the key component, as neither George nor Peter appreciate the way Phil treats her, literally manhandling her, keeping her under his thumb, scoffing at her acute weakness and lingering depression.  Still, no one stands up to him, as he remains top dog of the manor, and what he says goes.  The brother’s split their profits 50/50, as they always have, yet it’s clear who actually runs things, though Rose has mysteriously come between them, becoming a thorn in his hide.  Taking a different tact, Phil decides to befriend her son Peter, help turn him into a man by teaching him how to ride, going on extended trips together up into the mountains, offering extensive hands-on experience that he would otherwise never receive, becoming the mentor Bronco Henry was to Phil.  While Rose is in alcoholic distress, Campion curiously weaves Brokeback Mountain (2005) homoerotic overtones into Phil’s own repressed sexuality, seen alone bathing himself in his own private spot by the creek, sensually caressing himself with an old handkerchief that once belonged to Bronco Henry, with Peter finding his hidden stash of magazines that showcase the naked male physique, offering a window into his suffering soul of always having to fend off any pain, never allowing anything to affect him, always living up to a mythical façade of Bronco Henry, who was impervious to pain or weakness.  So it comes as a bit of a surprise that a mysteriously reconciled Phil and Peter have their own tender moments together, particularly a quietly extended scene in the barn that coolly observes cracks in the armor, sharing a cigarette, hearing anecdotes about Bronco Henry, solidifying their relationship, with Phil, against all odds, hoping to turn him into a man.  The calculated twist at the end comes as a huge surprise, with Campion cleverly inverting nearly everything that has come before, where tragedy takes on a dramatically different face, using the same subtlety and restraint that has pervaded throughout the entire film, telling a significantly different story than the one we imagined.    

The Beguiled (2017)

THE BEGUILED                   C+                  

USA  (93 mi)  2017 d:  Sofia Coppola                       Official Facebook

Ostensibly a remake or retelling of an early Clint Eastwood film directed by Don Siegel, The Beguiled (1971), that rare Eastwood movie where he actually gets his comeuppance, and from none other than stage icon Geraldine Page, though one would think this is more heavily influenced by the gorgeously stylized Peter Weir film Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), one of the most spectacularly beautiful films ever made, described as a turn of the century costume drama about the heavily repressed world of girls at a boarding school, “a magnificently sensuous and stunningly visualized film balancing the beauty of young innocent girls against the beauty of nature, which seems to be so beguiling on the outside, green and yellow flora, pastel colored flowers contrasted against the repression of the Victorian era and the unseen, inexplicable and savage side of nature where terror lurks underneath the surface, and where the two seem worlds apart.”  Weir’s film is the same cloistered territory Sofia Coppola enters with her new film, finding the sexually repressed secrets that lie buried under the surface of her socially isolated Southern belles, offering a sharp contrast to the lurid beauty of the Gothic Expressionism in the plantation era of the South during the Civil War.  The lack of a contemporary musical soundtrack is perhaps the biggest departure from Coppola’s earlier work, while also missing is the non-narrative, stream-of-conscious experimental style she is known for, usually finding gentler pleasures in subtleties and poetic tonalities.  But the film works in another way as well, though perhaps inadvertently.  In an era of Trump, by ignoring historical realities altogether, Coppola has made the ultimate film about white privilege, and done so by throwing out any hint of slavery from the storyline, a conscious effort on Coppola’s part, claiming she didn’t want to treat the subject lightly, suggesting her take was about the gender dynamics of the Confederacy, not the racial ones (Sofia Coppola Says “The Beguiled” Is About The Gender Dynamics Of ...), despite the overt presence of a slave character in both the book it was adapted from, a novel written by Thomas P. Cullinan in 1966, and the previous film, where a slave named Hallie (Mae Mercer) is charged with caring for Eastwood as he heals from a serious injury, and is perhaps the only one not dazzled by his erotic charms, realizing whatever status or privilege available to the other women are not offered to her.  By simply excising the existence of slaves from the story, Coppola has done exactly what Trump has done, cater exclusively to a white audience.  While it may be a major misstep on her part, it feeds into the criticism that she can only make films about the white experience, where nothing that she offers speaks to people of color.  In setting the film during the Civil War, this just feels like a huge limitation on her part, though it may actually reflect the state of mind of Southern whites living in that era, who viewed slaves as property, as something less than human, yet ironically this class advantage reserved for whites was totally dependent upon a slavery system of free labor that remained the foundation of their very existence.  It would be so much more “beguiling” had the director actually dealt with this issue in some prominent fashion rather than to simply ignore it altogether, but to do so really speaks of her own white privilege.    

That being said, this is easily Ms. Coppola’s least challenging and most conventional effort, suggesting this will likely pave the way for her biggest commercial success, though it is arguably among her weakest efforts, despite having its premiere at Cannes, with Coppola strangely and mysteriously winning the award for Best Director, only the second female director to win the prize in the festival’s 70-year history, the only other being Soviet filmmaker Yuliya Solntseva in 1961 for THE CHRONICLE OF FLAMING YEARS.  The last time Coppola competed for the Palme d’Or was in 2006 with MARIE ANTOINETTE when she was famously booed off the stage.  While Cannes juries have been suspect in their choices lately, ignoring Maren Ade’s hilarious and remarkably inventive German tragi-comedy Toni Erdmann (2016) in the previous year in favor of Ken Loach’s utterly conventional I, Daniel Blake (2016).  It appears that jury blew the chance to highlight a leading female director whose bold film and unorthodox direction was head and shoulders above the others, so the next year, perhaps guilt-ridden for slighting women through the years, they pick one of the three women with films in competition, but picked the wrong woman, as Lynne Ramsay was the better choice with her film YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (2017), receiving a 7-minute standing ovation, with critics particularly lauding her direction, but she was instead awarded Best Screenplay, with lead actor Joaquin Phoenix winning Best Actor.  Little of this actually makes any sense.  Coppola’s film is to be commended for the gorgeous stylization of Southern Gothic, with cinematographer Philippe Le Lourd the real stand-out for capturing the picturesque look, creating an interior mood using only candlelight, recalling Kubrick’s BARRY LYNDON (1975), but the film fails to address why she chose to remake the earlier film, as it is questionable whether she actually improves upon the original, and one would have to think it doesn’t.  Siegel’s film is about sexual hysteria, accenting the swirling melodrama that exists when a wounded Union soldier recovers from his wounds in a Confederate all-girl school, where he flirts and stokes the flame of their repressed sexual desires, making them all swoon at the very sight of having a man on the premises.  While Siegel’s film depicts the point of view of Eastwood’s easy charm and male bravado, it doesn’t in the least slight the women’s point of view, or the slave for that matter, as the film is really a battle of the sexes, where the drama comes to a head when both positions are challenged.  Coppola’s film lacks that balance, and instead depicts the story purely from a woman’s view, where it’s actually more comical, surprisingly, but lacks the physical brutality, exaggerated delirium, and depth of performance in the original, both male and female, as who can match the towering power of the great Geraldine Page, who is at her most devious in the role when confronting Eastwood.  Coppola’s film doesn’t really hold a candle to the original, largely due to its own timidity and lack of spark between Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell, though it is immaculately photographed.  

With much of this playing out like a fairy tale, Coppola has chosen to bathe her film in a soft light, actually resembling the look of old, faded photographs, with the sound of gunshots and explosions continually heard off in the distance.  Set in Virginia during the Civil War, with 12-year old Amy (Oona Laurence), a young girl alone in the woods searching for mushrooms, this could be a variation of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, as she quickly encounters the metaphorical wolf in Colin Farrell, Corporal John McBurney, a wounded Union soldier bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound in his leg, where she helps walk him to the sanctuary of the Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies, an all-girls boarding school run by Miss Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman, whose lurid backstory is also omitted).  Once safely inside, he becomes a curiosity, with all eyes gazing upon him as if descended from the celestial skies, where each seems wrapped in their own internalized fantasy of how they see this man.  Some of the youngest think to turn him over to the nearby Confederate soldiers, but the two older girls, Edwina (Kirsten Dunst), their meek and dutiful instructor, isolated and alone, like a bird in a gilded cage, perhaps seeing a man for the first time in her life, and an overly coquettish teenager Alicia (Elle Fanning), not to mention Miss Martha herself, seem smitten by having a male presence, deciding to mend his wounds while nursing him back to health, scrubbing his body herself while declaring his room “off-limits” to the six girls residing there.  But this doesn’t stop each one from secretly paying the corporal a visit, where he delights in charming each and every one.  While Miss Martha is all convention and formality, representative of the manners practiced by the overly protected Southern belles, she treats the prisoner with all due respect, even offering him wine and pleasant company after dinner, failing to mention his presence to the passing soldiers that look in on them from time to time, as they themselves are in need of protection during wartime, asking instead if one of them might share some ammunition for a pistol she keeps handy.  What follows is a comic choreography of repressed sexual curiosity, rotating between the three oldest women, but sometimes the youngest as well, with each one thinking he is paying them the most attention.  This rivalry, however, leads to bickering and backstabbing, with each apparently figuring to win the handsome prince for themselves.  Once his health improves, however, Miss Martha sets a deadline, forcing him to make his own way, letting him go with no designs of turning him in.  Many of the girls protest, as does McBurney himself, having little interest in the war, as he is a deserter from the ranks, preferring to make himself useful on the premises, but to Miss Martha that option is unthinkable.  We soon discover why, as instead of leaving, he is discovered in the bedroom of the hormonally challenged Alicia, found by Edwina, who he professed his love for, and is shell-shocked by what she sees.  With both lovebirds professing their innocence, McBurney confronts a startled Edwina at the top of the stairs, pushing him away, where he goes toppling down the stairs, seriously re-injuring his leg.  In the pandemonium that follows, emotions erupt, as formality is thrown out the window, actually turning momentarily into exaggerated camp while McBurney loses his leg, though without the cringe-inducing graphic detail of the original.  When he realizes what’s happened, he’s outraged, growing more and more belligerent, blaming Miss Martha for jealously maiming him because he picked another girl, finding the gun, and literally terrorizing the girls, all except Edwina who walks into his bedroom, locks the door, and crawls into bed with him.  Nonetheless, he’s made it clear why no men are allowed on the premises, as he offsets the balance of nature, like a fox in a chicken coop, ultimately showing no respect whatsoever, grabbing all the alcohol he can drink until he passes out, allowing the girls to quickly devise a plan to get rid of the wolf, which works perfectly, exactly as it does in the original.  Incredulously, these women lack for nothing, as they are always dressed in their Sunday best, immaculately clean, and have all the food and provisions they need, and then some, living luxuriously in a time of deprivation and war, while others in the South are on the verge of starvation.  It’s a fantasy version of the hard times that do exist, like taking a left turn into a parallel universe, with Coppola remaining immune to the historical realities of the times. While she does enter into the giddy mindsets of the girls, exposing their unique group dynamic, characterized by privileged, overly sheltered lives and extreme social isolation, her portraiture leaves out all the power and melodramatic drama at the heart of the original.