‘The Power of the Dog’ is Jane Campion’s first film in 12 years

“The Power Of The Dog” is a Western shot in New Zealand about two brothers – one conspicuously kind, one a bully and a lout – who run a ranch in Montana of the 1920s, where there’s riding, roping, drinking, gelding, bleeding and scheming, but not always where you’re looking.

And Jane Campion, the Academy Award winner and nominee who’s already won the Silver Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival for directing this film, joins us from Los Angeles.

Thomas Savage moved to a ranch with his mother, which is the story which is really told in the film as well, and the brother of the man that his mother married was talented – like, great chess player and, you know, went to Yale, et cetera – but also, like, a really hardened cowboy and terrible bully.

But, you know, I guess the honesty, the truth of it and the fact that it had a narrative that just grew more and more interesting and exciting.

CAMPION: And also, I had a horse, too, growing up.

SIMON: Benedict Cumberbatch plays the bully of a brother, Phil.

And I think it really made a difference to the way he – or the depth that he managed to get to in playing the character.

I mean, what you want to do is – or what we try to do is set up a situation where it was too cheap and easy to just call somebody, you know, unpleasant or horrible.

And, you know, with Benedict – I mean, actually, what I did say – it was at the beginning of the shoot.

And when we start to know that he is – actually admires the, you know, the life and way of men and despises any show of weakness or femininity or lies or pretense.

And I think what was nice in the story was that Thomas Savage takes him to this place, which we call the secret place, where – it’s down by the river and where he swims. And when he’s there, you can suddenly see, oh, this is the relaxed man.

And I think a lot of people who are outsiders, who have been bullied at school, et cetera, they can get a very deep inner strength because they don’t depend on other people’s good opinion.

And it’s like, if I can’t stop thinking about it, if it keeps feeling true and interesting and I’m still curious about it.

And it’s a sort of level of excitement and that the excitement comes from a deep enough place that it’s not going to, like, fizzle out in, you know, six months.

But more, I guess, I’m hoping that they will have the same sort of recall experience feeling that I did about thinking about, you know, the characters and their lives and what people are to each other and the impacts of having to have secrets and love.

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