As we were writing this article, we witnessed a spectacular event. The Power of the Dog has been nominated for 12 Academy Awards! Although we were sure that the film would be recognised by the Academy, we were pleasantly surprised by the sheer number of nominations (the highest one among all the contenders).
While we patiently wait for the Academy Awards (28 March, 2022), let’s take a look at this powerhouse of a film that is The Power of the Dog. We will talk about how it relates to the western genre and what topics it explores so successfully. We will try to keep this space spoiler-free, so you can watch the movie if you haven’t already.
How Much Subversion is Too Much Subversion
To those of you who have seen the film, it might appear to you that the Jane Campion picture is doing its best to subvert the western genre as much as possible. However, the female director is only doing what her predecessors did.
Some film scholars and historians argue that the western genre died as a result of genre subversion. This argument looks at a specific period around the late 1960’s and early 1970’s when westerns experienced a peculiar phenomenon.
The western genre is a unique and wholly American film genre. It’s also one of the most easily recognisable ones. You have the usual setting – somewhere along the frontier, at some new settlement where the good guy (e.g., a cowboy, a sheriff) faces the bad guy and/or the Native Americans that try to stop the western expansion.
New developments in the reading of American history around the 1960’s, especially that of the frontier, influenced filmmakers to investigate the tropes found in westerns. Furthermore, the end of the Hays Code Era allowed for more artistic freedom to explore and redefine classics.
The result was a self-conscious deconstruction of the genre leading to the creation of the so-called “revisionist western” or “anti-western”. The traditional setting and archetypes were used, albeit in a very different way. While there is a clear distinction between good and evil in the classical western, the lines blur in its revisionist counterpart.
We can write a whole series on revisionist westerns, but what’s important to take away from this discussion is that these films, perhaps unintentionally, killed the western. If you subvert every single aspect of a genre and every new film from the genre is like that, you eventually lose the genre itself. The classic western did die.
In the Middle of Nowhere
We thought this little historical retrospection was necessary for the discussion of The Power of the Dog. Fans of the film hail it as revolutionary, while the opponents say it’s not a western. Truth is, both sides are wrong.
The Power of the Dog is not revolutionary in its means, these means being subversive genre-redefining storytelling. Despite this, it’s still very much a western, just not one you can see John Wayne star in.
Nowadays, the western is but a setting for a complex story to unfold. This leads us to believe that if the western genre survived, albeit in different form, it survived due to its unique setting in the middle of the frontier.
We also see the clear western archetypes in The Power of the Dog. Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) is the hard-working cowboy, his brother, George Burbank (Jesse Plemons), is the rich rancher, while Rose Gordon (Kirsten Dunst) is the saloon owner/piano player. There is also the trope of the noble savage in the face of the Native Americans.
The one character which defies characterisation is Rose’s son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). With his ambitions to become a medical doctor and his art projects, he doesn’t fit any known western trope. While we like how Campion investigated western archetypes, we feel most drawn to Peter who is the only non-trope-y character.
Themes
Before we start, we wanted to tell you that we’ll purposefully exclude some themes in the film to avoid spoilers.
The most striking aspect of the film is how alienated each character is from one another. Even at the very beginning before the main conflict emerges, you can feel the tension and the lack of human connection. The music beautifully illustrates that point throughout.
The film is also a story of loss and how people cope with it. Peter pines for his dead father, while Phil is constantly reminiscing of his mentor. These are the micro-losses, while the macro-loss is the loss of the Old West and its ways; the frontier is changing into a settled state; the horse gives way to the automobile.
The two brothers view this changing world very differently and often pose the question of what a true man should be like. Intertwined with this crisis of masculinity is also the pinning of city folk against rural people and their “simple” ways.
Will the Burbank family happily ride onto the sunset or not? Find out by watching this contemporary masterpiece.