Recent Watching: Power of the Dog
I watched the new movie the Power of the Dog on my television a few days ago. I have a few thoughts on the movie.
The movie is very cinematic; the images and visual editing are more important than the dialogue or the narrative. At least, that is the way I see it. Those who watch movies primarily for plot may have their own interpretation. It would be best to see this movie on the big screen, but, I suspect that the vast majority of people will see it on the small screen in their living rooms. This is the world we live in now. Between Covid and the reluctance of adults to see movies outside their own homes, the rise of video streaming, the fact that it is difficult to secure financing for movies that are not superhero comic book adaptations or big budget action movies, as well as other factors I am sure I have overlooked, many of the best films are now only available for most people on their television screens.
Richard Brody discussed this in his essay on the best movies of 2021 in the New Yorker:
From an artistic perspective, 2021 has been an excellent cinematic vintage, yet the bounty is shadowed by an air of doom. The reopening of theatres has brought many great movies—some of which were postponed from last year—to the big screen, but fewer people to see them. The biggest successes, as usual, have been superhero and franchise films. “The French Dispatch” has done respectably in wide release, and “Licorice Pizza” is doing superbly on four screens in New York and Los Angeles, but few, if any, of the year’s best films are likely to reach high on the box-office charts. The shift toward streaming was already under way when the pandemic struck, and as the trend has accelerated it’s had a paradoxical effect on movies. On the one hand, a streaming release is a wide release, happily accessible to all (or to all subscribers). On the other, an online release usually registers as a nonevent, and many of the great movies hardly make a blip on the mediascape despite being more accessible than ever.
Enough about movie distribution.
Let us now move on to some thoughts I had about the movie The Power of the Dog. I write this entry as a series of thoughts rather than as a cogent argument. Despite the line I heard many times in graduate school, I do NOT believe everything is an argument. Everything is not an argument.
The movie presents as a Western. In a lot of ways, I think this classification is accurate.
The movie is set in rural Montana -- definitely the image of what I think of as the stereotypical American West. Like other Western movies like John Ford's The Searchers, the landscape plays an important, perhaps even mythic role. The title of the movie comes from a rock/hill/mountain formation that can be seen multiple times as well as from a line from the 22nd Psalm of the Hebrew/Christian Bible. I will pass over what the title might mean and let those more knowledgeable about ancient Hebrew poetry pursue this line of thinking.
The classic artifacts (stetson hats, cowboy boots, spurs, ropes and lassos) and animals (horses and cows) of movie westerns are key elements of the story. It is clear that the story is set on a working ranch. The two brothers, George Burbank (played by Jesse Plemons who clearly gained a lot of weight to play this role with his shirt off like Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull) and Phil Burbank (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) represent very different ways of relating to the ranch. Phil is the master rancher who is an expert in all aspects of cattle; by contrast, George is much more interested in the comforts of indoor living.
Let me say a few words about the time of the Power of the Dog. Why is the movie set in the year it is? Many of the classic American movie Westerns take place in the decade or so after the Civil War ended. At least in the minds of some writers and filmmakers, this was a period when the American West was less concerned about the rule of law than might be said of the twentieth and twenty-first century American West. The Western, in its classic form, often deals with questions of life on the periphery of law and education.
The Power of the Dog is set in 1925. We can see a model T car used at one point, I think the house where much of the action is set had running water. But there is not much in the movie to indicate that it takes place in the twentieth century. I am confused why the director set the story in 1925.
Having said a few words about the Power of the Dog and the conventions of Westerns let us now move on to some matters of interpretation. Just what is this movie about and, more importantly, what does it mean or signify?
It is sometimes the case that a zero is important. In other words, there are times when something neither seen nor heard is worth paying attention to. I am specifically thinking of a character who does not appear in a movie.
Let us just pause for a second to recognize that looking for and talking about things that are not there is a decidedly odd way of understanding something. Most of the time we look, listen, and think about things we see and hear. But there are moments in life when it is worth pondering the question why is this thing missing?
Pause.
End of pause.
This phenomenon of an important character in a movie who never appears in that movie is not a common phenomenon, as far as I know, but it does happen. Let me give two examples and then talk about how this phenomenon worked in The Power of the Dog.
The first example of a non-existent character who is important in the plot of a movie is found in the Alfred Hitchcock movie North by Northwest. In this movie, there is a fictional spy named George Kaplan that the American federal government has created as part of an operation to track a mysterious businessman. Cary Grant's character Roger Thornhill is mistaken for George Kaplan and finds himself reluctantly becoming George Kaplan because his government has told him that the stability of the country depends on his acting as if he is George Kaplan. It is important to note that Thornhill is an advertising man who has devoted his career to persuading people to think about products in unnatural ways. In other words, there is a connection between acting and advertising.
The second example of a non-existent character who is important in the plot of a movie is the Steven Spielberg movie E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. In this movie, much of the plot revolves around one family with two sons and a single mother. The father has left the family and is never seen or heard from, but his absence is, at least in my opinion, one reason why the children are so invested in protecting the livelihood of the space alien, E.T.. I will admit that this way of understanding the movie by looking at the importance of the missing father is probably not the way most children would see this movie.
In The Power of the Dog, there is a character named Bronco Henry who never appears in the film (his saddle and his handkerchief are about the only artifacts that point to his existence). Bronco Henry has died many years before the story takes place.
Despite the fact that there is no Bronco Henry in the story, he plays a large role in the minds of at least two of the main characters. It is suggested, but never stated, so there is great ambiguity in the plot of this movie, that Phil Burbank and Bronco Henry had some sort of romantic relationship. I would say, and, again, this idea is suggested but never shown or stated that Phil and Peter Gordon (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee) have a romantic relationship that ends when Phil dies near the end of the movie.
In my brief look at reviews of this movie I would say that not all professional critics see this as a queer movie.
I will note that my way of understanding this movie foregrounds two male characters. There is one other important male character and one important female character. I have said nothing about them.
If you are interested in an action movie, then The Power of the Dog is probably not for you. It is a slow contemplative movie that does not have much action or dialogue. But if you like movies that are designed to make you think, then this might be a good movie for you. When people say a movie was boring I would just like to claim that boredom is subjective.
I have seen several Jane Campion movies. My personal favorite is An Angel at My Table which is a story of the writer Janet Frame who was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and, later, went on to write three autobiographies, among other books. I have also watched The Piano and Sweetie, which are also very good movies. I have tried off and on to watch Campion's television show Top of the Lake, but I never made it much more than one episode in. It is a dark and serious show, at least in my opinion, after watching one episode.
I suppose one might ask how I rank The Power of the Dog compared to Campion's other films. My honest answer is I am not sure. I think the picture is worth watching, at least for people interested in art movies. I do not think I want to rank this movie just yet.
Comments
Post a Comment