by Gill Pringle
Adapted from Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel of the same name, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons co-star as the Burbank brothers whose lives change when Kirsten Dunst’s widow, Rose, and her son Peter arrive at the Burbank Montana ranch in the 1920s.
In the role of Dunst’s son is talented young Australian actor Kodi Smit-McPhee, 25, who portrays the boy with delicate nuance.
Preferring quality over quantity, Campion, 67, takes her time in finding projects which truly fascinate her. The first woman to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes – for The Piano – the Kiwi filmmaker also took home the Best Screenplay Oscar in 1993 as well as being nominated for Best Director.
Based in Sydney, Campion’s last feature length film was 2009’s Bright Star, although she wrote and directed many of the episodes of award-winning TV crime drama, Top of the Lake.
FilmInk spoke with the filmmaker.
What first sparked your interest in Thomas Savage’s novel?
“It intrigued me for many reasons. I couldn’t guess what was going to happen, it was incredibly detailed, and I felt that the person writing the story had lived this experience. It’s not just a cowboy story from 1925 of ranch life, this is a lived experience and I think because of that, I felt a real trust for the story and that it’s also about a hidden love. I loved how deeply it explores masculinity and the fact that the book haunted me after I finished reading it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I kept coming back, sometimes it was characters, sometimes it was the themes, sometimes it was just details I adored. And I was also sort of jealous of the other people from Top of the Lake who were talking about what they were doing next. And I was just coming around thinking, ‘you know, after 12 hours of television, two hours is beautiful’. I just thought, ‘wow, it would be really beautiful to do something that I loved in a refined way that really celebrates cinema, the way that I received it when I was a young person getting into cinema. And just to try to make a really beautiful-shaped, exciting, deep-themed piece’.
“Thomas Savage’s book had all those qualities. And then, I’m not really in charge of myself. In a way, your psyche decides where your energy’s gonna go. And you just have to kind of listen, and what I was hearing was, ‘take the next step’. And then you get in so deep, like ‘okay, I’m going for this, I’m gonna do it, and I’m terrified, but let’s do it.”
You’re known for having quite a ‘method’ style with your actors. Was Benedict Cumberbatch game for some of the messier scenes?
“Yes. One thing that we started off with straight away when the rehearsal began was, I said, ‘Okay Ben, I want to hear you say no a lot. I never want to hear you say thank you or please. Everyone in this room knows what we’re up to, so get used to not explaining yourself, not being nice, not caring – and not washing’.”
Benedict has talked about this incredible experience working with you. What else did you require of him?
“As a director, I had to go and give it everything I had. So, as an actor too, there was no room for holding back. One of the things we decided to try was a bit of psyche work, so we both did this dream work, with an amazing woman called Kim Gillingham from LA who is a dream analyst. She just let our subconscious bring stuff to the surface through teases or notes to yourself. And then, just let these things which are relatable for you to bring into the work, or that speak to you from the work that you haven’t consciously realised. They just bubble up in imagery, which is sometimes very unexpected. It was so grounding and deeply felt. Like, ‘oh, I get this. I know this’. The sense when you’re working in fiction is, like, it’s all made up. And somehow, you have to manifest that into a sense in your body that you really believe in, otherwise you feel terribly insecure. And I found that extremely, extremely helpful, and I know that Kirsten and Jesse also do work like that.”
Can you talk about the direction you gave to Benedict as Phil Burbank and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Peter in order for them to portray this intense love-hate relationship?
“It was something that, as a storyteller, we talked about a lot, because it actually is never decisive; it is shifting all the time. Of course, I think Phil really hates Peter from the beginning. There’s that sense that he is not honouring his masculinity, with his behaviour as being more feminine, in a way. And yet, at the same time, he’s throwing back into his face himself, so it’s interestingly intricate and complicated. And the boy who’s found his way into a sacred place, like he’s an observant kid. He’s poking around and looking at everything. He’s been right there next to the naked Phil, and I feel like, we felt a lot, like, ‘okay, Phil’s bringing him close. But close for what? Close to destroy him? Close to upset Rose [Dunst]’. To take the one prop that she has, which is her son, and start to draw him towards him and make him the friend and to see him say something like, ‘Don’t let your mother make a sissy of you’, he’s like, ‘come join the man’s team’. But then, you’re not really sure, ‘what’s he going to do with Peter?’ He could take him out on a ride and drop him over a cliff?”
Once again, you’ve made a film which prominently features a piano. What’s the attraction?
“That’s a simple one. When I read this one, I went, ‘oh shoot. It’s got a piano in it again! Oh my God. I can’t get away from them, and I can’t even play one’. I got piano lessons when I went to do The Piano, and I was spectacularly bad. I think what I felt, not even during the making of it but later when I saw the film emerge, was that I had made a kind of companion piece, in a way, to The Piano. Except that, this one was dealing with masculine themes and exploring very complicated territory in the way that I think, the original Piano with Holly Hunter, who I actually had dinner with last night, explores the world from a woman’s point of view that perhaps hadn’t been felt or seen before. I do see them as kind of bookends of my career.”
How has your style changed in the almost 20 years since you made The Piano?
“The directing has changed a little bit. I learned a lot from those guys, Holly [Hunter] and Harvey [Keitel]. I find that the most exciting thing about directing is working with amazing collaborators who teach you along the way. Harvey really taught me how to rehearse and so you do change what you think about how you want things to be. I think I’ve opened up a little bit. I don’t want there to be one interpretation. I just want to tell a story and allow the audience to find their way in it, whereas, when I began, I wanted to tell you, ‘you see this, you see that’. Now, I’m like, ‘here it is. It’s yours. Please see what you want there’.
“I’ve opened myself around the story a little bit and, other than that, I know enough to really want a great collaborator as a DOP because I know what a difference it is to share the burden of all that work and preparation. That’s really what Ari Wegner and I did. We had that friendship and that knowledge bank together. But every circumstance is so uniquely different and the actors I’m working with are so different. The challenges are always different, and that’s what’s humbling and exciting.”
The film leaves a lot unspoken, about the sexuality of both Phil and Peter. Was it ever a possibility for the film to turn the subtext into text and people would speak the stuff out loud, or was it always going to be the way it actually is?
“As a writer, you’re planning a powerful thing – to reach into the mystery. Some things can’t be stated any more clearly than when you start lying, you know? There’s inferences, there’s ideas, there’s feelings. And that mystery is, I think alive. It’s something that stays powerful because it cannot be resolved exactly. But I think the story that Thomas Savage gave us does have those qualities and I’m actually a bit of a fan of mystery and not reaching for the facts when you can’t really be overstating them. Sometimes, like in that last scene, we had a lot more dialogue that would have been more explicit, I think, between Benedict and Kodi, when they were making the rope. And Benedict said, ‘I’m not saying this stuff’. Early on, I had kind of imagined a lot of this scene just to music and it being really tense. So, I sort of was, like, ‘Oh, yeah. Okay. Good. But can we just say this bit?!’”
The Power of the Dog showcases your love of nature and animals. Have you always been an animal lover?
“I’m a real landscape girl, I love it. And I love animals, I grew up riding a horse, owned a horse for its whole life, a very bad-behaved horse. So, I love these animals. For me, a horse is this big silent beautiful mystery. They seem to be communicating and they seem to be there. The presence is really palpable. But you don’t know what they’re thinking. I just love that. And I think we used the horses in a quite beautiful, interesting way. I can’t even put words to what effect it has, or even the muscularity of the hills. I think it’s just sensing into the landscape that can talk in ways that you didn’t expect.”
The Power of the Dog is in cinemas now.
