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Jane Campion’s Gothic Vision of Rural Queerness in “The Power of the Dog”

By Brandon Taylor

Jane Campion’s new film “The Power of the Dog,” based on Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel of the same name, is set on a ranch in Montana in the nineteen-twenties. Campion is known for making intensely beautiful images of the natural world, but in the new film (shot in her native New Zealand) her painterly impulses are especially breathtaking. Shots of cattle flowing across the hills and into the Great Plains have the energy of one of Eugène Boudin’s beach scenes. Sequences of men at play and at work, light striking their bare flesh, muscles rippling as they pull ropes and goad their horses, possess the same languid sexual frankness of a Manet or a Degas. The film shares a certain visual vocabulary with “Brokeback Mountain,” Ang Lee’s 2005 adaptation of Annie Proulx’s brilliant short story about two cowboys, Jack and Ennis, who fall in love in nineteen-sixties Wyoming. In “The Power of the Dog,” two lonely men also make a connection of sorts. But amid all of the film’s romantic beauty darkness and violence lurk, including in unexpected places. What looks like it might become a love story turns out to be a tale of revenge.

The story centers on the Burbank brothers, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George (Jesse Plemons), who together run a successful ranching outfit. The brothers make a curious pair. Phil has a Yale degree in classics but prefers the honest labor of cattle work, and Cumberbatch lends him the eerie charm of a high-born gone feral among roughnecks. (Note the ease with which he castrates a bull barehanded.) George seems nicer, at first—simple, sweet. Yet he is more bourgeois and image-conscious, riding around in starched suits, and he throws their lives out of balance when he marries a widowed innkeeper, Rose (Kirsten Dunst), and brings her to live in the big, fine house that the brothers share. Feeling alienated and betrayed, Phil begins a campaign of psychological warfare against Rose, driving her to drink and to the edge of madness, sometimes by doing little more than plucking his banjo or whistling a tune. Rose has a teen-age son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and when he joins her on the ranch her nightmare grows more desperate as Phil, initially an antagonist of the boy, seemingly attempts to woo him.

In the course of the film, the Burbanks’ house becomes a gothic interior—as Anthony Lane put it , the film is more chamber drama than Western—but the landscape outside remains an Eden. In this place, the film seems to say, men are allowed to work and play without the intercession of what John Updike once absurdly described as “the chirp and swing and civilizing animation of a female character” and “the ancient, sacralized structures of the family.” Instead, Phil devotes himself to the memory of a late cowboy named Bronco Henry, who once taught the Burbank brothers all they know about ranch life. A saddle that belonged to Bronco Henry is displayed in the barn like a shrine. In one early scene, Phil lies awake in the bedroom that he and his brother shared for most of their lives, listening to the sounds of George and Rose making love next door. In disgust (the ambiguity of its source is a strength of the film), Phil goes out to the barn and removes the saddle from its perch to give it a cleaning. We assume that he’s about to carry this duty out with the same coarseness he’s shown in almost every other scene. Instead, he lovingly, tenderly works oil into the old leather, and Campion plays the moment with a Freudian acuity—the erotic transference is almost too much to bear. Phil, who until this point had seemed a cliché of the macho cowboy, a swaggering example of toxic masculinity, starts to come into fuller view. Perhaps he is a repressed gay man, a onetime lover of Bronco Henry, and his hostility toward Rose and her son has something to do with his own stifled desires.

Dunst plays Rose with a downbeat naturalism that at times hinges on a weird girlishness. I say weird because we learn that Rose’s first husband killed himself, making pariahs out of her and her son, and that she was forced to start running the inn as a means of survival. The things she’s been through ought to shine out of her like light trapped under a frozen sea. In the novel, we better understand why Phil makes Rose his target. After all, she’s an interloper, a threat to the social order, and at moments in the book she does seem like a bit of an operator, less a passive victim than a capricious participant in her own sad state. (At clothing stores, she “was an easy mark for the salesladies, buying hats and gloves and shoes,” Savage writes, adding, “She began to look on clothes as costumes, disguises, masks to hide the useless and frightened self she was becoming.”) There are gleaming moments in Dunst’s performance. When she hears Phil lurking around some dark corner of the house, you feel how she feels the terror of his presence. In one scene, sitting in a fine dress, candlelight flickering as George and his parents wait for her to play the piano, she looks as though she’s facing the gallows. Her portrayal grows stronger the worse off Rose becomes, unspooling until she is frazzled to the point of breaking. But for much of the film the character possesses a naïve skittishness, like a child locked in a cursed dollhouse, whose fatal error was to imagine that she might find happiness again. (Without giving away where Rose’s story goes, I’ll say that the film also softens the edges of some of the novel’s gothic horror.)

Campion, a director known for excavating feminine psychology, here seems most preoccupied with Rose as a catalyst for the shifting relationships among the men around her—and, in particular, for the pas de deux between Peter and Phil. In my mind, the boy and the man represent two contrasting fates of rural queerness. Savage was writing in the nineteen-sixties about the nineteen-twenties, but Peter’s story, in particular, felt familiar to me from my own childhood as a queer Black boy in the nineteen-nineties on a farm in rural Alabama. There are certain harrowing rites of masculinity that may never change. Peter has slim, feminine features. On the ranch, he is awkward and out of place, an easy target. He wants to be a doctor and makes himself seem stranger still by dissecting rabbits in his bedroom. The torment that Phil unleashes upon Peter—mocking his lisp, encouraging the other men to scare him with their horses, spouting homophobic slurs—was familiar to me in the way of old injuries that wake up with bad weather. My chest hurt for the boy, just as it had when I read Savage’s novel almost a decade ago. I was still living in Alabama at the time, in my grandparents’ dark house, and I consumed the story with a desperation that was simultaneously painful and pleasurable.

Watching the film, though, I understood the story a little differently. Where before I mostly recognized myself in Peter’s plight, I now felt a complicated sympathy for Phil, whose tragedy is just as profound, if not more so. In a couple of dreamy scenes, he retreats to a secret spring in the woods, where he slathers his body in mud and then flings himself into the river, or caresses himself with an old handkerchief that once belonged to Bronco Henry. The latter sequence made me think of the end of “Brokeback Mountain,” when Ennis, overwhelmed by the loss of Jack, clutches a nested pair of old shirts, a long-forgotten artifact of their love. The moments of Phil alone, communing with Bronco Henry, are among the film’s strongest, in part because they cast a spell on everything around them, charging even the more prosaic passages with mystery and emotion.

Still, there’s something off about the second half of “The Power of the Dog.” The story goes slack, idling in a place of simmering hostility between Rose and Phil. You wonder, Where is this all going? A pivotal moment comes when Peter discovers Phil’s forest hideaway, including vaguely pornographic material that hints at the true nature of Phil’s devotion to Bronco Henry and the cult of masculinity. Phil, caught bathing in the spring like a figure out of a Greek myth, chases the boy away, screaming obscenities. But afterward something strange happens. Phil softens toward the boy. He promises to teach Peter how to be a real rancher. He says that he’ll make Peter a rope before the boy departs by the end of the summer, and show Peter how to use it, the way Bronco Henry once taught him. It’s a shift that disconcerts Rose, who tries to warn Peter away from him, to no avail.

Suddenly, it seems that Phil and Peter might be kindred spirits—that, despite the strict social codes of their time and their way of life, they will find something meaningful in one another, an unlikely and forbidden bond. I mean, having read the book, I knew that wasn’t where things were headed. But I can understand how a viewer, conditioned on past narratives of connection between lonely strangers, might suspect that something is about to happen between these two. And, to be fair, something does happen, and all of the cold, under-eye gazes with which Peter fixes Phil slowly click into place. A spoiler: Peter isn’t enamored of Phil. Peter hates Phil for the way that Phil has treated Rose. Whether the action he takes feels appropriate or out of proportion will depend, I think, on whether the film has convinced you of the magnitude of Rose’s suffering.

But the bigger question for me is, Why does Phil treat Peter with tenderness after the boy finds him in such an exposed state? I’ve seen how men like that are provoked when their sexuality comes even vanishingly into view. They don’t offer to braid you a rope. They kill you, usually, or try to. In Campion’s film, you don’t really get a sense of the game that Phil is playing. Is he truly taken with the boy, or is he simply out to torture Rose by winning Peter’s attention? A subplot in the novel involves Phil’s habit of hoarding cow hides; he collects them with a growing intensity, and when Rose sells them off for thirty dollars (in the movie she trades them for a pair of gloves) we understand the severity of her transgression. In the film, Phil’s interest in the hides is less developed, resulting in a psychological vagueness that only grows as Rose’s decision to trade the hides ricochets through the final act.

Phil does still braid the promised rope for Peter, using hides that Peter has cut off a dead cow out on the trail. The two men are together in the barn. Phil braids and braids, pulling the hide taut, dipping it, pulling. We hear the train of the rope, and a flashback reminds us of the beautiful paper flowers that Peter once made as table centerpieces for the restaurant at his mother’s inn, and which Phil later torched to light a cigarette. Peter asks Phil about Bronco Henry; the boy walks around the barn, coming into and out of the light, wondering about the man, the myth. We understand the scene to be an inversion of an earlier one in which Phil made Peter sit on Bronco Henry’s saddle in the barn. Now the power has shifted. Phil is the vulnerable one and Peter the one in control. It’s a beautiful, dreamy sequence, but it also feels like a bit of cinematic handwaving, a cheat to sneak some of the missing psychological complexity into the story. Looking back once the film is finished, you might feel as though much of it was a long, luxurious setup. Still, Campion’s dark reveries are potent, and the sound of Cumberbatch’s terrifying whistle followed me into my dreams for days.

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By Richard Brody

By Justin Chang

The Power of the Dog

By Rudyard Kipling

There is sorrow enough in the natural way From men and women to fill our day; And when we are certain of sorrow in store, Why do we always arrange for more? Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear. Buy a pup and your money will buy Love unflinching that cannot lie— Perfect passion and worship fed By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head. Nevertheless it is hardly fair To risk your heart for a dog to tear. When the fourteen years which Nature permits Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits, And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs To lethal chambers or loaded guns, Then you will find—it’s your own affair— But… you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear. When the body that lived at your single will, With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!). When the spirit that answered your every mood Is gone—wherever it goes—for good, You will discover how much you care, And will give your heart to a dog to tear. We’ve sorrow enough in the natural way, When it comes to burying Christian clay. Our loves are not given, but only lent, At compound interest of cent per cent. Though it is not always the case, I believe, That the longer we’ve kept ’em, the more do we grieve: For, when debts are payable, right or wrong, A short-time loan is as bad as a long— So why in—Heaven (before we are there) Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

Summary of The Power of the Dog

• Popularity of “The Power of the Dog”: The poem “The Power of the Dog” first appeared in 1922 when Kipling turned his attention from the Indian characters to animal characters. Although the subject matter of the poem seems insignificant, it shows how a man finds a good companion in the shape of a dog though his life is often short. The short life of a dog, however, proves that man wants loyalty, love, and tenacity and a dog has all three features. This beautiful short piece about the loyalty of dogs has made it a highly popular poem across the globe.
• “The Power of the Dog” As a Representative of the Loyalty and Love of a Dog : The poet opens the poem with a piece of advice, telling his readers that they should not invite more sorrows with several others hanging over their heads. This is the sorrow of a dog when he dies. The poet advises his readers to spend some money on a pup to win unflinching love, feed that pup, love him to become a dog, and then win his heart. He is of the view that a dog has a fourteen years natural lifespan, and despite the best care from a vet, the owner has to decide to kill or poison him to get rid of him as he becomes a liability. This happens despite the love that the owner showers on his dog and the dog showers on his owner. The love, whimpers, responses, and calls of love become silent forever. This becomes unbearable amid several sorrows that naturally welcome a man, even in the shape of the death of our loved ones. Therefore, even if a person keeps his dog for a long, he ultimately comes to the point where both have to part ways.
• Major Themes in “The Power of the Dog”: Man and animal combination, loyal and love and sorrow of parting are major thematic strands of the poem “The Power of the Dog.” Kipling has written this poem specifically from the point of a man-animal relationship. Obliquely, he refers to this relationship as one of the best relations in the world though it always ends in the sorrow of man when he shoots dead his own dog dead. Yet, he wins the loyalty and love of that dog that he cannot win otherwise from his simple and human relations. This strong bond of relationship comes to an end when the dog dies or becomes ill in a way that it becomes necessary to kill or poison him, and the owner does this. However, the interesting thing is Kipling compares a dog to a debt that is not good, whether it is a long or a short one, and the man ultimately comes to grief.

Analysis of Literary Devices Used in The Power of the Dog

Rudyard Kipling used various literary devices to beautify this poem and make it impactful. Some literary devices he used in this poem are as follows.

• Allusion : It is the use of a reference to a historical, cultural, national, or religious nature to stress upon the significance of the thing alluded to. The poet has used the reference of Christian clay in the last stanza when referring to Heaven.
• Assonance : Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line, such as the sound of /a/ in “There is sorrow enough in a natural way” and the sound of /o/ in “ Then you will find—it’s your own affair .”
• Alliteration : Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line in quick succession, such as the sound of /p/ in “perfect passion” and /c/ in “Christian clay.”
• Consonance : Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line, such as the sound of /t and w/ in “With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).” and the sound of /s/ in “At compound interest of cent per cent.”
• Imagery : Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. Rudyard Kipling has used imagery in this poem, such as “Buy a pup and your money will buy”, “When the fourteen years which Nature permits” and “To lethal chambers or loaded guns.”
• Metaphor : It is a figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between objects different in nature. The poet has used different metaphors , such as sorrow which was painted in different colors, such as a stored thing or love posed as a man that cannot live. Kipling has used other metaphors, such as the dog is a body as well as a spirit that goes away.
• Simile : It is a figure of speech in which direction comparison of things is made to clear meanings. The poet used a simile , such as “For, when debts are payable, right or wrong, / A short-time loan is as bad as a long—.” The poet has compared both type sof debts to clarying meanings of one.
• Rhetorical Question : This is a type of question that is posed not to get an answer but to stress the main point. The poem shows the use of a rhetorical question , such as “Why do we always arrange for more?

Analysis of Poetic Devices Used in The Power of the Dog

Poetic devices set the mood of the poem and give simple texts an indirect meaning. The analysis of some of the poetic devices used in this poem is as follows.

• Diction : It means the type of language. The poem shows very good use of formal and poetic diction .
• End Rhyme : End rhyme is used to make the stanza melodious. Rudyard Kipling has used end rhyme in this poem, such as buy/lie, fed/head, and fair/tear.
• Rhyme Scheme : The poem follows the AABBCC rhyme scheme , and this pattern continues until the end.
• Stanza : A stanza is a poetic form of some lines. There are four stanzas in this poem, with each comprising six verses and the last one having ten verses.
• Tone : It means the voice of the text. The poem shows an exciting, enjoying, advising, moralistic tone until the middle of the poem but a religious tone by the end.

Quotes to be Used

The following lines are useful to quote the importance of a dog in life.

Though it is not always the case, I believe, That the longer we’ve kept ’em, the more do we grieve: For, when debts are payable, right or wrong, A short-time loan is as bad as a long— So why in—Heaven (before we are there) Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

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– Entertainment Analysis and Reviews

Exploring the Themes and Impact of “The Power of the Dog”

“The Power of the Dog” is a 2021 film directed by Jane Campion and starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, and Jesse Plemons. The film is a complex and haunting exploration of power dynamics, masculinity, and repressed desire set in the rugged landscape of Montana in the 1920s. Adapted from Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel of the same name, the film has been widely praised for its exquisite cinematography, powerful performances, and nuanced storytelling. With its intricate character studies, evocative setting, and layered themes, “The Power of the Dog” stands out as one of the most compelling and thought-provoking films of recent years. In this article, we will delve deeper into the film’s plot, themes, performances, and impact to examine why it has captivated audiences and critics alike.

The power of the dog plot summary

Meaning, themes and analysis, the power of the dog character, performance and direction, reception and impact, ending explained.

Set in 1925 Montana, “The Power of the Dog” follows the lives of two ranch-owning brothers, Phil and George Burbank. Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a stern and domineering figure, with a cruel streak that he frequently directs towards his brother George (Jesse Plemons). When George brings home his new wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Phil’s hostility towards them threatens to tear the family apart. As Peter begins to adapt to life on the ranch, he forms a bond with Phil, who takes him under his wing and begins to teach him the ways of the cowboy. But as Peter’s confidence grows, so too does Phil’s resentment of Rose and her influence on George. The film builds to a devastating climax that explores the dark undercurrents of family dynamics, masculinity, and emotional repression.

• The opening scene at the train station
• Phil and George’s relationship and dynamics
• Rose and Peter’s arrival and their impact on the family
• Peter’s growth and development on the ranch
• Phil’s manipulation of Peter and his relationship with him
• The tension and conflicts between the characters

• Phil Burbank (played by Benedict Cumberbatch): A charismatic and enigmatic rancher who embodies traditional notions of masculinity and power. Phil is driven by a deep sense of pride and a desire to maintain control over those around him, particularly his brother George and his new wife Rose.
• George Burbank (played by Jesse Plemons): Phil’s younger brother, who is more sensitive and introspective than Phil. George is initially hesitant to marry Rose, but eventually falls in love with her and seeks to protect her from Phil’s manipulations.
• Rose Gordon (played by Kirsten Dunst): A confident and independent woman who defies the restrictive gender roles of her time. Rose is initially drawn to Phil’s charm and charisma, but soon realizes the true nature of his manipulations and seeks to assert her own agency.

The performances in “The Power of the Dog” are a major reason why the film has garnered so much critical acclaim. Here are some specific aspects of the performances and direction worth examining:

Analysis of the performances by the lead actors:

• Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Phil Burbank as a complex and enigmatic character who vacillates between tenderness and cruelty
• Kirsten Dunst’s nuanced performance as Rose, a woman struggling to find her place in a world dominated by men
• Jesse Plemons’ understated performance as George, who must navigate the tension between his brother and his wife
• Kodi Smit-McPhee’s portrayal of Peter, a sensitive and vulnerable young man caught in the middle of a family conflict
• The chemistry between the actors and the ways in which they play off each other to create tension and emotional depth

Discussion of Jane Campion’s directing style and choices:

• The use of natural light and the stark beauty of the Montana landscape to create a sense of isolation and foreboding
• The careful pacing and framing of the story, allowing the tension to build slowly and organically
• The use of close-ups and intimate camera work to capture the subtleties of the actors’ performances
• The decision to leave certain elements of the story ambiguous and open to interpretation, allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions
• The skillful handling of difficult subject matter, including sexuality and violence, with a delicate touch that avoids sensationalism.

“The Power of the Dog” has received widespread critical acclaim since its release, with many praising its performances, direction, and thematic depth. Here are some specific aspects of the film’s reception and impact worth examining:

Critical response and awards the film has received:

• The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Silver Lion for Best Director
• It has since gone on to receive numerous other accolades, including Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Benedict Cumberbatch
• The film currently holds a 94% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with many critics hailing it as a masterpiece of modern cinema

Discussion of the film’s impact on audiences and the industry:

• The film has sparked conversations about the role of masculinity and power dynamics in relationships, as well as the nature of repression and desire
• It has also been praised for its portrayal of complex, three-dimensional female characters in a traditionally male-dominated genre
• The film has contributed to a larger cultural conversation about the need for greater diversity and inclusion in the film industry, particularly in terms of representation behind the camera
• It has helped to elevate the profile of streaming platforms like Netflix as legitimate contenders in the realm of high-quality, award-winning cinema

The ending of “The Power of the Dog” is deliberately ambiguous and open to interpretation. After a series of increasingly tense and violent events, the film concludes with Phil standing alone in the field, watching as the herd of cattle he has been training for the past year stampedes towards him.

Some viewers interpret this scene as a kind of reckoning for Phil, a moment of realization that the power he thought he held over the natural world is illusory and fleeting. Others see it as a metaphorical representation of the forces of change and progress that are slowly encroaching on Phil’s way of life, threatening to upend the patriarchal structures and values he holds dear.

“The Power of the Dog” is a powerful and thought-provoking film that explores complex themes of masculinity, power, and desire through a nuanced and hauntingly beautiful story. Through its exceptional performances, stunning cinematography, and skillful direction, the film leaves a lasting impression on its viewers and has been widely celebrated by critics and audiences alike.

The film’s exploration of gender roles and power dynamics in relationships is particularly noteworthy, as it challenges traditional notions of what it means to be a man and the harmful consequences of toxic masculinity. The film also features a strong and compelling female character in Rose, who defies expectations and pushes back against the restrictive gender roles of her time.

Moreover, the film’s impact on the industry and cultural conversations cannot be overstated. “The Power of the Dog” has helped elevate the profile of streaming platforms as legitimate contenders for high-quality, award-winning cinema, and has sparked important conversations about representation and inclusion in the film industry.

Overall, “The Power of the Dog” is a film that is both timely and timeless, inviting viewers to grapple with complex themes and ideas in a way that is both thought-provoking and emotionally resonant. Its ending may be ambiguous, but its message is clear: the struggle for power and understanding in human relationships is an ongoing and universal one, and it is up to us to shape its direction.

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Benedict Cumberbatch is perhaps not the first actor that springs to mind when thinking of casting a Western, but under the direction of Jane Campion in her stellar drama “The Power of the Dog,” he’s just what the movie needs. Covered head-to-toe in dirt for most of the film, he embodies a character in a masculine crisis. He has a constant need to prove he's the roughest, toughest leader in a wolf pack of cowboys, possibly to hide his adoration and affection for the long-gone man who taught him more than just how to ride a horse. Phil (Cumberbatch) dominates the pecking order of any room he’s in through cruel remarks and an irreverence towards authority. His eyes are cold as mountain air; his face is a stone façade against the world; his tongue is as sharp as a snake fang. Gone are the quirky and endearing characters that Cumberbatch has played in the past. Here, coiled like a predator in wait, Cumberbatch is perhaps more fearsome than as his deep-voiced villains in “The Hobbit” and “ Star Trek Into Darkness .” He moves through the movie like an unsheathed knife, cutting anyone unlucky enough to get close. 

Cumberbatch’s Phil is the rough and tumble Remus to the movie’s kinder Romulus, his brother George ( Jesse Plemons ). Where Phil is calloused and mean, George is gentler and more soft-spoken, often at the mercy of his brother’s teasing. At a stop at a restaurant, Phil harshly taunts Rose ( Kirsten Dunst ), a widow running the joint, and her son Peter ( Kodi Smit-McPhee ), who Phil bullies until Peter walks off the job and leaves his mother in tears. George reaches out to comfort her, and ends up falling for her. This enrages Phil, who takes the loss of his brother to a woman quite badly. He steps up his intimidation of Rose and Peter, like intensifying heat with a magnifying glass. That is, until Peter tries to spend more time with Phil. The unlikely camaraderie unlocks a number of secrets and hidden intentions, changing everyone’s relationship to each other. 

Using New Zealand for 1920s Montana, writer/director Campion sets this quiet-yet-angry Western against a harsh background that’s both beautiful and imposing. For Peter, it presents a hardened masculinity he must learn to overcome. For Phil, this windswept nature is an escape from the life of privilege he wants no part of. It is on the back of a horse that he found himself, and it is on those cow paths, mountain passes, and hidden rivers that he learned to disguise his desires. 

Campion's adaptation of Thomas Savage ’s novel of the same name strips out many details from the book and takes it back to its rawest in-the-moment elements. Backstory is filled in quickly and briefly in dialogue, if it’s ever filled in at all. There are no flashbacks, just a few scenes of characters sharing their past with each other. Campion and her cinematographer Ari Wegner write whole character studies in their close-ups. From this perspective, we get a sense of what the cast may never verbalize. It’s in the pained and panicked look on Rose’s face when she begins drinking after another round of Phil’s harassment. It’s in the steely glares Peter shoots Phil when he’s being picked on. It’s in George’s downward gazes at the floor, knowing he is helpless to stop his brother’s torments. It’s in the rage on Phil’s face as he realizes his tight-knit relationship with his brother is coming to an end with George’s marriage to Rose. It’s an approach Campion has used in her earlier works like “ An Angel at My Table ” and “ The Piano ,” the latter of which follows a main character, Ada ( Holly Hunter ), who cannot speak, but uses her face and sharply gestured sign language to get her point across. There is no doubt when Ada has something to share in “The Piano,” and through Phil’s movement, body language and reactions, Cumberbatch also speaks volumes with every scowl and every defiant smile. 

Many of Campion’s movies also focus on shifting power dynamics between characters: who has power, who loses it, and how they gain it back. Sometimes, this is in the form of women fighting to be heard, like in “ Sweetie ” or “ Bright Star .” But in “The Power of the Dog,” Rose’s entrance into the family is perceived as a threat, a challenge to established order. Phil extends her no kindness, slyly creating a toxic environment that poisons her, in order to retain power over his brother, their business and who is in charge around their stately mansion. She’s like an existential threat to him: she represents the sex he doesn’t desire and someone he doesn’t yet have under control. The truce between Phil and Peter unnerves Rose more, afraid of the influence he may have on her son. She loses herself in the bottle, just as Peter stands up to Phil’s bullying. It's a riveting dance between them all, waiting to see how it all will end once the music stops.

Speaking of the music, “The Power of the Dog” contains some of the best use of music in a movie this year. Jonny Greenwood ’s work underlines and emphasizes many of the actions playing out on-screen. String compositions twist and turn as sharply as the movie’s plot, like a jagged undercurrent pulling our emotions in certain directions. The sounds of sweet violins sour, while softer notes swell into intense waves. The changes are quick, a nod to the tense dynamics between the brothers, the widow, and her son. Many of the songs use plucked strings to create an air of uneasy anticipation, as if cantering into danger. Rows of violins join in to heighten this uneasy feeling, almost awakening our fight or flight response. The music doesn't stray too far from the prototypical Western sound yet adds these extra layers of foreboding throughout.

“The Power of the Dog” revels in this suspenseful place much like Phil prefers working with cattle than dealing with high society. Though the movie starts at a gentle pace, it doesn’t stay there long. There is so much layered desire, hatred, and domination that soon comes rolling out to disturb everyone’s uneasy peace. The game of wits between Phil and everyone else is a chilling one to watch, and it’s exactly the kind of end-of-the-year movie to finish things with a bang.

In theaters today and on Netflix on December 1st.

Monica Castillo

Monica Castillo is a critic, journalist, programmer, and curator based in New York City. She is the Senior Film Programmer at the Jacob Burns Film Center and a contributor to  RogerEbert.com .

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Film credits.

The Power of the Dog (2021)

Rated R for brief sexual content/full nudity.

126 minutes

Benedict Cumberbatch as Phil Burbank

Kirsten Dunst as Rose Gordon-Burbank

Jesse Plemons as George Burbank

Kodi Smit-McPhee as Peter Gordon

Frances Conroy as Old Lady

Keith Carradine as Governor Edward

Thomasin McKenzie as Lola

Genevieve Lemon as Mrs. Lewis

Adam Beach as Edward Nappo

• Jane Campion

Writer (based on the novel by)

• Thomas Savage

Cinematographer

• Peter Sciberras
• Jonny Greenwood

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“The Power Of The Dog”: Critical Detailed Analysis And Summary

Poet of the poem, “The Power of the Dog”, Rudyard Kipling is among the best-known of the late Victorian poets and story-writers. He was criticized in the later years of his life for his strong political views, which grew more toxic as he aged and made him unpopular among the masses.

Some scholars have argued that his views were more complicated than he was given credit for. Among the things that accounted for his reputation were Kipling’s works for children. Above all his novel The Jungle Book , first published in 1894, remains part of popular literature influencing cultures all across the globe. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907.

Table of Contents

The Power Of The Dog: Summary

In ‘‘The Power of the Dog’’   Kipling’s evident themes is those of joy and sorrow, as well as interrelationships between humans and animals. Among these relationships, the relationship that Kipling highlights in his poem is that between dogs and humans. It is the main subject of the poem. His poem forms an argument to emphasize the importance of these human-animal relationships in our lives.

The poem follows the AABBCC rhyme scheme and consists of five stanzas, each consisting of six lines.

Stanza wise Analysis

The poet begins by highlighting a simple, mundane fact, that there is enough sorrow in the world, in the lives of men and women. There is a perpetual loop of suffering. He then asks a question- why o we then “arrange for more” when we already have abundance of grief and sorrow. He then warns the reader addressing them as “brothers and sisters” about giving our hearts away to a dog, which can be heartbreaking. When one allows a dog into their life they are willingly giving the dog their “heart…to tear”.

He lists all the delightful facts about the human-animal relationship. He states how buying a ‘pup’ can buy an unflinching amount of happiness, along with perfect passion-so much so that the pup will worship the human when the humans “… kick in the ribs or a pat on the head” They have a loyalty that is unwavering.

However the poet again cautiously warns the racers towards the close of the para that it is hardly fair to risk heartbreak for all of these above.

When the fourteen dog years come to a close with the last stages of a dog’s life entailing –

“…asthma, or tumour, or fits, And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs To lethal chambers or loaded guns,…”

We might find a heartbreaking moment in our lives just because we gave our hearts to the love of a dog.

In this stanza, the poet comes to the facts that surround a dog’s death, when its body lies “stilled (how still!)” and “When the spirit that answered your every mood/Is gone” one will then discover how much this relationship meant.

The speaker believes that “We,” the human race, have enough sorrow “in the natural way” without dogs, especially when it comes to “to burying Christian clay”. He states how our love is not given away but only lent, accumulating compound interests. The longer we keep this love the more we grieve, for –

“For, when debts are payable, right or wrong, A short-time loan is as bad as a long”

But, the next lines add, that this is not always the case. The longer the love exists does not make it stronger. Dogs only live for around 14 years but the love we bear for them is much greater.

The Power Of The Dog: Literary Devices

The poem is replete with literary devices. For instance, the poet uses caesura to split the sentences into two halves as in the fifth line of the third stanza which reads: “Then you will find—it’s your own affair”. He has also used personification in the third stanza. He capitalizes on “Nature” to give it more agency than it actually has.

It chooses, as if sentient, the period in which a dog can live. Kipling has also made use of alliteration. The fourth line of stanza 4 also provides the reader with a good example of alliteration with the repetition of the words “gone,” “goes,” and “good”.  He uses an extended metaphor comparing love to money and loans that are “lent” for a period of time. He relates this to interest and how over time like money, and more love should accumulate.

What is the ‘ power of the dog ‘ by Rudyard Kipling about?

The relationship that Kipling highlights in his poem is that between dogs and humans. It is the main subject of the poem. His poem forms an argument to emphasize the importance of these human-animal relationships in our lives.

When did Rudyard Kipling write ‘ The Power of the Dog’ ?

“Power of the Dog” was written in 1922.

What is the theme of ‘ the power of the dog ‘?

In ‘‘The Power of the Dog’’   Kipling’s evident themes is those of joy and sorrow, as well as interrelationships between humans and animals. Among these relationships, the relationship that Kipling highlights in his poem is Sthat between dogs and humans.

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