Jane Campion on The Power of the Dog, and ‘Behind The Scenes’ documentary

The Power of the Dog is one of 2021’s most astonishing dramas, and one of writer and director Jane Campion’s best films. The performances–particularly Kirsten Dunst, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Kodi Smit-McPhee–are electric, and the film has earned a lot of praise for the way it adapts author Thomas Savage’s novel.

In the midst of awards season, it was a real treat to have a chance to listen to Campion talk about making the film, and to screen the Netflix documentary Behind The Scenes with Jane Campion, about the making of the film with footage from production.

Read excerpts from the interview with Campion below, as she talks about the process, what she worked so hard to include in the film, and how she came to work with some of the key members of the film’s production team.

Behind The Scenes with Jane Campion is streaming now on Netflix.

The Power of the Dog feels like it is the beginning of a new mode for you as a filmmaker… focused on sensitive men. Is that a leap, or do you feel like that’s interesting to explore masculinity?

“It’s so interesting to see what you end up doing because it sort of feels like you learn about yourself by watching what you chose to do in the end.”

“My decisions seem to come from places I don’t really access. So, when you fall in love with a piece of work, you like the story. At a certain point I’m like, ‘oh my goodness, this is interesting.’ It’s basically all about masculinity. It’s not really my territory normally, and I’ve been curious about that too, wondering how come.”

“I really do think that the work that everybody–and especially those brave women did in revealing their situation within an industry that was so abusive and spawned the #MeTooMovement–has really altered everything for me. And that supported that movement was by not just women but men as well.”

“And how different it feels somewhere deep inside me to be in the industry today. To be actually feeling that people are interested in how women’s sensitivities, seeing things differently or seeing them as uniquely. I mean, I actually think everyone can be sensitive. But there really is a feeling, I think, of freedom not to have to tell only women’s stories.”

“Because previously there was just not enough of them, and it felt like a betrayal to do anything else. So I do think that those brave women, and some men too, who worked and exposed themselves, and [they were] so courageous to create a different cultural environment for women now.”

“I know it’s just begun and still the numbers aren’t pleasing, but it doesn’t feel charitable anymore to work with a woman. It’s actually good business, which is such a refreshing place to be, I think.”

What do you think about this film being entered into the queer canon by LGBTQ writers?

“Well I’m excited about it. I feel like [why] we made this work. And Thomas Savage, who’s a queer man, wrote this amazing book that the script was based on, and adapted from.”

“I just really love him and love his courage, love his particularity, love everything about who he actually really is. Love thinking about his character Phil Burbank’s relationship with Bronco Henry, what it might really be, you know. I think it brought me really into an imaginative space of what gay love would be.”

“And I found myself really excited and surprised to be imagining in that space and to thinking, like, ‘oh, would they be ashamed?’ And I thought, ‘no, I don’t think so,’ because when you really love someone and your body is saying it’s all good, you know it can’t be anything else but kind of beautiful, you know.”

“I sort of; I surprised myself.”

“I think Bronco and Phil could have had, you know, an incredibly powerful, strong, beautiful sexual relationship as well. And I enjoyed thinking about all those things in those spaces. And if you did too, or you could take it on, then I mean, obviously, it’s real, you know.”

What were some of the things from Thomas Savage’s real life that felt both important to leave in or important to take out in order to create something new and separate from the book in this piece of cinema?

“Well, there were other narrative lines, as you know, in the book that I did leave out. Like, for example, Kodi’s character, Peter, seeing Phil humiliate his father early on. Which, I felt, was actually a little bit cheesy and unlikely to have happened and a good loss. We had enough going on already, and more mystery. It wasn’t like, you know, just a revenge story anymore. It could go beyond that.”

“I think for Thomas Savage writing when he was writing in 1967–or obviously, that’s when it was published so before–it was difficult to be as explicit as we can now be about Phil’s sensuality and what might have really happened between him and Bronco. Because some people read that book and didn’t even realize that was a gay lover for him. I don’t know about their sensitivities; it happened.”

“What’s so beautiful is he took me to some places like the night that the rope was finished, that was not explored in the book. And, for me, that was just such an obvious scene that I just couldn’t wait to write and to film and make, where you explored further what might have happened in that barn that night…”

“All those complicated meetings and so many important elements of the story, like the making of the rope, finishing of the rope…”

“Because, you know, what’s so interesting about that rope is it’s made from the animal that’s bred on that land. But then, it’s also a symbol, especially for ranchers of masculinity and dominance. Because you use that rope to get these animals into submission.”

“So it’s a real object of dominance. And now the rope becomes one of friendship and romantic friendship. But it’s also a weapon.”

“So, then taking that rope, which is not in the novel but really enjoying how it gets so freighted with different meanings. It becomes a complete symbol for the entire story in a way, because of the four threads of the rope.’ I mean, I don’t know if you wanted to get all that but [laughs] it certainly was something that I love to explore and think about. And I think it’s like being clear and strong in the meanings of your work.”

“Even though they don’t necessarily appear on the surface or to everybody, it really strengthens things and that rope goes under Peter’s bed. And you realize that, in a way, Phil now is his Bronco Henry and his erotic object for him at that time.”

When did you decide that Ari Wegner was the director of photography for you? Or when did you decide who would make the costumes? Or to work with Jonny Greenwood? How did you come up with your team?

“I think the first person I’d like to mention is Tanya Seghatchian, who I met when I was doing Bright Star, and she was working for the British Film Council at the time and actually was instrumental in getting us our last piece of finance. But we became friends, and we have a similar sort of love of film.”

“And the dream was that we would work close together some day, and it would be an extension of the friendship we already had living as far apart as we do.”

“Like, she lives in the U.K. in London, and it would take a film to bring us together to achieve that. And when I read this book, I actually said, ‘oh, I read a great book, and it was just even before we had met Roger Frappier, and he had agreed to take us both on…

“And it’s really from there that, you know, she was my first really major hand-holder and collaborator. And the work of a director is really lonely. It’s too much actually, I think, sometimes, and certainly found in working in television, where I was doing a lot of collaborating, how much more fun it was.”

“I mean, you’d think it was super fun to have your way all the time and do whatever you wanted but so many decisions then to be made that it’s just really a joy to share them with other people, or at least go, ‘What do you think?’ and they say the opposite, and you go ‘no, no.'”

“So I love film and television when it is collaborative and with Tanya, I talked about Ari, who I knew. She didn’t know her. And of course I knew Jonny and the way I came to want to work with Jonny is pretty funny too and interesting. But, let’s talk about Ari for a moment… she’s a really unique person. She grew up with an artist family.

“I would have to say she was someone so well brought up she doesn’t really seem to have the same amount of neurosis as most of my normal friends [laughs]. Sometimes you think, ‘oh, I don’t know what to talk to her about.'”

“Just so balanced, but you know, everyone struggles. It’s just a hard life. It’s hard being human. It’s a big job. And both of us felt that the only way that you could really do something that you could be surprised yourself with and be proud of that is with an enormous amount of preparation.”

“That you would somehow use the preparation time to do something unique with the work. But, what I didn’t really know while we were doing it–because no matter how much we talked, how much we drew, how much we thought about it–we sort of still felt like, ‘oh, I haven’t done enough.'”

“And, you know, I really think that now, when I look back that what we were doing was training our intuition. That we were teaching our intuition to be light on our feet. And, you know, like Muhammad Ali says, you know, ‘float like a butterfly and sting like a bee’.”

“It prepares you for knowing those moments when you’re gonna be out, and then when you’re gonna come in and bring things really close. And I felt actually quite scared before we started shooting, that all this preparations really come to nothing, you know [laughs]. Because what’s intuition? There’s nothing to cling to. It’s a big step of faith, but when we got on the set and, of course we had our ideas about what we were going to do coverage-wise and everything.”

“You just can feel some of the power within you take over and respond to what you’re seeing. The camera guy, ‘no I don’t like that. It has to be like this, or it has to be like like that.’ And we could talk and say, I’m just feeling like we’re not close enough with filming in much tighter.”

“I think Ari has that capacity; this great confidence and generosity of spirit that she can really just lock in on a character. And with her handheld work and disappear, and just feel so intuitively where they’re going to move next and be next.”

“She was a great soldier to be in the trench with.”

“I think it’s sort of interesting because one of the things about the financing of our project was that it… was a co-production between Australia and New Zealand. And also, of course, we had Netflix money.”

“But I had to really find almost everybody in Australia or New Zealand. And I really love Jonny’s music, and I really felt it was the right tone and feel, and scope and size for this story.”

[Speaking about hearing a piece of music called “Water” by The Australian Chamber Orchestra] “And I just really sat up and I went, ‘oh my God, I love this. This is just perfect. We could just license this.’ And then I looked at who wrote it, and it was Jonny Greenwood.”

“I just said, look, we have to make an exception. We really need Jonny.”

“Like, when I had Michael Nyman for The Piano, I sort of made that argument that when you have a film where music is so important, it’s really important not just to have a film composer but someone with a real voice.”

“Jonny just uses instruments in such a unique way, and repurposing them, but there are these gorgeous tones, which we’ve all come to know well from classical music, but he repurposes them, so it doesn’t feel tied, you know. He totally refreshes it. It almost feels like the music’s being played back from something.”

Images courtesy of Netflix.