Troubled home on the range
Cumberbatch, Dunst enter Campion’s world in Netflix’s ‘Power of the Dog’
VENICE LIDO, Italy — For her fans, Jane Campion, who wrote and directed “The Power of the Dog,” streaming on Netflix, is the period film’s real star.
Top-billed Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst would agree.
“When you meet Jane, you have all the baggage of this iconic woman,” Cumberbatch, 45, acknowledged. With 1993’s “The Piano,” Campion was the second woman to be Oscar-nominated as best director. Her “Piano” original screenplay won the Oscar. She is the first woman to win the Palme d’Or, Cannes’ top prize, also for “The Piano.”
At Venice, where “Dog” had its world premiere, Campion, 67, won the Silver Lion for best director.
Cumberbatch continued, “She walks into the room, a woman who’s as frail as the rest of us. She’s very modest. But you see it with the crew, how hard they worked to make the best possible shot. That comes with respect. And she’s great fun to be around.”
“The key thing in a Jane Campion film,” Dunst, 39, said, “is she understands desire and embraces sexuality and yearning, the kind of emotions that are hidden and she finds a way to exhibit it. And her cast are allowed to embrace that.
“There’s something sexual about Jane,” Dunst added, “and a sensitivity and rawness to her characters. As a female watching her female characters over the years, they feel like real women to me.”
“Dog” is set on an isolated ranch in 1925 Montana but filmed in Campion’s native New Zealand.
Cumberbatch’s Phil Burbank and his brother George (Jesse Plemons) own a vast ranch.
Their sibling rivalry rises when the quiet George marries Dunst’s Rose, a widow and innkeeper.
Aggressive, domineering Phil begins a battle of wills with Rose, who succumbs to drink and a near-breakdown.
“The toxicity of him is a product of his nature — and it comes out in the moment. I can understand it. Not condone it but understand it,” the British actor said of his miserable, mean-spirited cowboy.
“It’s his personal tragedy — and I can understand someone who is defensive, lonely, isolated in his circumstances.”
“Benedict and I didn’t talk to each other on set at all. We kept our distance,” Dunst explained. “I had to create my own demons and figure that out for myself. I think Rose represents all the pain that’s inside him too.”
“As far as how it speaks to toxic masculinity in the world, if you acknowledge it, that’s the only way to change it,” Cumberbatch said.
“You can’t oppose it. You have to understand why these damaged people are this way. It has to be addressed and challenged.”