‘1883’ Star Sam Elliott Calls ‘Power of the Dog’ a ‘Piece of Sh**’
Yellowstone prequel 1883 is the latest Western Sam Elliott has made, so he knows a thing or two about the American west. So when The Power of the Dog swept the Oscar nominations, Elliott weighed in. Unfortunately, he doesn’t approve.
Elliott was a guest on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast on Feb. 28 to discuss 1883. When Maron asked him about the Oscar-nominated Power of the Dog, Elliott didn’t mince words.
‘1883’ star Sam Elliott does not approve the message of ‘The Power of the Dog’
As soon as Maron brought up The Power of the Dog, Elliott let loose. Apparently, they had mentioned bringing it up before recording the podcast.
“You wanna talk about that piece of sh*t?” Elliott said on WTF. “I didn’t like it anyway. I looked at it when I was down there in Texas doing 1883. What really brought it home to me the other day when I said do you want to f***in’ talk about it, there was a f***in’ full page ad out in the L.A. Times and there was a review, not a review but a clip and it talked about the evisceration of the American myth. And I thought what the f***? What the f***? This is the guy that’s done westerns forever. The evisceration of the American west.”
Sam Elliott says ‘The Power of the Dog’ left out families
The Power of the Dog stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Phil Burbank, a grumpy rancher who terrorizes his brother (Jesse Plemons), his sister-in-law (Kirsten Dunst) and her effeminate son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Elliott understood the film’s interrogation of cowboy machismo, but said it ignored the families who settled the frontier. Those families are at the heart of 1883.
“And the myth is that they were these macho men out there with the cattle,” Elliott said. “I just come from f***in’ Texas where I was hanging out with families, not men but families. Big, long, extended multiple generation families that made their living and their lives were all about being cowboys. Boy, when I f***in’ saw that I thought what the f***? Where are we in this world?”
Other possible inaccuracies in ‘The Power of the Dog’
As a veteran of westerns like Tombstone and Rough Riders, Elliott rattled off more critiques of The Power of the Dog. Though a fan of New Zealand writer/director Jane Campion’s work, Elliott felt she had no place depicting the American west. The Power of the Dog is based on the Thomas Savage book.
“What the f*** does this woman, she’s a brilliant director by the way, I love her work, previous work, but what the f*** does this woman from down there, New Zealand, know about the American west?” Elliott said. “And why the f*** does she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana and say this is the way it was? So that f***in’ rubbed me the wrong way, pal.”
Elliott also called the Power of the Dog wardrobe inaccurate and impractical. He compared the cowboys in the film to Chippendales dancers in costume.
“They’re all running around in chaps and no shirts,” Elliott said. “Cumberbatch never got out of his f***in’ chaps. He had two pair of chaps, a wooly pair and a leather pair. Every time he’d walk in from somewhere, he never was on a horse, maybe once. He’d walk into the f***in’ house, storm up the f***in’ stairs, go lay on his bed in his chaps and play his banjo. I was like what the f***? Where’s the western? Where’s the western in this western?”
