Sam Elliott Really Hates “Power Of The Dog” Because Of Its Representation Of The American West
Sam Elliott–who currently stars on the Yellowstone prequel, 1883, dragged Power of the Dog and its director, Jane Campion, for doing a shit job of representing the beauty of rancher culture that Sam loves. IndieWire says that Sam sat down for an interview with Marc Maron‘s WTF Podcast and the topic of the current Oscar-contender and SAG-snub, Power of the Dog, came up. The movie stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst, and Kodi Smit-McPhee has been nominated for all the Oscars. But if you ask Sam Elliott, it should be sweeping the Razzies since it’s a pile of horse shit to him.
Here are Sam’s thoughts on PotD:
“You didn’t like that one?” Maron asked.
“Fuck no. Why? I’ll tell you why I didn’t like it anyway,” Elliott said. “I looked at when I was down there in Texas doing 1883 and what really brought it home to me the other day when I said, “Do you want to fucking talk about it?” There was a fucking full-page ad out in the LA 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 fuck? What the fuck?” This is the guy that’s done westerns forever. The evisceration of the American west? They made it look like–what are all those dancers that those guys in New York who wear bowties and not much else. Remember them from back in the day?”
As Maron pointed out, he was referring to Chippendales dancers.
“That’s what all these fucking cowboys in that movie look like,” Elliott said. “They’re all running around in chaps and no shirts. There’s all these allusions to homosexuality throughout the fucking movie.”
“I think that’s what the movie’s about,” Maron said of the film, in which it’s more than heavily implied that Benedict Cumberbatch’s rancher Phil Burbank is a repressed gay man.
So did Sam hate it for the gayness, or…? If that’s the case, don’t show him Brokeback Mountain! Sam also roasted Jane’s direction of the movie, wondering what she could possibly know about the richness of American rancher culture. Well, I watch Pioneer Woman on Food Network, and I think she got it pretty close.
“What the fuck does this woman–she’s a brilliant director by the way, I love her work, previous work–but what the fuck does this woman from down there, New Zealand, know about the American west? And why in the fuck does she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana and say, “This is the way it was.” That fucking rubbed me the wrong way, pal… The myth is that they were these macho men out there with the cattle. I just come from fucking Texas where I was hanging out with families, not men, families, big, long, extended, multiple-generation families…”
Here’s the clip of Sam telling us how he really feels:
Marc Maron: Did you see Power of the Dog, did you see that movie?
Sam Elliott: Yeah do you wanna talk about that piece of shit?
Marc: [ohh noo] You didn’t like that one?
Sam: Fuck no. pic.twitter.com/BGdOd6scwe— Jonathan (@jonathanmb32) February 28, 2022
I mean wow. Wait until Sam Elliott learns about how nobody who made The Mummy knows anything about Egyptian culture and they didn’t get everything culturally accurate. He’ll lose it! But someone should ask Sam what he thinks about House of Gucci. I want to hear his opinion on the cultural integrity of his A Star Is Born co-star Lady Gaga‘s Italian-by-way-of-Russian accent.
Pic: DeeCee Carter/Media Punch/INSTARimages