Sam Elliott Slams Benedict Cumberbatch's THE POWER OF THE DOG Calling It "a Piece of Sh*t"
Well, it turns out that 1883 actor Sam Elliott is not a fan of Jane Campion’s Netflix western, The Power of the Dog. In fact, he passionately hates it.
The movie stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a sadistic rancher who makes life hell for his new sister-in-law and her son in 1925 Montana. In an interview with Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast, Elliott didn’t hold back on his thoughts calling the film a “piece of shit” and compared the “cowboys” to Chippendale dancers who “wear bow ties and not much else.” He said:
“That’s what all these fucking cowboys in that movie looked like. They’re running around in chaps and no shirts. There’s all these allusions of homosexuality throughout the movie.”
In the interview, it was explained to Elliott that Cumberbatch’s character is a closeted gay man and that these themes are “what the movie is about,” but Elliott continued to be critical of how the western genre was portrayed, saying:
“Where’s the Western in this Western? I mean, Cumberbatch never got out of his fucking chaps. He had two pairs of chaps — a woolly pair and a leather pair. And every fucking time he would walk in from somewhere — he never was on a horse, maybe once — he’d walk into the fucking house, storm up the fucking stairs, go lay in his bed in his chaps and play his banjo. It’s like, what the fuck?”
Elliott then went on to criticize the director of the film, saying:
“What the fuck does this woman from down there know about the American West? Why the fuck did 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.
“I just came from 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. And boy, when I fucking saw that [movie], I thought, ‘What the fuck? Where are we in this world today?'”
Yeah, as you can tell, Elliott was not happy with the film and it being labeled as a western or how cowboys were portrayed. I personally thought the performances in the film were great. It was definitely not like any other western I had seen before. I saw it more like an art film than I did a western, and I also thought the story it told was interesting.
But, yeah, I can totally see how real cowboys or people who have experience with real cowboys could get rubbed the wrong way with the film.
Via: Insider