The Power of the Dog

By Lisa Richwine LOS ANGELES, March 27 (Reuters) - Jane Campion received the Academy Award for best director on Sunday for her gothic Western "The Pow...

Zhao won best director last year for “Nomadland,” while Bigelow received the honor for 2008 drama “The Hurt Locker.” She recently described herself as “the grandmother of the women’s movement in film.” Spielberg was in the mix again this year for his remake of classic musical “West Side Story,” as was Kenneth Branagh for his semi-autobiographical drama “Belfast.”

Sian Heder accepts the Oscar for best adapted screenplay for “CODA” during the show at the 94th Academy Awards. (Myung Chun/Los Angeles Times).

As someone who found “The Power of the Dog” a malevolently seductive experience, tragic and haunting and viscerally gripping on multiple viewings, I don’t know what to say to viewers — and I know they are legion — who found it slow, boring or devoid of emotion. “The Power of the Dog,” as it happens, has also drawn its share of complaints on representational grounds. The toll of a so-called streaming revolution that ultimately benefited “CODA’s” televisual style and diminished the effect of “Dog’s” stunning compositions. Taking an even longer view, I’d say that “CODA” revealed its killer instincts when it first screened at the virtual Sundance Film Festival in January 2021 and came away with a startling four awards: three from the U.S. dramatic competition jury (the grand jury prize, a directing prize for Heder and an acting prize for the movie’s ensemble), plus an audience award. Others might point to “CODA’s” ensemble award win from the Screen Actors Guild, an honor that has prefigured best picture upsets in the past, including “Crash,” “Shakespeare in Love” and “Parasite.” They might single out “CODA’s” adapted screenplay prize from the British Academy of Film and Television, which suggested stronger international support for the movie than expected. In “The Power of the Dog,” a swaggering man of the West — authoritative, domineering, seemingly invincible — comes face to face with a most unexpected adversary, someone who looks harmless but turns out to be anything but.