Jane Campion hits back at actor Sam Elliott's 'sexist' criticism of Power of the Dog

Jane Campion has hit back at actor Sam Elliott over 'sexist' criticism of her award-nominated film The Power of the Dog. Photo / AP

Kiwi director Jane Campion has called actor Sam Elliott "a little bit sexist" and a "b****" for criticising her film The Power of the Dog.

The film has been nominated for 12 Oscars, making Campion the first woman to be nominated for best director twice.

But last week popular western actor Elliott slammed the film for its driving theme of repressed homosexuality and for being filmed in New Zealand, claiming Campion didn't know anything about the American West.

The award-winning director responded to Elliott's critique while speaking at the Directors Guild of America awards in Los Angeles over the weekend.

"I'm sorry, he was being a little bit of a B-I-T-C-H. I'm sorry to say it but he's not a cowboy, he's an actor. The West is a mythic space and there's a lot of room on the range. I think it's a little bit sexist," she said.

She added: "I consider myself a creator. I think he thinks of me as a woman or something lesser first."

Elliott's initial comments were made during an interview on Marc Maron's WTF podcast a couple of weeks ago.

Asked what he thought of the film, he didn't mince words in his response.

"I'll tell you why I didn't like it anyway. 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 f***ing talk about it?' There was a f***ing 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'.

Jane Campion responds to Sam Elliott's #ThePowerOfTheDog comments: "I'm sorry, he was being a little bit of a B-I-T-C-H. He's not a cowboy; he's an actor. The West is a mythic space and there's a lot of room on the range. I think it's a little bit sexist." https://t.co/I32wQ8lCiF pic.twitter.com/Tftq4AoXCy

— Variety (@Variety) March 13, 2022

"And I thought, 'What the f***? What the f***?' This is the guy that's done westerns forever. The evisceration of the American West? They made it look like those dancers, those guys in New York who wear bow ties and not much else.

"That's what all these f***ing 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 f***ing movie."

Host Maron responded: "I think that's what the movie's about." In the film, it is heavily implied that rancher Phil Burbank, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, is a repressed gay man.

Elliott went on to say that New Zealander Campion was out of her depth in tackling the Western genre.

"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? And why in the f*** does she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana and say, 'This is the way it was.' That f***ing rubbed me the wrong way, pal," Elliott said.

"The myth is that they were these macho men out there with the cattle. I just come from f***ing Texas where I was hanging out with families, not men, families, big, long, extended, multiple-generation families."