Book vs. Movie: The Power of the Dog

hello and welcome back to supposedly fun my name is greg i am here today to do a book versus movie adaptation comparison for the power of the dog the book is by thomas savage the movie was directed by jane campion i will put a link to other book versus movie comparisons that i have done in the description box down below so feel free to check out those if you would like before we get into it because there's a lot to talk about with the adaptation of the power of the dog i want to let you know that i will be discussing key plot points of both the book and the movie and of course there will be spoilers so if you would rather read the book or watch the movie before really finding out details about the plot you might want to bookmark this until you have done one of those two things you've been warned so let's get into it originally published in 1967 the power of the dog has become a sort of those who know no book a status which is also offered to its author thomas savage in layman's terms that means that for anyone in the mainstream this was a forgotten classic by a largely forgotten author but a core group of literary fans including annie prue who wrote the afterward in this 2003 reissue kept it alive buzz began to build again when jane campion announced that in 2019 she would be writing and directing a film version of the power of the dog ultimately casting benedict cumberbatch and kirsten dunst things really went into overdrive when the power of the dog premiered to really great critical enthusiasm at film festivals before debuting on netflix in november of 2021 at the time that i am filming this it is predicted to be a heavy contender for the academy awards and we will have to wait and see what happens with that over the next few months unfortunately the vast majority of the buzz has really centered around the movie even when talking about the book that it is based on most people have told me that they want to watch the movie and then might do the book afterwards i made it a point to read the book first and i really hope that a lot more people will take the leap to the book which i think deserves a spot in the canon of great american novels alongside other subversive westerns like larry mcmurtry's pulitzer prize winning lonesome dove and i will put a link to my video where i talk about lonesome dove and whether or not it is the great american novel in the description box down below so feel free to check that out as well now as with any adaptation changes were necessary to make the story of the novel fit the screen and in the case of the power of the dog which features very taciturn characters who are not always great at communicating their internal workings some of those changes are significant so let's explore them first it probably makes sense to talk about what the power of the dog is about because at least at that basic level the movie and the book are the same this is not like a nomad land situation where one is really different from the other so in 1925 montana brothers phil and george burbank are running the ranch that their parents left them in charge of the parents relocated to a hotel in salt lake city following a mysterious argument with phil that is never quite explained phil is a ruthless bully he is intelligent unforgiving and uncompromising george is much kinder but also more insecure for many years they've lived on the ranch as their parents left it even sharing the same bedroom that they grew up in as children this delicate routine is upended when george unexpectedly marries rose who is a widow who has a son named peter her previous husband committed suicide george moves rose and her son peter onto the ranch phil is not a bit happy about this new arrangement and so he wages a psychological war on his new sister-in-law and her son which has devastating consequences using that framework the power of the dog explores themes of cruelty versus kindness the passage of time toxic masculinity which is even more impressive because it was published long before that term was coined and homosexuality yes homosexuality you see phil has an obsession with a man named bronco henry who died a long time before the story begins an obsession that could explain a lot about his intense hatred of sissies and his fixation on being tough or manly could self-loathing be at the heart of it now to illustrate the divide between the two brothers i want to read two quotes the first one is about george in the book and it comes at a point where they are george is remembering a time at christmas where their mother gave george this really hideous robe that was very appropriate for like an east coast boston socialite which is where the burbank family is from but has nothing to do with a ranch of course i like it he told her i like it fine then feeling her eyes he put it on over his clothes because she was his mother and by god he wasn't afraid of love then there was phil in the doorway so you have george and this idea of kindness and love and then toward the end you have this line about phil not a spoiler yet where he is thinking about peter being a pariah but phil knew god knows he knew what it was to be a pariah and he had loathed the world should it loathe him first and that sums up the difference between these two brothers and their experience of the world and touches a little bit on how in the book you get a sense of this self-loathing that phil has now author thomas savage relied on his own experiences growing up on a ranch in montana with a cruel stepfather to write this novel making it a fusion of fiction experience and a sort of wish fulfillment you get a sense that he was in the peter role in this and the ending of the book might relate what he kind of wishes he had been able to do and we'll leave it at that for now the power of the dog feels particularly resonant in the current moment because it's a book ultimately about how kindness and decency can get steamrolled by more domineering characteristics like the one phil whose intelligence sort of is sort of weaponized by his ruthlessness embodies the basic setup and the shattering climax it builds to are the same in both the book and the movie but some of the texture and plotting along the way change in the journey from page to screen so let's go through that first let's talk about what the movie is missing now perhaps the most difficult part of any adaptation is deciding what elements of a novel to streamline and what elements to leave out entirely in order to avoid endless exposition for the viewer this is where some of the biggest differences between the book and the movie of the power of the dog come into play because thomas savage's narrative allows him to proffer a lot of backstory to his readers without having the characters say it out loud he can also allow the reader to flit around the different characters to see what's going on inside their minds which offers the reader insight into their motivations and psyches without savage needing to express those things through plot or dialogue these are very taciturn characters they keep a lot of their emotions inside and some of them are trying to present a certain image of themselves so in the book you can get their interior sense without any kind of external cueing to that now a movie does not have that option the medium of film by its very nature requires that things be expressed be it through plot dialogue or even just expressions in a character's face as a book the power of the dog is incredibly subtle again in writing the screenplay champion had to find ways to honor that tone while still telegraphing some of the deeper meanings to her viewers a lot of detail had to be sacrificed in the name of this balance and so the movie never offers any backstory on how phil and george came to be running their ranch while their parents live elsewhere or why the brothers share a bedroom in the beginning of the film it also omits any explanation as to the dual nature of phil's bullying intellect and his tendency to intentionally use sort of low mannerisms the latter detail was probably a bit too complicated to capture on screen because there are two completely separate motivations at play which makes it hard to explain now on the page phil's outright rejection of putting on heirs sees him deliberately eschewing proper behavior he sort of revels in shocking people with low class behavior in some instances he is deliberately using dumbed down ways of speaking in order to provoke people he sees as highfalutin in other instances phil uses low-class mannerisms and ways of speaking to mock people who use them and don't know better it's a really complicated facet of phil's personality because it does so many things at once so i guess i'm not really surprised that campion chose to show phil doing things like referring to a piano as a panano without explaining just what that word and the use of it means to phil and without explaining what impression it leaves on the person he is speaking to the movie hints at phil's intense hatred of society social climbers and anyone or anything that he sees as pretentious but the theme is much softer than anything that you find in the book the shame in this is that the nuance here is where you find a lot of the details that give you the idea that phil may be suffering from self-loathing because who he is doesn't fit into society's norms his ruthlessness may in part stem from anger relating to this and so may his rejection of proper decorum evidence of this is everywhere in the book take the fact that phil bathes only infrequently it's a way of refusing to comply with society's niceties as well as a gauntlet thrown toward anyone who might complain about the smell which phil knows they won't do because as one of the wealthiest ranchers in the area no one is really willing to displease him or risk him taking his business elsewhere so again you see that push and pull where he is at once sort of rejecting the notion of what is supposed to be normal in society and he's also being really in your face and sort of daring anyone to challenge him but phil's bathing habits also reflect an intense vulnerability because he will only do it in secret in a location that has profound meaning for him because it has only ever been shared with his brother and bronco henry it's provocation and vulnerability living side by side the movie by the way hints at the secret of nature of phil's bathing but doesn't really explain it which means that when peter his brother's stepson stumbles upon phil bathing you don't really understand it as the violation that phil would feel it to be at least in the book you can also see this play out in phil's fatal refusal to wear gloves it is at once a symbol of phil's manliness because he doesn't think he needs them of phil's refusal to comply with social norms because pretty much everybody else does wear them and of phil's ultimate vulnerability because not wearing them leaves him exposed both literally and metaphorically these omissions so far are mostly deal with characterization and sort of subtle shading and texture for characters an omission that is much more significant to the narrative of the power of the dog is the backstory of rose's husband and phil's role in it in the movie all we know of rose's husband is that he was a doctor who died by suicide and that it was their son peter who discovered his body hanging and cut him down so his mother wouldn't have to see him in the book we get the whole story of rose's relationship with her dead husband as a sort of build up to her relationship with george that really adds to the character of rose and it adds a lot of texture to her relationship with george and her relationship to her son now just to give you a sense of that rose's husband johnny was a well-intentioned but ineffective man who suffered from pride that made him exactly the type of person that phil would despise and in several instances it was actually phil who publicly took johnny down a peg or two these meetings first drove johnny to drink and ultimately drove him to suicide when he felt that he had been made to look like a failure in front of his own son even though his son wasn't there when that ultimate humiliation happened he was convinced that his son peter was going to know about his failure and be ashamed of him and so he took his own life now if this backstory exists in the movie and we can probably assume that it does it is never mentioned this is most likely because the characters are completely unaware of the connection so how do you connect the dots when no one in the plot knows the full story still without that backstory crucial thematic material is missing from the movie now for one thing knowing that johnny was a good man driven to drink and suicide by bullying raises the stakes for peter when he begins to witness the same thing happening to his mother even if he doesn't know that the same person is behind the bullying for another thing johnny and rose are examples of prideful people who put on errors this does not necessarily make them bad people but they reveal the fragility of the human ego we so desperately want to be seen as worthy of esteem that our shortcomings can feel devastating to us for johnny the quest for esteem came in the form of being a man of knowledge for rose it came in the form of being a good wife worthy of the money and the respect that george brings to her through marriage in the book there are constant examples of her going into town and suddenly being treated differently by people in the town in the stores who treat her with much more respect and deference and she doesn't quite know how to handle that but at the same time she feels proud of that difference and when phil punctures those images that they have of themselves it brings them dangerously low this is highlighted in an exchange that is entirely missing from the movie in the book rose deludes herself into the idea that she begins drinking first to deal with the migraines that phil is causing her to have because of stress but also to build the courage to confront him about why he dislikes her so strenuously when she finally does confront him she imagines that either social niceties will cause phil to deny the whole thing and treat her more nicely in the future or risk having another conflict like this again or they will have a conversation that will lead to mutual understanding and respect but instead phil who doesn't abide by social niceties anyway bluntly tells her that he despises her because she steals his brother's alcohol all of her self-delusion about her ability to hide what she has been doing is destroyed in an instant her pride that she thought she was going to get the better of phil and solve the problem is similarly destroyed so instead of becoming her crowning moment attempting to confront phil only sends rose further into despair and drink now we see this happen to rose in the movie even without this specific moment but without the context brought by the history of what happened to johnny we may not see how important it is especially once we learn how peter gets the better of phil by taking advantage of phil's own vulnerabilities and while we're speaking of peter it must be said that peter is much creepier in the book which enhances his similarities to phil while also highlighting some of the key differences between them peter's ruthless precision with killing chickens and rabbits and the way he performs experiments on them is hinted at in the movie but highlighted repeatedly in the book in the movie it can be quickly explained that since he wants to be a doctor it he would naturally need to dissect animals as a form of studying but in the book there's something disquieting about it and knowing that torturing or experimenting on animals as a child is an indicator of psychopathic tendencies perhaps enhances this now peter is not a psychopath but i do think that savage is using this characteristic to draw parallels between peter and phil at the end of the day they are both different from anyone else and again the fact that this is coded as a queer novel comes wildly into play here because the chief complaint against peter is that he has qualities that cause other people to label him a phil despises peter at first because he recognizes himself and he makes fun of peter to the others as a form of deflection the reality is they're more alike than they are different and that is much more apparent in the book than it is in the movie and again the fact that phil might be deflecting is more apparent in the book than it is in the movie the last important element that is missing from the movie but is present in the book is the entire notion of time passing the power of the dog is a western novel that is set in a time when the old west was dying if not already dead cowboys like bronco henry are a thing of the past i think there's a reason that he's already dead for long long dead by the time the novel begins and you never really get his perspective you never find out much about him other than these stories that phil tells about him cars are steadily replacing horses and no one mourns this passing of time like phil the passing of years is constantly on his mind he references his age constantly and the fact that the story opens with phil and george's 25th cattle drive together is remarked on in the movie but phil's intense bitterness that this milestone doesn't seem to mean much to george is only suggested phil clings to the past and rejects forward momentum while george is willing to adapt and grow significantly george owns and drives a car while phil does not it's a beautiful under layer of the novel that is only hinted at in the movie to the point where you could miss it entirely let's now move into things that the movie adds to the book now since the power of the dog is such a subtle novel a lot depends on the interior of the characters a movie needs to be a good deal more literal to get a point across the most significant additions to the movie relate to bronco henry and his relationship to phil because again there's just a preponderance of information in the book stories that phil tells about bronco henry that add texture and shading that kind of make you wonder about it but it's not really overt in her afterward to the novel annie prue remarks on how few reviewers of the power of the dog mentioned homosexuality at all when it was originally published i think of it as how a lot of the subversive elements of lonesome dove are so subtle that a casual lover of westerns could read the book and not notice how the book had called every western cliche into question there's a staggering amount of evidence that queerness is at the root of the relationship between phil and bronco henry and how peter is ultimately able to exploit phil but just how explicit that relationship was is left open to interpretation that also means that casual heterosexual readers of the power of the dog could come away from the book simply thinking that it was sort of sweet how phil honored the memory of this cowboy who was his mentor long after he he's gone the movie removes a lot of that ambiguity this is first achieved by having phil do something that would be wildly and uncharacteristic of the fill found on the page bronco henry's saddle has become something of a shrine in the barn in the movie thomas savage's phil refuses anything showy or that could be called sentimental but campion manages to make the change fit because having a shrine to bronco henry cues viewers to start thinking that phil seems a little obsessed with bronco henry in a way that might not be quote unquote normal and things really go into overdrive when we get to the key scene in which peter stumbles on phil taking a bath in his private refuge the one that was only known to fill george who stopped visiting it as a child and bronco henry now instead of simply having this be a scene where peter discovers phil naked which is what it is in the book campion adds to the scene by having peter first discover a trove of lurid muscle magazines that had belonged to bronco henry who wrote his name on the covers now why he would sign these magazines is unknown just go with it and while peter examines phil's secret stash phil himself is having a private sexual moment with himself and a piece of clothing that has the initials bh stitched onto it it's an article of clothing that phil has been secretly keeping in his underwear now peter doesn't witness this act he only sets eyes on phil and is discovered by phil after phil has jumped into the water to clean himself off it's a clever change because without the context of what this location means to phil the viewer still understands that peter's presence is a violation because of what he very nearly interrupted it also continues the threat of making phil's relationship with bronco henry much more overt in the movie than it is in the book and if that wasn't enough champion takes it further by showing us the final night that peter and phil share now in the book peter offers strips of cowhide that he has secreted a way to fill to finish braiding a rope that phil intends to give to peter as a gift and peter agrees to stay up with phil in the evening until it is done the next thing we know it's morning and phil is not showing up for breakfast which begins phil's rather sudden illness and death in the movie we stay with peter and phil while phil completes the rope it's a scene that is laden with hidden and suggested meaning from the way that phil's hips move as he braids the rope to the way peter holds his cigarette to phil's mouth it's a really stunning scene that is exceptionally well filmed and well performed by the actors and just in case phil's relationship with bronco henry was not overt enough at that point phil tells peter a story about bronco henry saving his life that involves the two of them sharing a bed roll and speaking of the conclusion campion also sprinkles references to anthrax in several places during the movie as a way of sort of foreshadowing phil's fate in the book anthrax is only mentioned in the very final paragraph ending the story with a stunning revelation of how peter got the better of phil by handing him strips of hide he had taken from a cow that died of anthrax knowing that phil and his cut exposed hands would absorb the illness and cause his death without this interior moment the movie can only imply what peter did by showing him handling the rope that phil had made for him with gloves before hiding it away after a doctor informs george that phil's illness closely resembled anthrax those are the additions now let's talk about what the movie changes or alters from the book there is not much that's altered beyond what we've already discussed at great length but there are really two significant storylines that are altered from the book for the screening the first concerns of the visit of the elder burbanks as well as the dinner party that george throws for the governor and the governor's wife in the book these are completely separate incidents in the movie most likely due to timing or pacing concerns they happen at the same time the governor and the governor's wife come for dinner the same night that the elder burbanks are there for dinner as well the plotline most ill-served by this change is the one belonging to the elder burbanks because it reduces their already slimmed down presence to almost nothing that means that none of their complex relationship with their sons is present you get shades of it when they return for phil's funeral at the end of the movie when george invites them for christmas which is really the only way you could possibly know that they were sort of staying away largely because of phil and now that he is gone they are going to resume a sort of relationship with george and i confess i do miss the dinner with the governor being its own thing because the scene in savage's novel is biting and witty and just laden with meaning it gets across so much of the novel's emphasis on class and the self-worth that we define based on this arguably arbitrary definition another alteration to the governor's dinner is that in the book phil steadfastly refuses to show up his snub is a slight upon the governor it's a rebuke of his brother for caring about appearances and it's yet another instance of phil refusing to bow to social niceties but in the movie phil shows up albeit incredibly late after a confrontation with his brother in the barn that is far more overt than any conversation found in the book at first i hated this alteration it feels like a really massive change in phil's behavior but i made peace with it however when i realized just how awkward he made the dinner by showing up and how his presence exacerbated rose's utter failures as a hostess and made the moment even more emotionally devastating for her the other storyline that is significantly altered from the book to the movie is the one that belongs to the native american man who visits the ranch with his son in the novel he has a whole backstory and interior life for one thing he was the son of a chief who lived on the land near where the burbank ranch is now his family was forced off of that land by the government and now they live on a reservation in significantly downgraded circumstances his son has only seen his father as a man who has been beaten down by the government he knows nothing of the former glory that his people enjoyed so the father takes his son to view their former home in defiance of the government they have to sneak away in the middle of the night and it's something of an attempt to recapture some of that glory and show his son his heritage now if you remember that johnny ultimately committed suicide when he felt that he had been shamed in front of his son you see that that notion of fatherly pride is all over this storyline with a native american man and his son it also serves as a subtle nod to the ways in which cowboys we traditionally celebrate as heroes in westerns often committed really despicable acts against native people and that's missing completely from the movie in the book the fact that the native man and his son end up on the burbank ranch is an accident property lines have changed so drastically that they didn't realize they were about to trespass phil happens to be in the area he sees them and he angrily orders them to go back where they came from without even having reached their destination it means utter failure for the father and the fact that phil does this really shows his cruelty as a person and his lack of compassion rose accidentally defies phil's command because she drunkenly invites the native man and his son to camp on the ranch before continuing their journey which shows that she has that compassion it also shows the residual trauma that she suffered after johnny's suicide because her ultimate motivation in offering them a place to camp is that she wants to spare the father from looking like he has been shamed in front of his son it's such a poignant emotional thing in the book and again it's missing from the movie in the movie the native man and his son are given a very different role to play which completely negates the power of their storyline and what the backstory that they have means in a western novel so instead of any what i just described the native man and his son appeared toward the end of the movie in a role that had been occupied by a man who was coded as jewish in the book they appear on the ranch to purchase the hides that george and phil usually burn since they serve no other purpose and they're not going to use them for anything else in the book rose is the only one home when the man shows up asking if he can purchase the hides and she thinks that selling the hides that no one else is going to use anyway makes her clever and it's going to be something that proves her worth and it also gives her some secret money to spend on booze because she figures she can sell them for more and keep some away and then lie about how much he paid her instead she drunkenly passes out with the money clutched in her hand and george discovers her and phil's anger over her actions leads directly to his date with an ant anthrax soaked rope but before phil's death days later it is revealed that rose has abruptly stopped drinking because of the humiliation she suffered when george discovered her passed out drunk and peter's final moments imply that without phil's negative presence his mother will not relapse now let's go to how it happens in the movie the native man and his son are turned away by the cook when they ask if they can purchase the hides rose overhears the cook explaining that phil would rather burn the hides than let anybody else have them and rose goes off running to catch up with the native man to sell him the hides in exchange for a pair of beaded gloves which is what she is clutching when she passes out drunk on her way back to the house and george still finds her drunk and passed out and phil's anger still leads directly to his death but the appearance of the native man is insignificant except as a plot point or plot device in the movie all of the meaning and the subtext has been erased and as for the happy-ish ending the movie shows rose drinking coffee when phil leaves for the hospital but it doesn't remark any more deeply than that instead the final moment of the movie shows peter watching from an upstairs window as george and rose return from the funeral and kiss romantically before returning into the house implying that without phil they will repair their relationship and live happily ever after and those i think are really all of the differences again the additions the subtractions the things that are still kind of there but have been changed now let's get to the ultimate question which is better the book or the movie i really like both and my answer to this question feels surprising when you consider that both the book and the movie are really really good but perhaps it's less surprising if you have listened to anything that i've been saying so far in this video it's just that as good as the movie is the book has so much more to it thomas savage's novel is richer deeper and much more layered it has more themes and ideas for the reader to explore than the movie does i would say that if you are going to engage with the power of the dog you have to read the book if you want to watch the movie first that's fine watch the movie first but please pick up the book when you're done and if you are thinking of seeing the movie maybe read the book first because it might add to your experience of the movie i think engaging with the movie is fine but you're gonna discover so much more on the page i really loved the book i do love the movie but i just think there's so much more in here in fact i don't always take notes when i read anymore i filled two index cards with notes as i was reading this book that's how good it is so anyway that's my comparison of the book and movie if you think there's anything that i've missed please let me know in the description down below if you have any thoughts about the movie and the book again this is a spoiler conversation because i've talked about all of the details of the book and the movie feel free to uh put that in the comments section down below as well and if you have thoughts about which is better the book or the movie i'd love to hear them as well so put them in the comment section down below as always i really appreciate your time as i realize this is a little kind of longer video so if you have made it to this point thank you thank you thank you for that please let me know what you think and i will be back until next time happy reading you

Channel: Supposedly Fun

Views: 28

Keywords: Books, BookTube, Reading

Id: ATFqNKY8QXQ

Length: 32min 17sec (1937 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 19 2021