#Thomas Savage

[sunflowerius]

there is something so special about using a rabbit to symbolize the main character as being helpless and meek, as being a runner, as being prey and then getting to watch as that rabbit finally learns to use its nails.

[in-love-with-movies]

The Power of the Dog (2021)

[rrrapppa]

On Phil Burbank and thoughts on realistic drawing:

a few weeks ago I finished reading The power of the dog. and I cried over Phil Burbank's death. I have never cried over a book. Ok, maybe some tears over Frankenstein's creature monologue. however, the wound is still open. once the book was closed, a part of me remained inside it and God knows when it will come out.

today I felt like drawing again. I decided to draw Phil (as well as my beloved Cucumberbatch). just something little and quick. I love drawing faces, they are all so unique. I love emphasizing wrinkles and eye bags. I also like not to follow a scheme, no preparatory sketches, no study of the proportions. I let my eyes and hands guide me. the result is the surprise of the future. halfway through the drawing I realized it didn't look too much like Cucumberbatch. It wasn't a "realistic" portrait. but it was the portrait "of that moment". and in the end I liked how it turned out. maybe I've found my style. maybe I don't need everything to be perfect when I draw.

this is the Phil Burbank of the day 24/10/2023. and he will probably be different from the Phil Burbank of the day XX/YY/ZZZZ.

thanks Thomas Savage for writing one of the best books I've ever read.

[thelostsmiles]

THE POWER OF THE DOG has joined the Criterion Collection. Coming November 2022. Available for preorder in 4K UHD and Blu-ray now.

“and whose capacity for tenderness, once reawakened, may offer him redemption or destruction. Campion, who won an Academy Award for her direction here, charts the repressed desire and psychic violence coursing among these characters with the mesmerizing control of a master at the height of her powers.”

[hozier-self-titled]

being emotionally broken down and reformed by Thomas Savage's The Sheep Queen at 8:31 in the morning at work

[moonofiron]

“He'd never known anybody yet who talked too much who wasn't a God damned fool.”

- Thomas Savage, The Power of the Dog

[aurorawest]

Reading update

The Winter Spirits: Ghostly Tales for Festive Nights - 5/5 stars

I bought this solely for the Natasha Pulley story, "The Salt Miracles," (I WOULD READ A WHOLE BOOK ABOUT FLINT AND THE SAINT, MX PULLEY), but every story was really good. My kind of spooky.

Seriously though, I wanted so much more of "The Salt Miracles." How was it a queer love story despite not being a love story or queer? God I love Natasha Pulley.

Henry Hamlet's Heart by Rhiannon Wilde - 5/5 stars

Really lovely YA romance set in Australia. The yearning is impeccable. Also, I hate myself for saying this, but it's historical fiction—it's set in 2008.

Handmade Holidays by 'Nathan Burgoine - 3.5/5 stars

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin - 4/5 stars

Not an easy read. The main character, David, is despicable, but in large part because he lives in a society that expects rigid adherence to gender roles. One thing I found really interesting was repeated emphasis on the fact that David won't act, he waits for someone else to do it for him—he acknowledges that if Joey had asked him to stay, he would have, that if Giovanni had asked him to stay, he would have. And then Hella tells him that as a woman, she has to wait for men to tell her things, but David doesn't tell her he's gay, he waits for her to figure it out herself. Hella makes this into an explicitly gendered dichotomy, which is interesting with David constantly fretting about not being a man because of his queerness.

Queer classic, people should read.

Merry & Bright by Joanna Chambers - 5/5 stars

They Hate Each Other by Amanda Woody - DNF at pg 2

Contained the following absolutely baffling author's note, which I quickly became so resentful of that I stopped reading.

Against the Stars by Christopher Hartland - 4.25/5 stars

Near-future sci-fi where everyone gets one 44 second look into their future. Fairly dark for YA. Also thematically relevant to my MCU fic.

Mistletoe & Mishigas by MA Wardell - 4.25/5 stars

This book was lovely. I loved Theo so much. Sheldon is very annoying but also very lovable. And it's nice to read a Hanukkah romance!

Haunted Hearts by K Sterling - DNF at pg 2

Did anyone edit this?

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia - DNF at pg 21

Wanted to like this one but it just wasn't very well written. You ever read books where it's obvious the author spent too much time on their wOrlDbuILdiNg to the exclusion of actually writing a good book? Yeah.

Between Shadow and Flame by CT Bryce - DNF at 26

Editors? Hello?? Seriously, I feel like people are writing manuscripts on their phones and uploading them directly to Amazon from there.

The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage - 4.5/5 stars

Oddly I found this to be not as difficult of a read as Giovanni's Room, in my private game of Ranking Queer Classics Against Each Other. Obviously Phil is an awful man, but in the end I felt bad for him, tbh. Phil is like, a really catty twink wrapped in layers of toxic masculinity and repressed homosexuality. And then Peter is a sociopath. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to sympathize with Peter? I didn't think I was, but then I scanned Annie Proulx's afterword and it seemed like she thought we were supposed to? Obviously you feel worst for all the people Phil just heedlessly tears to ribbons because he's a maladjusted asshole. I think the thing is, there were just enough glimmers where Phil acts like a human being that I was like, maybe you can be saved! Ah, tragedy.

Anyway, good book, 10/10 would recommend. (and no, I haven't seen the movie)

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

The Power of the Dog (2021, Jane Campion)

13/11/2023

The Power of the Dog is a 2021 film written and directed by Jane Campion.

Film adaptation of the 1967 novel of the same name by Thomas Savage, it stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee. It was presented in competition at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, where the director was awarded the Silver Lion - Special Award for Direction. Campion also repeated her success in Hollywood by winning the 2022 Oscar for directing.

In 1925, in Montona, brothers Phil and George Burbank, wealthy ranch owners, are engaged in transhumance.

Rose, George's wife, cannot play more than a few notes of Strauss's Radetzky March and is humiliated several times by Phil, who starts whistling the tune every time they are near each other.

Rose's son Peter rides alone one day and finds a dead cow, probably due to an anthrax infection: the boy puts on gloves and cuts off pieces of the cow's skin.

Peter, who did not go to Phil's funeral, opens a prayer book for funeral rites and reads Psalm 22:20:

"Deliver my life from the sword and my love from the power of the dog"

The project originated from producer Roger Frappier, who acquired the rights to the novel in 2012, but it did not go into production until Campion agreed to write and direct the adaptation in 2019. Paul Dano was supposed to play George Burbank, but was replaced by Plemons due to scheduling conflicts with filming him in The Batman. Elisabeth Moss had to give up the role of Rose as she was already busy on the set of The Handmaid's Tale.

Filming of the film, which took place entirely in New Zealand, began in January 2020 in Maniototo, in the Otago region, then moving to Dunedin. Work was interrupted due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic: Cumberbatch, Dunst and Plemons remained in the country for the entire duration of the lockdown, then resumed filming in June.

The film premiered on September 1, 2021 in competition at the 78th Venice International Film Festival. It will also be presented at the BFI London Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival.

[lisamarie-vee]

[cinematitlecards]

"The Power Of The Dog" (2021) Directed by Jane Campion (Drama/Romance/Western)

[sunflowerius]

i really do constantly stay losing (consistently getting obsessed with things that have little to no fandom)

[glouldie]

The Power of the Dog

[kingaofthewoods]

Just finished reading Thomas Savage’s “The Power of the Dog”.

Yes, once again Benedict Cumberbatch introduced me to a truly brilliant piece of literature. 10/10, would recommend, go read it right now. I was on the edge of my seat for each and every one of the 263 pages.

Can’t wait to watch the film.

[wickedscribbles]

I finally finished The Power of the Dog. I've been putting it off for ages because I knew how it ended, of course, having seen the film. But as despicable as Phil can be, I didn't want to read through his death. (AND because he'd done something so hateful I got pissed at him and stopped reading for months.)

Because in all his nastiness, all his terrible, inexcusable, shitty behavior, he was a remarkable man who could have been so much more. Thomas Savage writes him with such charisma! I don't know how to describe it. I both cringed at his behavior and pitied him.

He's an incredibly intelligent man who can't be himself, in many ways, because he fears what that will attract. He leans fully into the concept of toxic masculinity and rampant homophobia, though he's gay, in the hope that no one will ever learn about his attraction to other men.

And he desperately wants to be loved again. Somehow.

All throughout Phil's final scenes with Peter we see him questioning how he's speaking to him, double checking, hoping what he's saying isn't wrong. And while this relationship is by no means healthy, I find it incredibly sad for Phil. He lost Bronco Henry when he was twenty and two decades later he's still trying to find the same sort of connection. Somewhere. Anywhere.

What a fucking powerful novel. What a powerhouse for repressed queer voices, especially considering the time of publishing. It was so odd to want happiness for both Phil and Peter but know that neither could achieve it at the same time.

Yes, I cried when Phil died even though I knew it was coming. Closing the book felt like leaving something hollow in my chest. I'm going to be thinking about this for a long time.

[theshatterednotes]

American author Thomas Savage

[contedivaldoca]

Più ignorante è la gente, e più sente il bisogno di fare la ruota con le piume sul sedere

“Il potere del cane”, T.Savage