Oh yes, sorry, mental blip there.
Yes, I too rather took tot Phil the Classicist.
Yep, a real thinker this one.

I try to be all encompassing and generous in my judgement of these characters:
dysfunctional families and damaged people, plus so much mourning of lost loves...
I also don't want to go down the 'mental health psycho' route...
but shall we at least agree that Peter was on The Spectrum?
( I am deliberately trying to write as little spoilery as possible!)
To be honest: Peter quickly saw there was one obstacle to everybody else's happiness and he simply removed the obstacle.
Quite frankly, nobody seemed to miss The Obstacle and all got on with their lives without it...

besleybean wrote:

I try to be all encompassing and generous in my judgement of these characters:
dysfunctional families and damaged people, plus so much mourning of lost loves...
I also don't want to go down the 'mental health psycho' route...
but shall we at least agree that Peter was on The Spectrum?
( I am deliberately trying to write as little spoilery as possible!)
To be honest: Peter quickly saw there was one obstacle to everybody else's happiness and he simply removed the obstacle.
Quite frankly, nobody seemed to miss The Obstacle and all got on with their lives without it...

Yes, I agree for Peter.
And I was also shocked that neither his brother who has been close to him all his life nor the parents seemed very sad.
 Bad exemple for the boy which seems to me not the best man to be a doctor.

Perhaps it’s why my friends say I live in Candy Land ( le pays des Bisounours in french) but I think kindness  ( in french we say " bienveillance") is hightly recommanded for a doctor.  I was a nurse and worked with different ones and I can say that kindness can go with efficience and ability.  And it’s clearly a plus for patients’s recovery.
We clearly are off topic there so I stop here.
Take care of yourselves.

Spoiler alert (I won't hide it as the film has been out on streaming for a while now).!

Interesting points you are all raising about Peter.  He's a bit of an enigma, but I think it's strongly implied (at least by him!) that what he does is motivated by compassion and care for his mother, which is really quite "doctorly".  Disection of the bunny seems psychopathic, but it's funny that it's taking place on a ranch, where animals are being butchered, and of course especially in those days, animals were harmed in the making of medical science and in the education of medics.   It's quite a reasonable thing for him to do, and he's emulating his father. 

I think it's important also that Peter has lost his father (fairly recently?) to suicide, and sees Phil's actions causing his mother's alcoholism and deterioration of her mental health.  What he did may literally save his mother's life.  I've rewatched the later scenes and I do think he feels compassion for Phil, but Phil is driving Rose to her death, and I suppose it ends up being a clear, practical choice.   Maybe being too strong and not kind enough got the job done. 
 

Yes, and maybe he is cold and ruthless, and not "kind".  To be honest, I couldn't decide, which is maybe one thing I like about the film!  But I lean towards feeling more warmly about him. That may change when I finish the book.  Yes, I agree that it was odd that he acted kindly towards the rabbit, and particularly odd that he didn't think of his mum's feelings there (and that she didn't understand his intentions and sent the maid up).  But .... we don't see Rose getting upset over the rabbit, and it's maybe not any more odd than people being kind to farm animals that they're going to kill later.

I'm not actually sure there were many other possible ways to keep his mum safe.  Peter has no control over George, and George seems nice enough but doesn't really do much to help Rose that I can remember.  If anything he inadvertently makes things worse at times.

Yes, they are happy at the end, apart from Phil, obviously.   I think very muted grief from his family made me feel for him more - really quite a sad life mourning a lost love, putting the barriers up, his almost dependence on the brother that doesn't need him any more, and the first really meaningful connection in 25 years turning out to be with

somebody planning to murder him.

I finally got around to watching this film over the weekend.  I enjoyed it, so many beautiful images, and I definitely needed some time to think about what I had seen. I have enjoyed reading through the discussion you have already had, here, as well.
I remember reading a review for it in the newspaper when it  first came out and got the impression that Benedict's character would be cruel, violent, and completely reprehensible. But watching the film, while he did have his mean moments and displayed some ideas about toxic masculinity, I also found him compelling, tragic, and lonely. I actually found it kind of exciting that he was not very interested in integrating with the rest of society and its norms (not wanting to wash or dress up for anyone, just dressing like a cowhand all the time because that was his world). It made the ending, when he loses complete agency over his body and first has to dress up to go into town to see the doctor, then what happens after... it felt so violent and upsetting to me.
I saw the nature of his relationship with Bronco Henry pretty much from the start (I'm asexual, but that scene where he's taking care of the saddle seemed pretty erotic to me!), and at first I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a surprise that was revealed later on or not (Peter finding the muscle magazines seemed like a "reveal" moment, but as I think about it I don't think it's supposed to be a big revelation in that moment, though I suppose it is a confirmation of something that's otherwise never put in completely explicit terms). 
I have to say it took me some time to figure out what had happened in the end, that Peter was the reason Phil got sick. I was watching Peter and finding him interesting, but not always being sure what he was thinking or why he was doing what he was doing (with the dead cow, offering the hides). And then last night I replayed those moments that I made the connection! I remember also being puzzled by that line mentioned by one of you, about Peter's father saying he's not kind enough. He came across as so genuinely "soft" throughout the movie, it's interesting to consider how much of that might have been an act, or at the very least his own surface persona that covers something harsher (in contrast to Phil's exterior, which hides his emotional pain). 
I believe it was Liberty who, in spoiler tags, listed off different imagery. I hadn't thought about the parallel between Rose's gloves she gets in exchange for the hides and the gloves Peter wears, but that is an interesting one! Definitely a lot of images to think about, which I like.
I won't be surprised if there will be writing about this film in conjunction with Brokeback Mountain. Those films are pretty different in other ways, but both examine masculinity through the lens of modern Western setting. I'm not a big fan of classic Western films, but I like those two contemporary films that use the setting (though not the same sort of plots), I suppose because of its association with a rugged setting run by rugged men, to consider norms/expectations of masculinity and their limitations, and the facades that people put up to try to protect themselves from others, whether they work or not.

Brokeback was one of the films I wrote about for my Master's, so it's often on my mind in discussions of masculinity on film, and especially when watching The Power of the Dog.
True, in a lot of ways Peter is not "soft." I guess he's in touch with his softer and more artistic side, but also his... not so soft side. Just goes to show that masculinity isn't just black and white, with completely soft and gentle on one side and completely tough on the other side. But I think, like Phil, I saw only that surface exterior initially, his quiet way of speaking and his slight frame, his ability to create delicate paper flowers.

Yes, I picked up on Phil's apparent avoidance of seeing the other men naked, not wanting to wash with them or engage in their playful behaviour while doing that. The only time we really seem physically close with another man (other than some moments with Peter) is that one moment in the barn where he and another man are working (on a hide or something -- I can't remember exactly what they were doing) and the one man is leaning over him, his hand on him. The camera held on them in that moment, and they paused as if they were being caught doing something they didn't want to be seen doing, even though there was no particular relationship portrayed between him and that ranch hand at any other point. Almost like a "false alarm" situation or something, I'm not sure. I guess there's certain elements of the cowboy life, like the moment in the tent Phil talks about where Henry kept him warm, where physical proximity is normal, maybe wouldn't be seen as gay, an accepted homosocial environment. Although at the same time, at least from the 1950s onwards, I guess, I think some people would have anxiety about "gay behavior" breaking the "purity" of such an environment. I think maybe I'm starting to spitball ideas, here.

 

Interesting quote from the book. I don't think I remember who George is or the circumstances around the scene, I just remember that image of Phil and the other character. 

Yes, class definitely plays into Brokeback, though until you mentioned it I hadn't really thought about it in The Power of the Dog, other than when those people come to visit and they ask Phil to join them and dress up and he refuses, preferring his work clothes and chaps. Like I mentioned before, in a way I kind of admired his unwillingness to change his presentation to suit others. When he had to put on a suit to go into town to see the doctor, I felt so uncomfortable because of how uncomfortable he seemed, so not himself (and Benedict, when he's himself or playing other characters, can look great in a suit). But I had forgotten about Phil being educated and that he was of higher status than the men he works with. Or hadn't given it much thought. 

Oh, right! I forgot Jesse Plemons' character's name. 

Yes, I suppose it isn't just about him being himself when he reuses to wash and change for the guests, but his whole being is a challenge for Rose. And you're right, even the clothes he seems most comfortable in are part of an act, but it seems that there's no other option for him in the life that he is chosen. It's the best he can find.

Good point about wanting to recreate something past that has been lost forever. I think that's a theme that comes up somewhat frequently in films and literature (like in Vertigo here, though that's in a more twisted form of course, or even The Great Gatsby) where people have this brief period in the past where something really amazing or significant happens to them, and after it's over they want to recreate what they believe to have been a better time, even though they can't (because they've changed, other people have changed, the world has changed, or the person they love is simply gone forever). I think maybe it's a major human characteristic (or flaw). But in Brokeback and The Power of the Dog I guess those things are complicated by the fact that the characters don't feel they can be completely open about those feelings, because of pressures pushed on them to conform to certain ideas of what a man in their profession is supposed to be. So even when they had what they had, it couldn't be for as long as they would have wanted it to be, or made more difficult by having to be secretive about it.