'Power of the Dog' Director Jane Campion Bites Back: Sam Elliott 'A Little Bit of a B**ch'

New Zealand director Jane Campion dismissed actor Sam Elliott's gripes about her acclaimed film "The Power of the Dog," shrugging him off as "a little bit of a bitch," UK newspaper The Daily Mail reported.

Campion was in attendance at the Directors Guild of America Awards on March 12 when Variety asked her about Elliott's recent complaints about the film's depiction of 1925 Montana and what Elliott called its "allusions to homosexuality."

"I'm sorry, he was being a little bit of a B-I-T-C-H," Variety quoted Campion as saying.

As previously reported, the 77-year-old film actor, who is known for his roles in westerns, had slammed the movie as "a piece of shit" during an appearance on the Feb. 28 episode of the podcast "WTF with Marc Maron," and had complained, as Insider noted, that the film depicted cowboys almost like Chippendales dancers wearing "bow ties and not much else."

Case in point: Lead Benedict Cumberbatch, who, Elliott groused, "never got out of his fucking chaps."

"He had two pairs of chaps – a woolly pair and a leather pair."

"The Power of the Dog" has had a strong showing this awards season, including claiming Best Picture at the BAFTAs this past weekend. The film has also been nominated for 12 Oscars, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay, but its charms seemed mostly lost on Elliott, who told Maron that the ranch hands in the film were "running around in chaps and no shirts."

Elliott went on to state the obvious: "There's all these allusions of homosexuality throughout the movie."

In response, Maron noted (as many listeners likely did), "that's what the movie is about." One character, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, is mocked by ranch hands for seeming effeminate; the most brutal mockery comes, at least initially, from the ranch's co-owner (Cumberbatch), who is strongly implied to be gay and closeted.

Elliott also critiqued Campion herself, saying, "What the fuck does this woman from down there know about the American West?" and wondering, "Why the fuck did she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana?"

Films portraying the American west have been shot on location in other countries before – notably, the so-called spaghetti westerns such as Sergio Leone's "A Fistful of Dollars," which was shot in Spain, and "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," which was shot in Italy.

Campion touched on that fact, commenting on "the number of amazing Westerns made in Spain by [director] Sergio Leone."

The director went on to say of Elliott, "He's not a cowboy; he's an actor." She added: "The West is a mythic space and there's a lot of room on the range. I think it's a little bit sexist."

Campion added that Elliott's comments had been sexist in nature, telling Variety, "I consider myself a creator. I think he thinks of me as a woman or something lesser first, and I don't appreciate that."