The Hired Hand Movie Review (1971)
 
Filmed in Northern New Mexico in 1970 and written by Alan Sharp with a score by Bruce Langhorne, The Hired Hand was Peter Fonda’s directorial debut. Fonda was given total artistic control by Universal after the massive success of Easy Rider (1969), in which he starred and produced.
Tom Waits singing Pony was the running refrain in the back of my mind as I watched this film. “I wish I was home, in Evelyn's kitchen with old Gyp curled around my feet. I hope my pony knows the way back home.” Looking at this film today, aside from the relentless onslaught of information society, the reality circus complete with relentless political catfights, the idea of ‘going home,’ or returning to a simpler time becomes ever more appealing. For the first time, the good ‘ol days may be seen less as a time when everything was perfect, and more as a time when things were real. The Hired Hand may be a great metaphor for this as its introspective hero, weary of wandering, makes the decision to stop searching for utopia, and return to something perhaps more authentic, a characteristic Hannah Collings epitomizes. Harry Colling’s search seems to match the sentiment raised by Henry D. Thoreau in Walden. To go and ‘live deliberately.’
For its time, the film was a critical flop. An underappreciated film, it deserves more consideration than it initially received. After its re-release by the Sundance Channel in DVD format in 2001, it was featured in the Venice Film Festival (2001) and the Toronto Film Festival that same year, and then the first Tribeca Film Festival in 2002.
The film is much more interesting when viewed as an artistic interpretation of the American Western genre and as an integral part of its history, instead of a shoot ‘em up action flick, as it was originally pitched. The cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond (McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Deer Hunter) is quite noteworthy, as well as the editing by Frank Mazzola. The storyline even contains feminist undertones, uncommon for its time. Though not perfect, Fonda’s film has real depth, texture, tangibility and eloquence.
Some interesting inclusions to the Collector’s Edition DVD release are The Return of The Hired Hand documentary (53 min) with Peter Fonda, Verna Bloom and Vilmos Zsigmond, 20 minutes of deleted footage and a brief introduction by Martin Scorcese.
Jennifer Dawson
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Grading
- Story C
- Acting B
- Visuals A-
- Originality/Innovation B
- Enjoyability B
- Overall B
- DVD Extras B+
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