Thanks to the unprecedented success of Easy Rider, the makers Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda all had the opportunity to make another film. It is striking that all three chose to act and direct in those later films. Peter Fonda took the step directing because he, in his own words, wanted to be musician and conductor at the same time. He found it frustrating to be only a performer; he had outspoken ideas about the use of the camera and the meaning of a particular sequence.In The Hired Hand, a Western, Fonda plays the leading role of Harry, who after long wanderings with his friend Arch (Warren Oates) decides to return to his wife and child. The film was not a great success when it came out. According to Frederick I. Kaplan and William A. Vincent, who took a deep interest in The Hired Hand, this was because the art-house audience was not interested in a Western and the film was too artistic for the Western-lover, its tempo was too slow and it comprised too little action. But according to Kaplan and Vincent themselves, The Hired Hand was not only the best film of 1971 but also a neglected masterpiece. And a masterpiece. Kaplan and Vincent: ‘We contend that The Hired Hand is unique and, on closer inspection, is more akin to Robbe-Grillet than to John Ford’.Twenty years after the films release, it could however be argued that this film so clearly determined by its time — the widespread use of fades and a soundtrack with fine country-like pop music by Bruce Langhorn — could very well stand in the shadow of Ford.
