Production
Due to the huge financial success of Easy Rider (1969), Universal Studios gave the star of that film, Peter Fonda, full artistic control over The Hired Hand, his debut as a director. (Universal also did the same for Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie that same year.) The movie was shot in New Mexico in the summer of 1970 with a budget of slightly less than $1,000,000. As he would further elaborate on the audio commentary provided on the film’s DVD release, Fonda’s job as neophyte filmmaker was made relatively easy thanks to a cast of polished character actors, led by Warren Oates. In addition, cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond provided naturalistic imagery that helped belie the modest budget. Fonda’s selection of the then-unknown Bruce Langhorne as the film’s musical composer would prove to be greatly inspired, as nearly all of the film’s reviews singled out the score as being unusually expressive and beautiful.
Frank Mazzola edited the film into shape, and utilized a series of complex and poetic montages, which featured elaborate dissolves, slow motion, and overlapping still photography. Mazzola’s opening montage was praised by several critics as the film’s most memorable sequence.
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