The Hired Hand

The Hired Hand is Peter Fonda's directorial debut, written by Alan Sharp with cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, who called this film a turning point in his career since he'd mostly shot commercials before it. The film was made possible by a policy from Universal's new production VP Ned Tanen, who gave young directors small budgets with full creative control after the success of Easy Rider (1969); it was shot in New Mexico in the summer of 1970 on a budget under 1 million dollars. The film was a commercial failure with mixed reviews when it opened in 1971. In 2001, with support from director Martin Scorsese, a photochemical restoration was made from the original negatives Fonda had kept; post restoration, it holds a 91 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and was released by the Criterion Collection. Who it's for: anyone curious about a revisionist western, a director's feature debut that flopped on release and was rediscovered thirty years later through a restoration backed by another director, Martin Scorsese. Who it's not for: viewers wanting a classic, traditional cowboy film, since this deliberately inverts the genre's conventions.