Joe Hill was an itinerant labourer, poet, and singer of workers’ anthems, as well as an organiser for the IWW union, which repeatedly brought him into conflict with the police. A love triangle gone wrong provided an excuse to charge him with murder. Despite worldwide protests, he was sentenced to death. Bo Widerberg’s poetic portrait gives us an America seen through the eyes of an immigrant enchanted with the “New World”. After experiencing the slums of New York, he rode the hobo rails across the country. “The criticism that the film makes calculated use of beautiful imagery is short-sighted. Joe Hill experiences America as a landscape of freedom, but soon sees his dreams of unlimited opportunity destroyed. Freedom is only available to those who conform politically. Joe Hill’s love of America is, among other things, a naive love of the country and the people.” (FAZ, 1972)