One of the cornerstones of the 1970s New Hollywood movement was the reinvention of genres from the studio era, with Westerns, musicals, and gangster movies getting the revisionist treatment by the so-called Film Brats who were raised on them. But few genres were revisited with as much vigor as the private eye movie which found New Hollywood icons like Robert Altman, Roman Polanski, and Arthur Penn putting their distinctive spin on the timeworn conventions of the gumshoe film.So what was it about the private eye movie that was so compelling at that particular juncture, in both film history and American life? In Its Okay With Me, author Jason Bailey dives deep into the essential detective pictures of the era, breaking down how they bridged past and present, while examining how each film was not only representative of New Hollywood, but of the wider cultural moment.
