Manny Farber
Encyclopedia
Emanuel "Manny" Farber was an American painter
, film critic and writer. Often described as "iconoclastic" , Farber developed a distinctive prose style and set of theoretical stances which have had a large influence on later generations of film critics; Susan Sontag
considered him to be "the liveliest, smartest, most original film critic this country has ever produced."
Farber's writing was distinguished by its "visceral," punchy style and inventive approach towards language; amongst other things, he is credited with coining the term "underground film
," and was an early advocate of such filmmakers as Howard Hawks
, Rainer Werner Fassbinder
, Werner Herzog
, William Wellman, Raoul Walsh
, Anthony Mann
, Michael Snow
, Chantal Akerman
, George Kuchar
and Andy Warhol
.
Farber's painting, which was often influenced by his favorite filmmakers, is held in equally high regard; he was dubbed the greatest still life
painter of his generation by The New York Times
.
Later in life, Farber focused more on art and teaching. He often worked in close collaboration with his wife, Patricia Patterson, also an artist.
, the youngest of three brothers. His two older siblings, David and Leslie Farber, both became psychiatrist
s.
Farber attended UC Berkeley, Stanford University
and the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design. In the 1930s, Farber worked as a painter and carpenter
, first in San Francisco and then in Washington DC. During this time, he attempted to join the Communist Party
, though later in his life Farber was often critical of post-New Deal
liberal politics.
His journalistic career began as an art critic, and in 1942 he moved to New York City
and took a post as a film critic for The New Republic
. This was followed by stints at Time
(1949), The Nation
(1949–54), New Leader (1958–59), Cavalier
(1966) and Artforum
(1967–71). He has also contributed to Commentary
, Film Culture
, Film Comment
, and City Magazine. He contributed art criticism to The New Republic and The Nation during the 1940s through 1950s.
Farber left New York
to teach at the University of California San Diego in 1970. Reportedly, Farber traded his Manhattan
loft
to artist Don Lewallen in exchange for Lewallen's teaching position at UCSD after the two met at a party. Once in San Diego, he focused on painting and teaching, and retired from criticism altogether in 1977.
Originally an art professor only, Farber was approached about teaching a film class because of his background as a critic. He taught several courses, including "History of Film" and "Films in Social Context," which became famous for his unusual teaching style: he usually showed films only in disconnected pieces, sometimes running them backwards or adding in slides and sketches on the blackboard to illustrate his ideas. His exams had a reputation for being demanding and complicated, and occasionally required students to draw storyboard
s of scenes from memory.
Farber retired from teaching in 1987, at age 70. Towards the end of his life, he found it difficult to paint, and instead focused on collage
s and drawing
s; his final exhibition of new work occurred just a month before his death.
He died at his home in Leucadia, near Encinitas, California
, on August 18, 2008.
, in his writings on art and cinema.
Farber frequently championed genre filmmakers like Howard Hawks
, Anthony Mann
and Raoul Walsh
; however, despite his fondness for B-films, Farber was often critical of film noir
.
. In it, he writes on the virtues of "termite art" and the excesses of "white elephant art" and champions the B film
and under-appreciated auteurs, which he felt were able, termite-like, to burrow into a topic. Bloated, pretentious, white elephant art lacks the economy of expression found in the greatest works of termite art, according to Farber.
"Termite-tapeworm-fungus-moss art," Farber contends, "goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, like as not, leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity."
An appearance by Manny Farber at the San Francisco Film Festival is shown in the documentary, For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
, in which he is called "criticism's supreme stylist" and his unusual use of language is discussed by The Nation
critic, Stuart Klawans
.
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, film critic and writer. Often described as "iconoclastic" , Farber developed a distinctive prose style and set of theoretical stances which have had a large influence on later generations of film critics; Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
considered him to be "the liveliest, smartest, most original film critic this country has ever produced."
Farber's writing was distinguished by its "visceral," punchy style and inventive approach towards language; amongst other things, he is credited with coining the term "underground film
Underground film
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre, or financing.-Definition and history:The first use of the term "underground film" occurs in a 1957 essay by American film critic Manny Farber, "Underground Films." Farber uses it to refer to the work of...
," and was an early advocate of such filmmakers as Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
, Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...
, Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog Stipetić , known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.He is often considered as one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner...
, William Wellman, Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh...
, Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann was an American actor and film director, most notably of film noirs and Westerns. As a director, he often collaborated with the cinematographer John Alton and with James Stewart in his Westerns.-Biography:...
, Michael Snow
Michael Snow
Michael Snow, CC is a Canadian artist working in painting, sculpture, video, films, photography, holography, drawing, books and music.-Life:...
, Chantal Akerman
Chantal Akerman
Chantal Anne Akerman is a Belgian film director, artist, and professor of film at the European Graduate School. Akerman's best-known film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles , exemplifies a dedication to the ellipses of conventional narrative cinema.-Early life:Akerman was born to...
, George Kuchar
George Kuchar
George Kuchar was an American underground film director, known for his "low-fi" aesthetic.-Early life and career:...
and Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
.
Farber's painting, which was often influenced by his favorite filmmakers, is held in equally high regard; he was dubbed the greatest still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
painter of his generation by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
.
Later in life, Farber focused more on art and teaching. He often worked in close collaboration with his wife, Patricia Patterson, also an artist.
Life and career
Manny Farber was born in Douglas, ArizonaDouglas, Arizona
Douglas is a city in Cochise County, Arizona, United States. Douglas has a border crossing with Mexico and a history of mining.The population was 14,312 at the 2000 census...
, the youngest of three brothers. His two older siblings, David and Leslie Farber, both became psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
s.
Farber attended UC Berkeley, Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design. In the 1930s, Farber worked as a painter and carpenter
Carpentry
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
, first in San Francisco and then in Washington DC. During this time, he attempted to join the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
, though later in his life Farber was often critical of post-New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
liberal politics.
His journalistic career began as an art critic, and in 1942 he moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and took a post as a film critic for The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
. This was followed by stints at Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
(1949), The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
(1949–54), New Leader (1958–59), Cavalier
Cavalier (magazine)
Cavalier is an American magazine that was launched by Fawcett Publications in 1952 and has continued for decades, eventually evolving into a Playboy-style men's magazine...
(1966) and Artforum
Artforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
(1967–71). He has also contributed to Commentary
Commentary (magazine)
Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...
, Film Culture
Film Culture
Film Culture was an American film magazine started by Adolfas Mekas and his brother Jonas Mekas in 1954, and is now defunct. It is best known for exploring the avant-garde cinema in depth, but also published articles on all aspects of cinema, including Hollywood films.Past contributors include...
, Film Comment
Film Comment
Film Comment is an arts and culture magazine published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, of which it is the official publication. Film Comment features critical reviews and in-depth analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world...
, and City Magazine. He contributed art criticism to The New Republic and The Nation during the 1940s through 1950s.
Farber left New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to teach at the University of California San Diego in 1970. Reportedly, Farber traded his Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
loft
Loft
A loft can be an upper story or attic in a building, directly under the roof. Alternatively, a loft apartment refers to large adaptable open space, often converted for residential use from some other use, often light industrial...
to artist Don Lewallen in exchange for Lewallen's teaching position at UCSD after the two met at a party. Once in San Diego, he focused on painting and teaching, and retired from criticism altogether in 1977.
Originally an art professor only, Farber was approached about teaching a film class because of his background as a critic. He taught several courses, including "History of Film" and "Films in Social Context," which became famous for his unusual teaching style: he usually showed films only in disconnected pieces, sometimes running them backwards or adding in slides and sketches on the blackboard to illustrate his ideas. His exams had a reputation for being demanding and complicated, and occasionally required students to draw storyboard
Storyboard
Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence....
s of scenes from memory.
Farber retired from teaching in 1987, at age 70. Towards the end of his life, he found it difficult to paint, and instead focused on collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
s and drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
s; his final exhibition of new work occurred just a month before his death.
He died at his home in Leucadia, near Encinitas, California
Encinitas, California
Encinitas is a coastal beach city in San Diego County, California. Located within Southern California, it is approximately north of San Diego in North County and about south of Los Angeles. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 59,518, up from 58,014 at the 2000 census. Encinitas is...
, on August 18, 2008.
Style
Farber's writing is well-known for its distinctive prose style, which he personally described as "a struggle to remain faithful to the transitory, multisuggestive complication of a movie image." He cited the sportswriters of his era as an influence, and frequently used sports metaphors, especially ones related to baseballBaseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, in his writings on art and cinema.
Farber frequently championed genre filmmakers like Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
, Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann was an American actor and film director, most notably of film noirs and Westerns. As a director, he often collaborated with the cinematographer John Alton and with James Stewart in his Westerns.-Biography:...
and Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh...
; however, despite his fondness for B-films, Farber was often critical of film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
.
"White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art"
One of Farber's best-known essays is "White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art", which originally appeared in 1962 in Film CultureFilm Culture
Film Culture was an American film magazine started by Adolfas Mekas and his brother Jonas Mekas in 1954, and is now defunct. It is best known for exploring the avant-garde cinema in depth, but also published articles on all aspects of cinema, including Hollywood films.Past contributors include...
. In it, he writes on the virtues of "termite art" and the excesses of "white elephant art" and champions the B film
B-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
and under-appreciated auteurs, which he felt were able, termite-like, to burrow into a topic. Bloated, pretentious, white elephant art lacks the economy of expression found in the greatest works of termite art, according to Farber.
"Termite-tapeworm-fungus-moss art," Farber contends, "goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, like as not, leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity."
Reputation and influence
Farber is frequently named as one of the greatest film critics, and his work has had a lasting impact on the generations of critics that followed him.An appearance by Manny Farber at the San Francisco Film Festival is shown in the documentary, For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism is a 2009 documentary film dramatizing a hundred years of American film criticism through film clips, historic photographs, and on-camera interviews with many of today’s important reviewers, mostly print but also Internet...
, in which he is called "criticism's supreme stylist" and his unusual use of language is discussed by The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
critic, Stuart Klawans
Stuart Klawans
Stuart Klawans has been the film critic for The Nation since 1988. He won the 2007 National Magazine Award for Reviews and Criticism and he received a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship to work on a critical study of Preston Sturges...
.
Further reading
- "Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson Interviewed by Richard Thompson, 1977", Screening the Past.
Tributes
— Cover story for the Spring issue. Sklar praises Farber's writing and his view that "movies weren't movies anymore" but regrets that "over time his viewpoint proved unworkable as an effective career strategy."External links
- 'The Elephant vs. The Termite'. 2006 UCSD MFA show at the University Art Gallery, title taken from Manny Farber's writings and inspired by his ideas on art.
- Jonathan Rosenbaum on Manny Farber
- rouge 12, 2008
- A dozen of Manny Farber's classic pieces from 1940s to 1960s