July 1, 2004

Manny Farber

Negative Space "Manny Farber is the film critic's critic. Although he's not as widely known today as he should be, Farber's work has been admired by critics and writers as diverse as Susan Sontag and Pauline Kael, Greil Marcus and Jonathan Rosenbaum, William Gibson and Paul Schrader." In her preview of the film series "Manny Farber at the Movies" and the exhibition "Manny Farber: About Face," Marjorie Baumgarten provides a nifty intro in the Austin Chronicle.

It's a brief piece and it'll make you want to go out and find more, so, though I've pointed to a few of these before, here, all in one spot, are Noel King's piece for Framework and his interview with editor Robert Walsh in Senses of Cinema, where you'll also find Bill Krohn on Farber's painting My Budd.

Kent Jones interviewed Farber in March 2000 for Film Comment and Robert Polito moderated a panel on Farber for Artforum in 2002 with Jones, Greil Marcus, Jonathan Crary and Stephanie Zacharek.

And then, of course, there's Farber himself and his most cited essay (besides "Underground Films," which I can't seem to find online), "White Elephant Art vs Termite Art."



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Posted by dwhudson at July 1, 2004 8:23 AM

Comments

I discovered your blog right after starting up my own modest effort, Cinematic Language, and we seem to be interested in many of the same things. I wrote a quick post on the Manny Farber piece in the Austin Chronicle with some links, then browsed over to your site to discover that you had posted on the exact same topic. I suspect that we'll be on the same page quite frequently, though I am certain that you will turn me on to many different things I wouldn't have otherwise come across as I continue to visit your site regularly. I hope that you can find something new by visiting my blog as well. If not, perhaps I need to do a better job! Thanks for the good work, keep it up.

- Ted

Posted by: ted at July 1, 2004 12:19 PM

And we both really like that book cover, evidently.

Many thanks for the kind words, Ted, and yes, I definitely look forward to reading Cinematic Language, which already looks like it's off to a great start!

David

Posted by: David Hudson at July 1, 2004 12:44 PM

Funny--I really hate that cover. The book itself is brilliant (and very intimidating for anyone seeking to cultivate a memorable prose style, let alone a visual command of movies), but the cover doesn't seem very expressive of what made Farber memorable--in terms of attitude, his criticism did everything besides standing around looking poleaxed.

Posted by: IA at July 1, 2004 2:06 PM

Hm, I hadn't thought the cover was meant to be all that illustrative, but you may have a point. One of his paintings might have been a better idea...

Posted by: David Hudson at July 2, 2004 4:16 AM