Remembering Manny Farber

Manny Farber, who died last night at the age of 91, was one of the 20th Century's greatest critics, as well as a powerful painter in his own right. Notice I didn’t just say "film critic" — Farber wrote primarily about the movies, but his collection of film criticism, Negative Space (pictured), is essential to understanding all modern non-academic criticism. Farber established a tone, cleared a patch of cultural landscape, and filled it with more ideas, opinions, and attitude than a thousand reviewers and bloggers — not just in movies but in music, television, book, and art criticism too — will ever muster.

With the exception of Pauline Kael, Farber was probably the movie critic other movie critics most often quoted, particularly his hugely influential 1962 essay "White Elephant Art Vs. Termite Art," which came as close to anything he wrote to boiling down his critical creed. In that piece, Farber positioned himself ferociously against what he called the "self-aggrandizing masterwork" that "treat[s] every inch of the screen and film as a potential area for prizeworthy creativity." In opposition to this he championed "termite art," which “goes always forward eating its own boundaries… leav[ing] nothing in its path other than signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity." At a time when crap nostalgia is routinely praised with unthinking effusiveness, it's harder now to appreciate how daring and emboldening it was to read Farber's championing of supposedly such minor work as the then-ignored Westerns of director Budd Boetticher and the face-slamming camerawork of director Sam Fuller.

As the years went by, Farber began writing less and painting more, many of his works beautiful and bright still lifes of everything from flowers to overhead views of toy train-track assemblies. Farber could paint the contents of a messy writer’s table with an unsentimental clarity that would move a viewer to tears. Surely some worthy appreciator of Farber — Dave Hickey or Sanford Schwartz, say — should write a book-length study of Farber's artwork. Others will write longer, better pieces than this one about Farber's centrality in American criticism; these are merely my immediate reactions.

Taped to my wall is a quote from Farber that captures his pugnacity, clear-eyed romanticism, and inspirational fervor as well as anything: "I get a great laugh from artists who ridicule the critics as parasites and artists manqués — such a horrible joke. I can’t imagine a more perfect art form, a more perfect career than criticism. I can’t imagine anything more valuable to do." Not many critics could — or would dare — say such a thing today. One more reason why Farber will remain forever invaluable.