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Manny Farber |
Emanuel "Manny" Farber (February 20, 1917 – 18 August 2008) was an American painter and film critic.
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Farber was born in Douglas, Arizona.
His film criticism has appeared during stints at The New Republic (from 1942), Time (1949), The Nation (1949-54), New Leader (1958-59), Cavalier (1966), 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.
In his essay White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art, which originally appeared in 1962 in Film Culture, he writes on the virtues of "termite art" and the excesses of "white elephant art" and eloquently 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.
"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."
He taught at the University of California San Diego (1970 to 1987). Farber died at his home in Leucadia, near Encinitas, California. 1
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