Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber (Hardcover)

~ Manny Farber (Author), (Editor)

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Product Description

Manny Farber (1917-2008) was a unique figure among American movie critics. Champion of what he called "termite art" (focused, often eccentric virtuosity as opposed to "white elephant" monumentality), master of a one-of-a- kind prose style whose jazz-like phrasing and incandescent twists and turns made every review an adventure, he has long been revered by his peers. Susan Sontag called him "the liveliest, smartest, most original film critic this country ever produced"; for Peter Bogdanovich, he was "razor-sharp in his perceptions" and "never less than brilliant as a writer."

Farber was an early discoverer of many filmmakers later acclaimed as American masters: Val Lewton, Preston Sturges, Samuel Fuller, Raoul Walsh, Anthony Mann. A prodigiously gifted painter himself, he brought to his writing an artist's eye for what was on the screen. Alert to any filmmaker, no matter how marginal or unsung, who was "doing go-for-broke art and not caring what comes of it," he was uncompromising in his contempt for pretension and trendiness-for, as he put it, directors who "pin the viewer to the wall and slug him with wet towels of artiness and significance."

The excitement of his criticism, however, has less to do with his particular likes and dislikes than with the quality of attention he paid to each film as it unfolds, to the "chains of rapport and intimate knowledge" in its moment-to- moment reality. To transcribe that knowledge he created a prose that, in Robert Polito's words, allows for "oddities, muddles, crises, contradictions, dead ends, multiple alternatives, and divergent vistas." The result is critical essays that are themselves works of art.

Farber on Film contains this extraordinary body of work in its entirety for the first time, from his early and previously uncollected weekly reviews for The New Republic and The Nation to his brilliant later essays (some written in collaboration with his wife Patricia Patterson) on Godard, Fassbinder, Herzog, Scorsese, Altman, and others. Featuring an introduction by editor Robert Polito that examines in detail the stages of Farber's career and his enduring significance as writer and thinker, Farber on Film is a landmark volume that will be a classic in American criticism.

About the Author

Robert Polito, editor, is a poet, biographer, and critic whose books include Doubles, Hollywood & God, A Reader's Guide to James Merrill's The Changing Light at Sandover, and Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson, for which he received the National Book Critics Circle Award. He directs the Graduate Writing Program at New School University in New York City.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1000 pages
• Publisher: Library of America (October 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159853050X
• ISBN-13: 978-1598530506
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #78,034 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Following the Career of a Genuis, November 30, 2009

By	Richard M. Sola - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This is a long overdue collection of the complete film writings of one of the great film observers of all time. Manny Farber was much, much more than a film critic. He looked, really looked, at films in ways that no one else did during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. He dissected films with a painter's eye, seeing what most everyone else missed. He looked at tough guy low budget movies. He looked at Hollywood big production films. He looked at foreign films and experimental films. He looked at cartoons.

And then he wrote. Farber wrote in a way that no one else did.

Farber started writing in the 1940s. His early reviews are still interesting as starting points before seeing the films he discusses. He had an uncanny knack for separating the fluff from substance and stopping great films and great directors long before others did (Hawks, Preston Sturges, Sam Fuller, Fassbinder, Herzog, and Michael Snow to name a few directors Farber championed). And he moved past mere plot summary and analysis to reviewing films in a whole new way.

This collection lets the reader watch Farber grow over time in his understanding of movies and in his writing. By the 1960s, he is writing essays(like his famous and influential "White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art). His later collaboration with Patricia Patterson, an artist and Farber's wife, resulted in pieces that are never short of brilliant.

Farber is at his best when he is pulling and pushing the reader through a maze of thoughts, imagines and word gymnastics to come out the other end of the essay with a whole new way of looking at things. To say that he is non-linear in this thought process is an understatement. Only a great writer like Farber can pull it off.

And then, he stopped writing about film in the 1970s to devote his remaining years to painting. He said all that he needed to say about film. And he said it in a way that no other writer has done before or since. (Yes, there are many who have tried to imitate his style, but it really can't be done.)

Reading a few pages of Farber is a revelation. Reading a book of Farber can change the way you see film, writing, and the role of the observer/critic in the world.

Congratulations to Library of America for the handsome edition it has published. (Note that it is larger than the typical book that they put out.)