Manny Farber

Emanuel Farber (February 20, 1917 – August 18, 2008) was an American painter, film critic and writer. Often described as "iconoclastic", Farber developed a distinctive prose style

Farber's writing was distinguished by its "visceral," punchy style amongst other things, he is credited with coining the term "underground film" in 1957,

Farber's painting, which was often influenced by his favorite filmmakers, owned a dry goods store, as the youngest of three brothers. His two older siblings, David and Leslie H. Farber, both became psychiatrists. he moved to New York City. Inspired by Otis Fergusons writings, Farber took a post as a film and art critic for The New Republic (early 1940s through late 1940s Film Culture, Film Comment, and Francis Ford Coppolas City Magazine.

In 1970, Farber left New York City to teach and to join the faculty of department of visual arts at the University of California, San Diego. 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. and Film Comment. which originally appeared in Film Culture, number 27 (Winter 1962–63). 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. Farber saw termite art as spontaneous and subversive, going in bold new directions, and white elephant art as formal and tradition-bound. He offers John Wayne's performance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as a quintessential example of cinematic termite art, but scorns the films of Truffaut and Antonioni.

"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."

Personal life Farber met his third wife,

"...Manny, who has died aged 91, was tall, lanky and comic looking. He might have played Popeye, or one of those old-timers in the Anthony Mann westerns he cherished. He wore jeans and plaid shirts and the hair had gone back from his great dome of a forehead by the time I met him." — Roger Ebert 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.

Originally released by Praeger Publishers in 1971.

Awards Guggenheim Fellowship (1967 and 1978–79)