Emanuel Farber was an American painter, film critic and writer.
22 Facts About Manny Farber
1.
2.
Manny Farber's writing was distinguished by its "visceral," punchy style and inventive approach towards language; amongst other things, he is credited with coining the term "underground film" in 1957, and was an early advocate of such filmmakers as Howard Hawks, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, William Wellman, Raoul Walsh, Anthony Mann, Michael Snow, Chantal Akerman, George Kuchar, Nicolas Roeg, Samuel Fuller and Andy Warhol.
3.
Manny Farber's painting, which was often influenced by his favorite filmmakers, is held in equally high regard; he was dubbed the greatest still life painter of his generation by The New York Times.
4.
Emanuel Manny Farber was born in Douglas, Arizona, where his father, from Vilna, Lithuania, owned a dry goods store, as the youngest of three brothers.
5.
Manny Farber later enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts, and then to the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design, both located in San Francisco.
6.
In 1939, Manny Farber moved to Washington DC with his first wife, Janet Terrace.
7.
Manny Farber has contributed to Commentary, Film Culture, Film Comment, and Francis Ford Coppolas City Magazine.
8.
In 1970, Manny Farber left New York City to teach and to join the faculty of department of visual arts at the University of California, San Diego.
9.
Reportedly, Manny 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.
10.
Originally an art professor only, Manny Farber was approached about teaching a film class because of his background as a critic.
11.
Manny Farber taught several courses, including "History of Film" and "Films in Social Context," which became famous for his unusual teaching style: he usually showed films only in disconnected pieces, sometimes running them backwards or adding in slides and sketches on the blackboard to illustrate his ideas.
12.
Manny Farber's exams had a reputation for being demanding and complicated, and occasionally required students to draw storyboards of scenes from memory.
13.
Manny Farber frequently championed genre filmmakers like Howard Hawks, Anthony Mann and Raoul Walsh; however, despite his fondness for B-films, Manny Farber was often critical of film noir.
14.
Manny Farber saw termite art as spontaneous and subversive, going in bold new directions, and white elephant art as formal and tradition-bound.
15.
Manny Farber 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.
16.
Manny Farber met his third wife, Patricia Patterson, in New York, in 1966, where Manny Farber had lived since 1942, when he began writing about movies.
17.
Manny Farber died at his home in Leucadia, Encinitas, California, on August 18,2008.
18.
Manny Farber was survived by Patterson, a daughter from a previous marriage, and a grandson.
19.
Manny Farber, who has died aged 91, was tall, lanky and comic looking.
20.
Manny Farber might have played Popeye, or one of those old-timers in the Anthony Mann westerns he cherished.
21.
Manny Farber wore jeans and plaid shirts and the hair had gone back from his great dome of a forehead by the time I met him.
22.
Manny 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.