Manny Farber

Manny Farber has died. I didn't know he was still alive. Starting in the early 40s, he was one of the better film critics around. While most were impressed with the sort of middlebrow films that win Oscars (things haven't changed that much), Farber was willing to champion tougher, wilder films.

In his 1957 essay "Underground Films" he gave a second look at a bunch of Hollywood directors whose work had been dismissed, or at least not taken too seriously. (He was one of the first American critics to recognize something special about Howard Hawks.)

"White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art" in 1962 is probably his best-known essay. In it, he compares grand, high-flown attempts at something significant versuse those whose aims may seem small but are all-enguilfing.

Farber, I think, will be remembered as a smart, perceptive and unconventional film critic at a time when almost everyone else was mostly recapping plots and saying whether or not they liked the movie.