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.
Robert Polito, volume 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 the New School in New York City. (Verlagstext)
Contents:
Introduction: other roads, other tracks
1942-1947
With Camera and Gun 3
Three's a Crowd 4
The Little Fellow 6
Gabin in Hollywood 7
Blaboteur 9
The Naked Truth 10
Not by the Book 11
War Horses 13
Hollywood Blues 15
Saccharine Symphony 16
The Grapes, Alas 18
True and False 19
Gehrig to Cooper to Chance 21
Twice Over Heavily 22
A British Movie Biography 24
Real War 26
The Logic of Lunacy 27
Memorandum for Hollywood 28
Black Tails and White Lies 30
Fiction and Fact 31
The Movie Art 33
Between Two Worlds 34
The Journey, Cont. 36
Witches' Brew 37
The Warner Boys in Africa 38
Preston Sturges: Satirist 40
Movie of the Year 42
Children's War 44
Mystery Movie 46
Our Town 47
History and Hollywood 49
Hitchcock in Stride 51
Wartime Documentaries 53
The Heroes of the Mary Ann 54
To What Base Uses 56
Native Fascist, MGM Style 57
The Too Beautiful People 59
Young Mr. Pitt 60
"The Hard Way" 62
Zanuck at the Front 63
One for the Ages 65
The Trouble with Movies 66
Writers as Producers 67
The Nazis Again 69
Mishmash 70
Let Us Now Praise Movies 72
Less Talk and More Mail 74
Education for War 76
The Trouble With Movies: II 78
The Sea Without Salt 80
The Expendables 81
Columbia Cooler 83
The Great White Way 84
Between Two Words 86
Tinkle 88
When the Pie Was Opened 91
The Production Line 92
Method in Its Badness 95
Tessa's Last Stand? 97
Seeing Zero 98
Not So Sound as Furious 100
Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow 102
Short and Happy 103
Love in the Foxholes 106
Exterior Decorating 107
Russian Victory 109
The Hero 111
The Perils of Tartu 114
Whimsy Gets the Whammy 115
The Cardboard Star 117
Two Shorts and a Wrongo 119
Newsreel 121
Heaven, American Style 123
"The Cross of Lorraine" 125
Movies in Wartime 127
Earth on Heaven 136
Among the Missing: Hitchcock 138
Pow, Bam and Sock 141
Theatrical Movies 143
The Happiness Boys 145
The Great Cardboard Event 147
Two Phantoms 149
B Plus 150
Hate for Sale 152
Men in Battle 154
The Lady and the Belle 155
Up from Slavery 157
The Great Brain Robbery 159
Fathers and Songs 161
Personnel Department 162
Creep House 164
Boys in the Back Room 166
Quick Dissolve 167
Andersen's Fairy Tale 169
The Unholy Three 171
Three New Ones 173
Warners' Boys in the Balkans 174
Home Sweet Home 176
Hard-as-Nails Dept. 178
The Water's Fine 180
It Comes Up Corn 181
For He's a Jolly, Good Fellow 183
To Be and Not to Be 186
Independents' Day 188
The Straight and Narrow 190
Against the Grain 191
More Notes on Newsreels 193
Marie the Magician 195
Murdered Movie 197
The Red and the Black 198
The Miracle of Morton 200
B-Plus 202
Rich Creamy Lather 204
Flesh and Enamel 206
To Have and Have Not 208
The Case of the Hidden Camera 210
Day of Reckoning 212
Just Plain Folks 214
Crazy Over Horses 216
Fact and Application 217
The Gold Rush 219
Crime Does Pay 221
Close Shave in Burma 223
The Brooklyn Dodger 224
Petrified Youth 226
Through Thin and Thick 228
Returning Soldiers 230
Sweet and Low 232
Four Flats 234
Dream Furlough 236
Skin Deep 238
Signs of the Double-Cross 240
Seven Who Were Harangued 242
Plenty of Nothin' 243
War Without Glamour 245
Gag Rule 247
The Hard Way 249
Postwar Movies 251
Coat of Navy Goo 254
The Hour of Charm 255
Renoir on Tenant Farmers 257
Dark Victory 258
Psychological Melodrama 260
Suburban Badlands 262
Drooping Spirits 264
Dream Manors 265
Liquor Flicker 267
Hamburger Hell 269
Make Mine Muzak 271
Crime Without Passion 273
French Primitive 275
Olivier's "Henry V" 277
"Open City" 278
At Home Abroad 280
Hellman's Movietone News 281
Iverstown Slaughter 283
Hollywood Barnum 285
Journey into the Night 287
Caper of the Week 289
Middle-Aged Fling 290
Maya Deren's Films 292
"The Well-Digger's Daughter" 293
Very Sweet Sixteen 295
Twisted Terry 296
Paranoia Unlimited 297
Nervous from the Service 298
Never Sharp 300
Portrait of the Artist 301
Dixie Corn 303
Stranglers and Toreadors 305
Mugging Main Street 307
1949-1954
Fight Films 313
Home of the Brave 315
John Huston 317
[Devil in the Flesh] 321
[The "Psychiatry Movie"] 323
[Lost Boundaries] 325
[The Great Gatsby] 327
The Third Man 329
Frank Capra 332
["movies are worse than ever"] 334
[The Men; Panic in the Streets] 336
[Sunset Boulevard] 337
Ugly Spotting 339
[Ways of Love; Oliver Twist; Manon; Union Station; etc.] 341
[Born Yesterday; The Magnificent Yankee; Branded; Operation
Disaster] 344
[The Sound of Fury] 345
[Teresa; The Magnet; I'd Climb the Highest Mountain] 347
[Fourteen Hours] 349
Val Lewton 351
[The Thing; The Brave Bulls; The Scarf; The Bullfighter and the Lady; Appointment
With Danger] 354
[A Place in the Sun] 356
[The Frogmen; Ace in the Hole; M; He Ran All the Way] 357
[Strangers on a Train] 359
[Bright Victory; The Well; Take Care of My Little Girl; Night Into
Morning] 361
[That's My Boy; Women Without Names] 362
[Force of Arms] 364
[People Will Talk; Saturday¿s Hero] 366
[A Streetcar Named Desire] 369
[The Red Badge of Courage] 370
Detective Story 372
"Best Films" of 1951 374
[Miracle in Milan; Rashomon; I Want You; Behave Yourself; etc.] 376
[My Son John; The Big Night; On Dangerous Ground] 378
[Boots Malone] 380
[In the Street; High Noon; The Marrying Kind; The Fighter] 382
[Carrie; Outcast of the Islands] 384
[The Sniper; The Pride of Saint Louis] 387
The Gimp 388
[Walk East on Beacon] 398
[Clash By Night] 400
[Pat and Mike; The Ring; Shadow in the Sky] 402
[Don't Bother to Knock, Glory Alley; Olympics newsreels] 404
Parade Floats 406
[The Leopard Man, My Man and I; Young Man with Ideas; Sudden Fear; The Big
Sky; etc.] 410
[Apex Hotel; This Is Cinerama; What Price Glory?; The Happy
Time] 412
[Limelight] 414
[Come Back Little Sheba; The Thief; The Lusty Men; Kansas City Confidential; The
Four Poster] 416
[The Promoter; Park Row; Thunder in the East; O. Henry's Full
House] 418
[The Turning Point; Peter Pan; The Steel Trap; Babes in Bagdad] 420
Blame the Audience 423
[My Cousin Rachel; Above and Beyond; Jeux Interdits] 425
[Best films of 1952] 428
[The Member of the Wedding] 430
[The Little World of Don Camillo; Niagara; Taxi; Curtain Up] 431
[Moulin Rouge] 433
[The Naked Spur; Jeopardy] 435
[Destination Gobi; I Confess; The President¿s Lady; Angel Face] 436
[Off Limits] 438
[Bright Road] 439
[Times Square Audiences; The Moon Is Blue] 440
[Stalag 17; etc.] 442
[3-D Films; Second Chance; The Band Wagon; Night Without Stars;
From Here to Eternity] 444
[From Here to Eternity; The Cruel Sea] 446
[Roman Holiday; The Beggar's Opera] 448
[Martin Luther; Island in the Sky; 99 River Street] 449
[The Robe] 451
[Little Fugitive] 453
[The Joe Louis Story; The Big Heat; Mogambo; etc.] 454
[The Living Desert; How to Marry a Millionaire; The Man
Between] 456
[Movie gimmicks; seven films of 1953] 457
Preston Sturges: Success in the Movies 460
1957-1977
Hard-Sell Cinema 477
Underground Films 486
Nearer My Agee to Thee 497
Bathroom Mirror Sinceratease 500
Hollywood's New Peepshow Naturalism 502
"That's It, Boy. I Mean, That's It." 504
Three Art-y Films 506
Home Screen Jabberwocky 509
Underground Magic, Eccentric Vitality and Artful Direction Salvage
Banal Stories 512
Big-Studio "Supers" - Monumental Art Baked in a Pittsburgh
Blast Furnace 515
Getting Inside "Inside Humor" 519
Hollywood's Plot Against the Plot 522
Compromise in a Closed Medium 524
Wild "Wild Strawberries" 526
Corny Anti-Philistinism 528
Culture With a Price Tag 530
A Director's Skill With Terror, Geography and Truth 532
White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art 533
The Decline of the Actor 542
Nearer My Agee to Thee 550
[The Married Woman] 553
The Wizard of Gauze 555
Pish-Tush 559
The Cold That Came Into the Spy 562
Day of the Lesteroid 566
Lambs Without Mary / Lumet Looms Again 570
The Subverters 573
Rain in the Face, Dry Gulch, and Squalling Mouth 576
[Red Desert; Mademoiselle; A Man and a Woman; Masculine
Feminine] 580
New York Film Festival: 1967 584
Cartooned Hip Acting 588
How I Won the War 592
Experimental Films 596
One-to-One 599
Clutter 602
La Chinoise and Belle de Jour 615
Carbonated Dyspepsia 620
Jean-Luc Godard 626
New York Film Festival: 1968 633
New York Film Festival 1968, Afterthoughts 637
Canadian Underground 642
Films at Canadian Artists '68 647
Shame 651
Howard Hawks 635
[Two Rode Together; Coogan's Bluff; Bullitt; etc.] 658
Luis Buñuel 662
Samuel Fuller 668
New York Film Festival: 1969 671
Don Siegel 675
Michael Snow 678
[Ten best films of 1969] 680
[Loving; Zabriskie Point; Topaz; The Damned; Au Hasard
Balthazar] 684
[Ozu's films] 688
Introduction to Negative Space 691
Raoul Walsh 698
The Venice Film Festival 704
Werner Herzog 711
The New Breed of Filmmakers: A Multiplication of Myths 716
Rainer Werner Fassbinder 721
Nashville: Good Ole Country Porn 727
Nicolas Roeg 731
Badlands, Mean Streets, and The Wind and the Lion 738
New York Film Festival: 1975 745
The Power and the Gory 752
Kitchen Without Kitsch 762
Munich Films, 1967-1977: Ten Years That Shook the Film World 770
APPENDIX
Mrs. Parsons, etc. 773
The Hidden and the Plain 775
Timeline 779
Sources & Acknowledgments 786
Notes 790
Index 799