The difference between the two obsessive quests in The Searchers (1956) and French Connection II (1975) is one of quantity: Popeye Doyle’s one goal, revenging himself on the hedonistic narcotics
1. Manny Farber, his goal: "to get himself to disappear. To get the object in question to shimmer with its own unique sense of awe." 2. An improving exercise: Watch a favorite film on DVD at 1/8th
In Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber, editor Robert Polito has included a book proposal written by Farber in the 1970s. The book not written would have been called Munich
The film side of Canadian Artists ’68—an open competition that started with 120 entries and ended with 20 finalists and four prizewinners dividing $6,000— leaves strong impressions, stronger
Directed by Paul Schrader. One of a series of short films inspired by paintings: the director and his relationship with a painter.
For an extremely sensitive and poignant study of life like your own, carrying constantly threatening overtones during this early stage of postwar readjustment, it would be worth your while to see
Greetings, people of Earth. I mean, Manny Farber fans. Over at my blog Some Came Running, I've been looking at Farber's picks and positions on his best films of 1951 (the title of his piece for The Nation
Whenever the modern film-maker feels that his movie has taken too conventional a direction and is neglecting “art,” he need only jerk the Gimp-string, and–behold!–curious and exotic but “psychic”
Much that is wrong with the movies can be blamed on what I call the terrain—the cashier in her glass house, the difficulty of reaching one’s seat, the location of the men’s room, the poor quality
In “Ways of Love” three vignettes directed by three top film makers add up to the year’s best foreign release. Marcel Pagnol’s “Jofroi” is about a senile farmer (Vincent Scotto) who shams suicide
I was going to begin by saying that it would be hard to find two consecutive sentences in the film writings of Manny Farber that do not immediately signal his unmistakable presence. But on trying the
When it comes to major American film critics I am a polytheist; each has his or her sublimities, there is no need to assign rank. That said, the one who fills me most with awe is Manny Farber. There