Manny Farber has died

I still have not read much by Manny Farber, but I have read plenty by critics and writers who revered him (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Rob Nelson, Stuart Klawans, others). Ray Pride wrote this nice obituary that has been referenced in several places.

There are a few good Farber quotations in the piece (including a provocative dig at Hitchcock), but this one is the one that makes me want to start reading him tonight:

One of the joys of moviegoing... is worrying over the fact that what is referred to as Hawks might be [screenwriter] Jules Furthman... and that, when people talk about Bogart’s ‘peculiarly American’ brand of scarred, sophisticated cynicism they are really talking about what Ida Lupino, Ward Bond, or even Stepin Fetchit provided in unmistakable scene-stealing moments.

Amazon.com is all out of copies of Negative Space, by the way.