"[4] Farber's writing was distinguished by its "visceral," punchy style[1] and inventive approach towards language;[5] amongst other things, he is credited with coining the term "underground film" in 1957,[1] 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.
[6] Farber's painting, which was often influenced by his favorite filmmakers,[1] is held in equally high regard; he was dubbed the greatest still life painter of his generation by The New York Times.
[1] Emanuel Farber was born in Douglas, Arizona, where his father, from Vilna, Lithuania,[7] owned a dry goods store,[8] as the youngest of three brothers.
[6][1] After Farber's family moved to Vallejo, California in 1932, Faber enrolled at UC Berkeley for his first-year, before transferring to Stanford University.
In 1970, Farber left New York City to teach and to join the faculty of department of visual arts at the University of California, San Diego.
In it, the reader sensed a mind that loved film-going enough to hold filmmakers accountable for their efforts with the same elevated combination of annoyance and appreciation formerly only accorded to playwrights, classical and jazz musicians, and fine artists.
"[9]Farber's writing is well known for its distinctive prose style,[1] which he personally described as "a struggle to remain faithful to the transitory, multisuggestive complication of a movie image.
He 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.
"Termite-tapeworm-fungus-moss art," Farber contends, "goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, like as not, leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity.
Towards the end of his life, he found it difficult to paint, and instead focused on collages and drawings; his final exhibition of new work occurred just a month before his death.