Ken Tucker’s Pop Culture

It was inevitable, but is no less scary…

It’s nice to have one’s prose appreciated by both the Best American poetry blog, and, now, England’s Guardian newpaper.

Variety reports that the CW isn’t going to send out advance copies of 90210 before its Sept. 2 premiere. Some TV critics are already whining about this. Here’s my take.

Manny Farber, one of the 20th century’s greatest critics and a powerful painter, has died at age 91. Notice I didn’t just say “film critic”—Farber wrote primarily about the movies, but his collection of film criticism Negative Space is essential to understanding all modern, non-academic criticism. Farber established a tone, cleared a patch of cultural landscape, and filled it with more ideas, opinions, and attitude than a thousand reviewers and bloggers–not just in the movie genre but in music, television, book, and art criticism–will ever muster.
With the exception of Pauline Kael, Farber was probably the movie critic other movie critics most often quoted, particularly his hugely influential 1962 essay “White Elephant Art Vs. Termite Art,” which came as close to anything he wrote to boiling down his critical creed. In that piece, Farber positioned himself ferociously against what he called the “self-aggrandizing masterwork” that “treat[s] every inch of the screen and film as a potential area for prizeworthy creativity.” In opposition to this he championed “termite art,” which “goes always forward eating its own boundaries… leav[ing] nothing in its path other than signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity.”
At a time when crap nostalgia is routinely praised with unthinking effusiveness, it’s harder now to appreciate how daring and emboldening it was to read Farber’s championing of supposedly minor work such as the then-ignored Westerns of director Budd Boetticher and the face-slamming camera-work of director Sam Fuller.
As the years went by, Farber began writing less and painting more: many of them beautiful, bright-color still-lifes of everything from flowers to overhead views of toy train-track assemblies. Farber could paint the contents of a messy writer’s table with an unsentimental clarity that could move a viewer to tears. Surely some worthy appreciator of Farber—Dave Hickey or Sanford Schwartz, say—should write a book-length study of Farber’s artwork.
Others will write longer, better pieces than this one about Farber’s centrality in American criticism; these are merely my immediate reactions.
Taped to my wall is a quote from Farber that captures his pugnacity, clear-eyed romanticism, and inspirational fervor as well as anything:
“I get a great laugh from artists who ridicule the critics as parasites and artists manqués—such a horrible joke. I can’t imagine a more perfect art form, a more perfect career than criticism. I can’t imagine anything more valuable to do.”
Not many critics could—or would dare to—say such a thing today. One more reason why Farber will remain forever invaluable.
–Ken Tucker

One purpose of a blog: self-promotion.

Therefore: You can now pre-order my new book “Scarface Nation: The Ultimate Gangster Movie  And How It Changed America” now.

(I know, the subtitle is cringy overstatement. The book is a little better than that, I promise.)

(Can you tell I’m not at ease with self-promotion?)