Like many great artists, Elizabeth Taylor, who died today at the age of 79, peaked at the age of 12. Her first lead performance in National Velvet (1944) inspired the critic James Agee to pen a rhapsodic paean that nowadays might warrant him charges of pedophilia. He starts his review "choked with the peculiar sort of adoration I might have felt if we were both in the same grade of primary school."

I have been reading "Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber," edited by Robert Polito (also contributing an illuminating introduction), which just came out yesterday. Farber is best known for his seminal collection of film essays "Negative Space," but I am finding this more rewarding.