Wikipedia:Peer review/Barton Fink/archive1

Barton Fink[edit]

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A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for December 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want to take it to FA status. I've very confident about the research and writing components. Copyediting and organizational feedback are especially welcome (although I'm confident on those, too). Thanks! Scartol • Tok 19:05, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whew! Very extensive article you've put together! It is nice to see a film article use books as references. Do you feel that there is not much more to be found in newspaper articles, magazine articles, or academic journals? Also, I am not sure about citing IMDb for the budget... IMDb mainly runs on user submissions. Is the budget not cited elsewhere? Also, I think that the "Themes" section could benefit from an actual screenshot; a symbol of the slave ship would be pretty welcome. I think that the Hitler and Larry King images are a little bit too tangential for the article. Just some initial thoughts... let me know how you feel about other sources as references! —Erik (talk • contrib) 02:01, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about this source... Dunne, Michael (2000). "Barton Fink, intertextuality, and the (almost) unbearable richness of viewing". Literature/Film Quarterly. 28 (4): 303–311. —Erik (talk • contrib) 02:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll look into the Film Quarterly piece. I hunted for newspaper and magazine articles, but mostly found reviews. I can't honestly imagine that they would have info that wasn't later collected into the books I used. (One of them, for example, is a compendium of interviews.) I, too, am uncertain about using IMDB, but a number of other film articles use it, so I figure it's accepted. But maybe not? Scartol • Tok 02:50, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There has actually been an ongoing discussion about it. I think, though, that it would be best to be safe and find an alternative reference. A quick Google search shows this as a good replacement, since you already cite this book in the article. —Erik (talk • contrib) 02:59, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, except that the quote you mention isn't really a specific bit of research. It's just producer Joel Silver talking. (I do use the quote in the article, but only as a bit of an afterthought.) Anyway, I'll scan the books to see if I can get some numbers from them. Thanks for the discussion link – I'll have a look when I have a minute. Scartol • Tok 11:56, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I removed a bit about IMDb forums speculating on the symbolism. We don't report on user opinion. You might as well quote my opinion on the symbolism of the film. You need to stick to professional writers' opinions. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 16:16, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I knew that was on the edge of acceptability; I actually meant to revisit it before moving to article namespace, but must have forgotten. Thanks for removing it. Scartol • Tok 19:18, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was reading the "Plot" section of this article, and there seems to be some switching back and forth with the characters' names. I think it would be better to establish consistency, though I'm not sure if it would be better to use the first name or the surname. —Erik (talk • contrib) 17:24, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another thing I meant to check. I'll try to unify the names, but I do think some characters should be referred to by first names (Charlie is almost always called "Charlie" in the movie) and others by surname (Mayhew, for example). Scartol • Tok 19:18, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also think that some of the images used in the article should be reevaluated. Per WP:IMAGE#Pertinence and encyclopedicity, "Images must be relevant to the article they appear in and be significantly relative to the article's topic." The image of the directors, the filming location, and the actors are fine, in my opinion. I do not think that the Pearl Harbor image, the Hitchcock image, the Hitler image, and the Larry King image are significantly relative to the topic. I am on the fence about the Hollywood sign image and the golem image. I think images are great visual aids for an article, but another approach to break the "wall of text" is to use quoteboxes. You have numerous quotes throughout, so you could put a few in a left-align or right-align quotebox. —Erik (talk • contrib) 17:50, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedian extraordinaire Awadewit, who has constructed more FAs than nearly anyone else around, once said – and I agree – that image captions should provide info not also found in the article text. That said, I agree that images need to relate to the text, and for this reason I'm fine with removing the golem image. Most of the others are all directly connected to the nearby article text. (There's another Larry King quote in "Reception", for instance, and the "Setting" section discusses WWII in depth.) Scartol • Tok 19:18, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I understand what you are trying to do, but I think that the images should be clearly relevant to the film. For example, the images of Pearl Harbor and Hitler are not directly relevant to the film. The circumstances surrounding these images are, so it seems like a hop, skip, and leap away from the topic itself to make these images relevant. The same goes for Larry King... seeing the picture of him, one could assume, wow, he must have really responded to this film, where it looks like it is just one person in a group of people who responded. You know what I mean? Also, I do not have a specific stance on captions... I tend to have an informative caption and a little more substance in the neighboring text (if necessary). Removing the images does not mean the captions can't be used elsewhere. Quoteboxes was just a tangential suggestion, since not all thematic coverage can easily summon an image to illustrate it. —Erik (talk • contrib) 19:29, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree; I think the images of Pearl Harbor and Hitler are directly relevant to the film. The Coens said they specifically chose the onset of WWII as the setting, and the date of 9 December on the clapperboard is a particularly relevant detail in the text. I'm not at all married to the images of the golem or Larry King, but insofar as King is someone prominent who spoke positively about the end of the film, I think it's fair to include an image of him. (Especially since we don't have any free images of Canby or Rosenbaum.) I personally don't care for quoteboxes; they often feel like filler. But if we don't have an option, I suppose they'll have to do. I'm curious to know what others think. Scartol • Tok 15:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would be good to get others' thoughts. At least we are dealing with freely licensed images here! :) I am not trying to force this change, but I do not find as much relevance as you. Maybe others feel differently. —Erik (talk • contrib) 16:40, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am only giving this article a cursory read, but my initial reaction is that this is an excellent example of writing, from both a stylistic and technical level. More to come. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 17:58, 10 December 2008 (UTC).[reply]

Comment: When you use a non-free image, you need critical commentary in the text (not just the caption) to support the image. Otherwise, it just seems like a random image in the section, that may have a good fair-use rationale for, doesn't have a concrete location. There were only 4 that I could tell were non-free, the two comparison images and the soundtrack image. Speaking of, we generally don't include images of soundtracks unless there is commentary on the image itself. I would scrap the mini-infobox, move the links down to the EL section. You've got so many images (free ones at that) in the article, it gets a bit cluttered. Removing the unnecessary album box will give some breather. Might I also suggest moving the "Background and writing" into "Production" as a subsection called "Development". Then put what is already in the Production section under a new subsection of "Filming", as the "Background and writing" was basically their development, which is essentially part of the production of the movie (just not in the literal sense). BIGNOLE (Contact me) 18:18, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I included the soundtrack infobox because it was there when I started, and I always try to preserve as much of the existing article as I can. However, I despise infoboxes and I'm totally fine with eliminating it (along with the soundtrack picture). I don't agree with the suggestions for rearranging the first sections; I think that in the case of Barton Fink the writing process is uniquely relevant, and deserves a section of its own. Moni3 has suggested putting the "Plot" section before "Production", which may help to delineate the differences more clearly. But she hasn't posted an actual review per se, so I'm waiting to see what she says when she does. Scartol • Tok 15:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to take this to FAC you need to take a look at the image placements. Pay particular attention to those that impact upon section headers. See WP:ACCESS#Images for further details. Per WP:DASH, most of those spaced en dashes should be replaced with unspaced em dashes. Steve ^{T • C} 20:11, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand. All of the images are within the section they're meant to illustrate, and there are no left-aligned images just below third-level headers. Was there another part of the WP:ACCESS#Images guidelines I'm missing? As for the en dashes: if you look carefully at WP:DASH, you'll notice that the WP MOS allows spaced en dashes to be used as an alternative to unspaced em dashes. Scartol • Tok 15:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Any luck with the Literature/Film Quarterly resource? I actually printed out this article for some reading and copy-editing, but I just recycled all my white papers this morning. :( I will have to re-print the article and see if there are any suggestions I can make. Definitely want to pick up this film with all this published depth, though! —Erik (talk • contrib) 13:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]