Talk:Diner (1982 film)

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Detailed plot summary

A user added a detailed plot summary yesterday from here, a version dug up from 2008. It was removed. That 2008 content was the only edit the original creator ever made, so could be a copyvio, but I can't find it.

The user feels that the detailed plot summary is better than what is in the article now. Thoughts?

The posts that led me here:

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:06, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's a copyvio whether or not it was lifted from somewhere else, because it's too just detailed. Fair use allows summarization and description, but when you get to the level of detail of that enormous hunk of material, you start infringing on the rights of the copyright holder to make derivative works. Add to that that such a long plot summary unbalances the article, and it's just not going to fly. Someone can restore it if they like, but I guarantee another editor will come along to remove it on the same grounds that I did -- it just might take a while until someone notices.

Anyway, we have a bunch of guidelines which cover this: WP:PLOT, WP:Manual of Style (writing_about_fiction)#Plot summaries and WP:JUSTPLOT is helpful as well. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:12, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I've never seen a user prepare content like that and add it as a single edit, and never edit again. But so far, we can't prove it's a copyvio. As for adding to the article, I agree with you there too. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:53, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well one big problem as far as finding plot info. on this particular story is that this film was not adapted from a novel. Parts of the dialogue were even improvised-so the film itself is the primary reference and contains the plot, unlike an adaptation where it would be a lot easier to find summaries.
Since the film is pretty fresh in my mind, I will say that what I re-posted was not a scene-by-scene derivative work, like many other plot synopsis I have seen on WP, it seemed to be trying to organize some of the key moments in the story on a day-by-day basis. -But there were many scenes left-out. It could use some work, unfortunately on WP, I wouldn't be surprised if many editors took that to mean that they needed to ADD the parts that are not included lol. I have been studying the MOS as it applies to writing film plots, and I think that there are a couple of things that need to be considered. Most importantly is that this film was an Oscar nominee, and won some notable awards, so I think that it's reason for having an article beyond a stub or so is established. Also, I checked the page views--what I would consider "a lot" and consistently "a lot".
Personally, I would never want to write what I would consider a derivative plot summary, and I would grudgingly also consider that summary derivative, but I also consider the bulk of the plot sections that I read on WP as derivative in the strictest sense. And compared to the majority of plots that I have read on WP, this one in my opinion is not "as"-derivative/infringing as most of them. Maybe I've been looking at a lot of film plots that are public domain, since I look up a lot of older films ('30s era) ???? I don't know. But I do know that when I look-up an extensively detailed plot I usually get a lot out of it as a WP user and reader, especially if I have missed a part of the film or if I have literally, "lost the plot" while watching a movie. Plots are very useful to readers and I have never read one that caused me to not watch a movie or stop watching one. Sometimes being lost while watching a movie is enough to make me want to stop watching but a detailed WP plot usually can help me to get on track. I guess what I am saying is that although I can't abide copyright violations, I just don't feel like the copyright holder gets anything but a "win" as far as detailed plot summaries are concerned here. And as far as Diner is concerned, the film's timeline was pretty choppy so I really appreciated the clues that were in the missing summary.Housewifehader (talk) 08:51, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Intriguing thread here and on your individual Talk pages. Thanks to you all! –
– Gareth Griffith-Jones |The Welsh Buzzard|— 14:49, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(See correction yes i am confused sorry)Housewifehader (talk) 16:52, 1 August 2013 (UTC)Just for the record, I have a completely different way of looking at things and comprehension than the editor who deleted the plot summary here.(not a bad thing because WP has many different people looking at it). That editor and myself have been going back and forth over another film article The Secret in Their Eyes which by the way has an extensively detailed plot, (and I would say for a good reason the film is in Spanish with sub-titles, and a confusing plot)----In that case, maybe it was stupid of myself not to get what was being said in the lede, but as a reader, I did not understand what was being said because of the way it was edited.[reply]
But even in this film's instance. I noticed that their ideas about what "derivative'-works means is different from what I think of when applying it to editing cautions. Also, I wasn't sure exactly what the complaint is here. Throwing, "That plot is TOO descriptive-could violate ©", well, I think that The Secret in Their Eyes is a perfect example of another film entry here that is detailed, so I don't appreciate the mixed-message. And i also don't like to delve into Wiki-lawyering. How is it "wrong" possible © VIO for one film article, but on the "rest" of WP, it is not? I really wish that the objectors would have just said what it was that they did not like about the edit.
Possibly was it that the summary was written in "non-encyclopedic" tone? Yes it was a little different that many plots here, and first-person was used. When I found it, although I did notice those things which could be objections, I weighed that against a reader not having the detailed plot info. that so many readers expect.
And it was my hope that if an editor objected that they would fix the things that they did not like, but leave the plot-clues intact.
If I had not now had the deleting editor make changes on two film articles that I have edited, I would not be thinking that a double-standard is being applied here on Diner. If that editor had blanked the entire (what I see as "derivative" but that is just how i see it), plot of The Secret in Their Eyes----I would not be wondering about that. I can try to fix the deleted Diner plot and repost it, but I will need some better suggestions about exactly what is "wrong" with it instead of a wholesale blanking please
.Housewifehader (talk) 16:47, 1 August 2013 (UTC) CORRECTION--it is not the same editor! sorry about that but the two film plots describe my problem. Sorry i got them mixed-up, it happensHousewifehader (talk) 16:50, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is sad and disappointing. Instead of taking an overly long plot section and summarizing it -- thereby solving both the length and slight possibility of entirely unproven copyvio -- editors thought reverting to an incomplete plot section was the better thing to do. -- 109.76.203.83 (talk) 03:06, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

it's redundant to mention it's a film

All film articles have the film title in the article title, so the redundancy is expected, while only some film articles say in the title that it's a film. The cases are not the same and it's common sense that it doesn't need to be mentioned twice. The guidelines wouldn't mention this exception because the editors are expected to know that the guidelines are not rules but just a guide. Similarly, it is permitted to mention that a work is a film in the second sentence, too. It's just a guideline. --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:01, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that "drama", "comedy" and "thriller" stand up on their own as descriptive nouns. The word "film" invariably soon follows in the text on its own. –
– Gareth Griffith-Jones |The Welsh Buzzard|— 15:11, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) @RingCinema: You are incorrect that "all articles have the film title in the article title", as that is the case only for those that need disambiguation from another article, such as the one for the source material for the film (book, play, etc.) As for redundancy, it doesn't enter into it: the film's title is redundant (it's always in the article title, and the release year of the film is redundant when the year appears as a disambiguation term, but that's all irrelevant. As explicated in WP:LEAD:

The lead section ... serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important aspects. ... The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources, and the notability of the article's subject is usually established in the first few sentences. Apart from trivial basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article.

By definition, the lede, and especially the lede sentence, should provide a concise overview of the most important aspects of the subject matter, and it cannot be denied that being a film is one of the very most basic aspects of every movie, therefore it must be mentioned in the lede. Leaving it out because it appears in the title of the article just doesn't make much sense, and doesn't serve our readers well. If anyone can point to a general consensus discussion that allows this practice, I will, of course, acquiesce, but in the meantime, absent that, removing "film" from the lede seems to me to be unhelpful and pedantic. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:20, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also, please read WP:BRD, your "Bold" edit was "Reverted" by me, so the next step (this one) is "Discussion", not continued reversion. The article stays in the status quo ante until a consensus has been reached. Please do not revert again. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:20, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've posted a neutral pointer to this discussion on WT:FILM. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:31, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can understand what Ring Cinema is saying. To use another example, the term "psychological thriller film" is a mouthful when "psychological thriller" suffices, particularly when the context is easily discerned. (I researched the topic a while ago and noticed the three-word term not being common.) The fact that this article is disambiguated with the term "(film)" makes the context more obvious. I don't have strong feelings for either approach, though. What about using the term "film" in the second sentence? For example, "Diner is a 1982 comedy-drama written and directed by Barry Levinson. The film is Levinson's screen directing debut and the first of his four 'Baltimore films'..." EDIT: I see that Ring Cinema suggested mentioning "film" in the second sentence too. I'm fine with that approach. Erik (talk | contribs) 16:02, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Erik, long time no see. I would find your compromise acceptable. I'd prefer that "film" bein the lede sentence, but at the beginning of the second sentence of the lede would be OK. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:54, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WP:OBVIOUS. State it. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 16:34, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, just taking a general view, the medium is an important detail to include, and I see a lot of this on articles where a disambiguator doesn't come to the rescue. As for being redundant, the entire lead is technically redundant (or supposed to be), although I suspect Ring's real objection here is not so much the redundancy but rather it doesn't quite flow as a conventional language description. I think rejigging the sentence in line with Erik's suggestion is a workable compromise. Betty Logan (talk) 22:57, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Erik's suggestion is good, Betty's point is also true. Only on Wikipedia is reference made to a "thriller film" or a "Western film". Normally, it's understood that readers will get the medium from the context. Some things actually are too obvious to mention. Which articles are about films is usually too obvious but not always. Second sentence is a great place to reinforce the idea if someone seriously has a question about it and it doesn't torture the language. --Ring Cinema (talk) 01:46, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It would appear that we are in agreement. I have made the revision as detailed above. –
– Gareth Griffith-Jones |The Welsh Buzzard|— 10:15, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see I have come late to the party and a consensus seems to have been reached, but let me offer a dissenting view for what it's worth. The basic form for the first sentence of the article should be "X is a Y", where X is the name of the work and Y is the kind of work it is. So "Diner is a film" is the bare-boned version of the first sentence. Adding the year, nationality, type of film, and who wrote and directed it are all fine, but they are extras in the first sentence. The name and type of work are essentials. To say that the word "film" is redundant because it appears in the name of the article makes as much sense as saying that "Diner" is redundant in the first sentence because it, too, is in the title, so the first sentence could start with the pronoun "It".

If you look at other articles of significant works in other fields, you will see no fear of redundancy. The opening sentence for Ulysses (novel) begins "Ulysses is a novel...." For the article Help! (song) the first sentence starts "'Help!' is a song...." For the article M*A*S*H (TV series) the first sentence starts "M*A*S*H is an American television series...." So if the clause "Diner is a 1982 American comedy-drama film" is thought to be too much of a mouthful (although I don't think it is), remove the year, nationality, or genre and mention them in subsequent sentences. But not the word "film". It's the most basic and essential piece of information and so should be in the first sentence. 99.192.52.199 (talk) 02:56, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I thought about that argument and agree it has some validity, but I rejected it for two reasons. First, there is no other reasonable subject for the first sentence. Repeating that an article that says it's about a film is about a film seems like the definition of redundancy (per The Department of Redundancy Department). Secondly, if the first sentence said "Diner is a film, etc.," the language wouldn't be tortured to accommodate a dubious guideline and I'd have no problem with it. So if the genre were moved to the second sentence, that, too would be good style. --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:46, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And yet Barton Fink states "Barton Fink is a 1991 American satirical black comedy film written, directed, and produced by the Coen brothers". It's a Featured Article. And it's on today's Front Page too. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 06:43, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that particular bit has been copy-edited for the Main Page... I think we should take a closer look at these opening sentences. It doesn't reflect well on the Film project when we have a featured article on the front page that mangles the English language in the very first sentence. Betty Logan (talk) 07:06, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Betty, there is nothing "mangled" about the language of that sentence. It is well-formed and very economical in reporting all the information it contains. I would suggest that the alternative of putting each fact in a separate sentence is far, far worse: "Barton Fink is a 1991 film. It is American. It is satirical. It is a black comedy. It was written, directed, and produced by the Coen brothers." Multiple or complex descriptions in a single sentence are not problematic. For example, "The suspect is 6'3", white, medium build, in his mid 30s, and wearing a red shirt and blue jeans." But even if you thought that there were too many descriptors for one sentence in the Barton Fink intro, the solution is certainly not to remove the word "film" from the sentence, as has been the subject of discussion here about Diner. In fact, if the sentence is really thought to be too complex then just about anything but the word "film" should be moved to a subsequent sentence. But the sentence is perfectly fine as is. There is nothing "mangled" about it. 99.192.65.245 (talk) 13:04, 13 August 2013 (UTC) (=99.192.52.199)[reply]

What I'm saying is that people don't really talk like that: while you may refer to a "horror film" or an "action film" or "science-fiction film", people don't tend to say "comedy film", or "drama film" or "thriller film", so it doesn't really read well when we utilise the written word in a way people don't speak. There is no reason to go from one extreme to the other either. That opening paragraph can be more naturally written as something like "Barton Fink is an American film released in 1991. It is a satirical black comedy set in 1941 written, directed, and produced by the Coen brothers. It stars John Turturro in the title role as a young New York City playwright who is hired to write scripts for a film studio in Hollywood, and John Goodman as Charlie, the insurance salesman who lives next door at the run-down Hotel Earle." You get all the same information just over two sentences, but phrased more conventionally. Anyway, Barton Fink isn't really relevant to this article, I'm just illustrating a point. Betty Logan (talk) 18:55, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Betty, If you google the phrases "comedy film" and "drama film" you will find they are far more commonly used terms than you might think. Having said that, your suggested rewrite for Barton Fink looks fine to me. And it is actually relevant to this article (or this discussion of the article) because your suggested fix did exactly what I suggested: Leave the word "film" in the opening sentence and move some descriptions of the film to a subsequent sentence. So following your example as a model, the opening for this article could read: "Diner is an American film released in 1982. Written and directed by Barry Levinson, the comedy-drama is Levinson's screen directing debut, and the first of his four "Baltimore films", which include the subsequent Tin Men (1987), Avalon (1990) and Liberty Heights (1999)." This would allow the first sentence to report the most important piece of information: That Diner is a film. 99.192.92.64 (talk) 01:08, 14 August 2013 (UTC) (=99.192.52.199)[reply]

I don't think Betty was referring to these phrases. To better define the matter, I think it has to do with descriptors that are both adjectives and nouns. For Barton Fink, "black comedy film" is a mouthful because we can call it a black comedy, full stop. One cannot do that with "science fiction" or "body horror". I would say that "comedy" and "thriller" are the two terms that can also be treated as nouns also. For example, "screwball comedy" and "psychological thriller". To attach "film" to these makes the overall descriptor a bit convoluted. But per WP:OBVIOUS, we want to make it clear in the first or second sentence that it is a film. A trickier setup would be "musical"; we would want to state "musical film" because otherwise "musical" by itself implies something not cinematic. Erik (talk | contribs) 01:47, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Erik, she used those phrases as her examples in her opening sentence, so it seems pretty clear that she was talking about them. But further, you cannot say "X is a drama" and it be clear just what X is. Is it a film, a play, a TV series, or a novel? All of those things can be dramas. The same is true for "X is a comedy." But my main point is that it is nearly universal for film articles (or TV series articles or song articles or novel articles or actor articles or band articles) to use the word "film (or "series" or "song" or "novel" or "actor" or "band") in the first sentence. So if something has to be pushed to a subsequent sentence, it should be the genre, not the basic identification of what the subject of the article is. 99.192.92.64 (talk) 02:22, 14 August 2013 (UTC) (=99.192.52.199)[reply]

If it is nearly universal and it's bad, then it's nearly universally bad. The beginning of the problem is the unfortunate guideline suggesting that the genre and medium must be in the first sentence. What's the rush? I find it particularly ironic that we're discussing the matter in this context. Since it is obvious that No Country for Old Men (the film) is a film, it shows how unfortunately doctrinaire editors become about mere guidelines -- at the expense of minimally readable prose. Even a reasonable exception is pounced upon as the violation of an important principle. It's clumsy style unworthy of even a poor writer and not worth defending. --Ring Cinema (talk) 03:23, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't read any of the above. I did read the beginning of the article lead. The word "film" is claringly, and annonyingly absent in the first sentence. There are mini-series and tv shows, etc. and despite "(film)" in the article title, the lede sentence really needs the word "film" to make it immediately clear.

Just my two cents. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:33, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Missed it by two words! --Ring Cinema (talk) 03:41, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Let me add that to me it makes more sense to cover the genre later. --Ring Cinema (talk) 03:43, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Two words? And yes, fine, cover the genre in the second sentence. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:40, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Plot

That was Modell who gave the heartfelt speech at the end of the film. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.122.216.158 (talk) 02:34, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]