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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Greed (film)/archive2

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 00:42, 23 July 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Greed (film)

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Greed (film) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Deoliveirafan (talk) 04:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because it did not receive much feedback when it was recently nominated and I think that it is qualified to be FA. Deoliveirafan (talk) 04:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support (except 1a and 1c) As in the previous FAC, I support this article. However, I do not possess professional lvel of English skills, so I am not commenting on 1a. For an user with advanced level of English, the article is quite engaging, and lucid. I did not verify the references; so unable to comment on criterion 1c. Otherwise, the article is very nice, has a fascinating lead. It aroused in me a real interest in this exceptional film. Nice work, regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 20:26, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    • "On April 10, 1924 the Goldwyn Company officially merged with Metro Pictures..." On this day a merger agreement was signed. Official merger of the Metro, Goldwyn and Mayer companies took place a week later, on April 17.
    • "In 1926 a British foundation of Arts and Sciences requested a copy of the original version of Greed to keep in their archive, but their request was denied." Denied by whom? MGM? El Matador (talk) 19:45, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe it's just me, but there is a sentence that is way too long (in the myths section): "These "sightings" include claims that a copy existed in a vault in South America that was only screened once a year for invited guests on New Year's Eve, that a copy in the possession of a Texan millionaire was sold to Henri Langlois of Cinémathèque Française, that a film society in Boston held a private screening of a print found by a World War II veteran in Berlin from a tip by Emil Jannings, that David Shepherd of the American Film Institute had found a copy at a garage sale, that the head of a film society in Redwood City, CA owned "the longest existing version of Greed (purchased in Europe)" and that Benito Mussolini owned a personal copy (which was reported by von Stroheim himself)." Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 12:01, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support All my knowledge of Greed comes from watching a documentary narrated by James Mason. I found the article fascinating. Some points:
    • Does the legacy section have to have five paragraphs in a row starting with "In (year)," ?
    • I don't think that it is really clear that when shooting a film, you normally shoot the same scene multiple times, from different angles, and edit them together. Even without retakes, the footage shot will be several times the length of the finished film.
Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:39, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comment -- Will need to see image and source reviews, requests for which I'll list at WT:FAC. Deoliveirafan, this'd be your first FAC (round 2 for the same article, of course)? In that case I'd also like to see a reviewer carry out a spotcheck of sources for accuracy and avoidance of close paraphrasing. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:24, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Image review
    • Poster (File:Greed3.jpg): has Fair Use tag.
    • File:Greed, 1924, 12 scale.jpg, File:Greed, 1924, 19 epilogo.jpg,File:Greed, 1924, 05 passaggio del carro funebre in profondità di campo.jpg, File:Greed, 1924, 06 banchetto.jpg,File:Greed, 1924, 10.1 rapacità.jpg: Says that it was published without a copyright tag, which seems incorrect, as the movie did have a copyright tag. But image is on Commons, so none of our business here.
    • File:Erich Von Stroheim 1 Motion Picture Classic 1920.png US work from 1920, so copyright expired (public domain) in the US.

Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:13, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Oppose for now, but not far off. The article is very interesting. Humorously enough, I've been sitting on a digital copy of the 1999 TCM restoration for about two years and just haven't gotten around to watching it. I suppose I will now! Anyway, the article is very good but needs some work on fit and finish. There are also some consistency issues and awkward grammatical turns. Where I've mentioned examples below, please check the whole article for other similar problems.
  • Why the mixture of referring to characters by first name ("Marcus") and last name ("McTeague") in the lead? I note later you start referring to Marcus as "Schouler".
  • The difference between the terms "editing" and "re-editing" in the lead is unclear.
  • "The uncut version has been called the 'holy grail' of film archivists" How is the uncut version an "archivist"?
  • The blue quote boxes create a lot of visual noise. Why the color?
  • The "Cast" section has quite a bizarre layout: three columns, none wide enough to avoid wrapping. Is this consistent with other film FAs? I've looked at a couple and I don't see anything like this.
  • The use of slashes to join two words violates MoS ("Maria/Zerkow sub-plot", etc.). An en dash is more appropriate for this usage, although it will look strange with the later hyphen. Needs attention.
  • Why link terms like "screen extra" but not "production assistant"? I'd say readers are just as likely not to know the definition of the latter.
  • "albeit one with a reputation to go over budget and over schedule" Grammar
  • "By this time Von Stroheim had been offered contracts with other film studios, with a number of offers having come in even before he was fired." What is the word "with" doing?
  • The whole article needs review for compliance with WP:MOSNUM. Hodgepodge of "would be completed in fourteen weeks", "5 reel short film", etc. And shouldn't it be "five-reel"?
  • Awkward: "To preserve authenticity, von Stroheim had no sets built in San Francisco"
  • There are some half-marathon sentences throughout like this: "Another point where von Stroheim conceded his initial vision came during shooting of the bar confrontation between McTeague and Schouler; there, the director's desire for authenticity in having a knife thrower actually throw a real knife at Gibson Gowland's head was overruled by Gowland himself, who refused to allow such a dangerous stunt, and so a special effect shot was used instead." Please go through and break these up.
  • Penchant for the vague "this" in many places: "He continued to use this for the Death Valley scenes with a harmonium and violin player." This what?
  • "Soviet-style editing"?
  • Mixture of "Norris'" and "Norris's". Also "Mathis'". Please decide on a style.
  • "June Mathis was ordered to cut it down further and assigned an editor named Joseph Farnham to the job." The pairing of "was ordered" and "assigned" is pretty awkward. I spotted similar in other places on the page. Why not remove the passive voice and awkward verb pairing with something like: "The studio ordered June Mathis to cut it down further; she assigned the job to an editor named Joseph Farnham."
  • "In May 1926 Greed was released in Berlin, where its premiere famously caused a riot" Explain?
  • The 1999 version that aired on TCM was kind of a big deal among fans of the film—I think it warrants more than a brief mention. There must be other sources that talk about Schmidlin's process. Why do you put the term "recreate" in quotes? The term is not even used in the source provided.
Nice job. --Laser brain (talk) 14:48, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source spot-check (Note: I do not have access to any of the book sources, so using whatever I can find.)
  • Ref 94:
  • Article text: "MGM executives screened Greed at full length once to meet contractual obligations. Idwal Jones, a San Francisco critic, attended the all-day screening and wrote that while some of the film's scenes were compelling, Stroheim's desire that 'every comma of the book [be] put in' was ultimately negative.
  • Source text: Contains given quotation and supports context of its use.
  • Ref 108:
  • Article text: "Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times gave the film a mostly positive review in regards to the acting and directing while criticising how it was edited, writing that MGM 'clipped this production as much as they dared ... and are to be congratulated on their efforts and the only pity is that they did not use the scissors more generously in the beginning.'"
  • Source text: Contains given quotation and supports claim.
  • Ref 110:
  • Article text: "The April 20, 1925 edition of The Montreal Gazette claimed it 'impresses as a powerful film' and described the 'capacity audience' screening as 'one of the few pictures which are as worthy of serious consideration...which offer a real and convincing study of life and character and that secure their ends by artistic and intellectual means rather than by writing down to the level of the groundlings.' The review went on to describe the direction as 'masterly,' citing 'its remarkable delineation of character development and the subtle touches which convey ideas through vision rather than the written word, an all too-rare employment of the possibilities of the cinema play as a distinct branch of art capable of truthful and convincing revelation and interpretation of life's realities.'"
  • Source text: Contains given quotations and supports claims.
  • Ref 119:

Closing comments - This nomination has been running for a long time and I have decided to archive it. The reviews have generated many useful critical comments that should be addressed before re-nominating after the usual two weeks have passed. Graham Colm (talk) 18:21, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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