Talk:Arthur Melbourne-Cooper

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Thank you very much for these pages ! You don´t know how I appreciate this and how many lies still must be fought away. Most people in my country know nothing about motion-picture film pioneers or that little Edison crap. I was taught wrongly at Zürich university during my film studies between 1982 and 1991. 80.219.135.92 18:52, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

This entry on Cooper is incorrect. He did not invent animation movies in 1899 and did not invent the interpolated close-up in 1900. The animation film of matches is probably WW1, and it was GA Smith, not M-C, who made 'Grandma's Reading Glass'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.47.247.133 (talk) 01:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to hear more about this! I never heard of that Match film before, I always read of Blackton (his "Humpty Dumpty" cartoon, which I've never seen or read much about, is stop-motion dated 1898, so is BEFORE "Matches appeal") and Cohl as the first animation filmmakers (even though Reynaud is the first, no contest, but didn't use film as Cinema wasn't invented yet, only Kinetoscope existed). If there's doubt about that film, it's should be made clear. (76.69.181.34 (talk) 01:41, 10 August 2008 (UTC))

This is all near-total nonsense about M-C's achievements. You've now removed the section mentioning Barry Salt, so have turned this entry into an even more hagiographic and mendacious account of M-C. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.51.143.122 (talk) 13:43, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Disputes

The following paragraph from the article:

However these claims are based a) on the assumption that films which are widely acknowledged as having been made by George Albert Smith (inventor) were in fact shot by Melbourne-Cooper as well as b) the dubious dating of his animation film Matches: An Appeal. These claims are strongly disputed by many film historians and Barry Salt describes in his book Moving Into Pictures how Melbourne-Cooper's daughter tried to convince people at the BFI through tireless lobbying, claiming that a vast part of the early British films were made by her father and being taken seriously by nobody. Therefore some of the following descriptions are at least debatable especially since this article was written by an author who supported the theories of Melbourne-Cooper's daughter and unsurprisingly never mentions here any of the criticism his theories have faced.

was sourced solely to a blog ("They thought it was a marvel". The Bioscope. Thebioscope.net. 2010-02-05. Retrieved 2012-10-10.) and was in any case in severe violation of WP:NPOV, WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. I have therefore removed it. We need to much more clearly show what the various viewpoints on Arthur Melbourne-Cooper and his accomplishments are, and who holds them. We must not editorialize in Wikipedia's voice as with adverbs like "supposedly". DES ^(talk) 17:57, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

the following text is copied from User talk:DESiegel

You seem to have edited the Arthur Melbourne-Cooper page even closer to how Tjitte de Vries wants it to be! And closer to how AMC's propagandist daughter, Audrey Wadowska, would want it to be.

De Vries thinks Melbourne-Cooper was an important pioneer who made 'Grandma's Reading Glass', when we know it was made by GA Smith; and who made 'Matches Appeal' in 1900 when it is clear that it was made during WW1.

Oh well, leave it wrong then! But have you considered looking at articles in 'Film History' journal, which deny the false claims for AMC? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.205.149.174 (talk) 19:28, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

What I did, as I stated on Talk:Arthur Melbourne-Cooper, in this edit was to remove OR and SYNTH content cited only to a blog post. This was in the nature of clearing underbrush so that a better article could be built. It was not in the least intended to be a final version. Now if you (or someone) can cite to the book mentioned in that blog post, and if you clearly attribute opinions instead of editorializing in Wikipedia's voice, perhaps the article can be gotten into better shape. Also, if you want Film History used as a source, please give full cites, and a link if the content is available online. I am going to copy this to the article talk page, which is the proper venue for discussion the article. DES ^(talk) 20:23, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

end copied text

I am surprised that this article is the subject of so much controversy. I am also surprised to see that it is still totally lacking in citations. Please, instead of reverted one anothers' edits, devote your efforts to finding reputable published sources which support (or persuade you to abandon) the claims made in the article. There seems to be plenty of relevant material, listed at the bottom of the article, but currently cited nowhere in it. Maproom (talk) 23:46, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

New Version

I have just removed the issues tags from the beginning of this article after completing an almost total re-write. The original version was written by an independent researcher who had just published a book on the subject and judging from his talk page lacked any understanding of Wikipedia. The text was from what I have seen largely lifted word for word from his book (accessible on librarun.org), was full of controversial original research and was un-referenced; for this reason I would not recommend reverting the edits and putting back the original text, but rather finding a secondary source that corroborates it and then inserting it properly referenced. This is what I have tried to do in my reversion. Mutt (talk) 20:07, 5 July 2015 (UTC)