Talk:The Cranes Are Flying

Synopsis

I just watched the movie, and the synopsis here was very inaccurate, and missing big chunks of the story. I wrote a new, accurate summary. It was reverted by another user, who said I needed a "source." What source can there be other than the movie, which I was watching as I wrote the summary? I have never seen a source cited for any movie summary anywhere on Wikipedia. The movie itself is clearly the source. User:Jamesluckard (talk) 10:30, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

The rules here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Film#Plot clearly state that no source needs to be cited for a synopsis, the movie itself is the source. User:Jamesluckard (talk) 10:40, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Jamesluckard, thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia! You are correct about film plots not needing a source, and I have reverted the previous edit so that your synopsis is restored. However, the current synopsis is too long: the link you included above states that plots should be between 400 and 700 words, and yours is 1,303 words long. I don't have time to shorten it myself right now, so if you can do that it would be helpful. But if not I can probably shorten it sometime this week. Thanks again! --Secundus Zephyrus (talk) 15:34, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

No problem, I'll work on shortening it right now. Thanks!. User:Jamesluckard (talk) 19:29, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I got it down to 696 words. :) User:Jamesluckard (talk) 20:47, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! --Secundus Zephyrus (talk) 16:47, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Cleanup? NPOV?

The article speaks in first person and addresses the reader. Also contains perhaps too many emotionalities. Emotional text can be subtle, but this is coarse. Contained many typos. In addition, the language is unprofessional (very much resembles an amateurish review), therefore unencyclopedic. -Mardus 12:49, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong in addressing in first person? (don't tell me about academic traditions, just quote from WP:MOS, which does not completely precludes "we", by the way). And the topic described is emotional. Subtle/coarse is POV. And it is not a review but plot summary you are referring to. `'mikka (t) 17:25, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to draw attention to the fact that using the second person ("you") is discouraged in articles, so as to keep encyclopedic tone. See WP:MOS#Avoid the second person.

• I do know that it is the plot summary that I had in mind then.
• Subtle/coarse is indeed my view.

• The use of "we" here is not particularly good, because not all people have seen the movie, thus it would be better to substitute

"We are introduced to a Soviet family ..." with "The viewer is ..." (or in plural).

Neither would anyone want to identify with the person who wrote the plot summary, no matter how much they'd likely wish otherwise. -Mardus 23:02, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

In addition, if anyone is looking for a professional review, look for a Fujiwara essay linked in the article. -Mardus 13:24, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

If anyone is looking for, they wil find it. What's the point? `'mikka (t) 17:25, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The point is that the current plot synopsis and a thinly veiled opinion of the movie is sub-par, which is why I suggested the external review. An encyclopedic entry is not supposed to opinionate (as opinions may contain bias, whether right or wrong), but inform, in order for the reader to make up his/her own mind about this movie. -Mardus 23:02, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem with articles about books, films, etc. is that it is very difficult to draw a line between original research and copyright violation. Formally, in wikipedia one has to describe opinions of known critics rather than to write own essay. Plot summary would be an exception: a summary is a summary is a summary. And writing about an inappropriate tone of a summary is questionable. In my opinion the tone here is OK. Way better than the event-list style: "He kicked his ass, boinked her, got his own ass kicked and bought himself a big gun." `'mikka (t) 17:25, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

That said, I don't particularly protect the current version. I merely disagree with the tag "cleanup-tone": the descriptive part has no serious tone problems, and the plot summary is the matter of taste, which differ: just the same I may criticize the plot summary in our "Master and Margarita" in long lengths. `'mikka (t) 17:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The issue is rather that the tone of the article and especially the plot summary is both over-the-top subjective and overly emotional — therefore not encyclopedic. I could have instead added the __tone-cleanup__ tag instead, which is most neutral.

Adding to that, in some countries, film plot descriptions are under copyright.

Gone With the Wind (film), Der Untergang, Apocalypse Now are some of the better examples of explaining film synopses, IMO. -Mardus 23:02, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Stepan's lines at the end of the film

Stepan makes a speech asserting that they will never forget those who died in the war, but peace must be maintained.

When in late 2006 I saw the movie in the cinema, I remember Stepan saying either that they'd never forget those who died in the war, or instead words of hope that this kind of war would never happen ever again (or both). I wonder which was it... Granted, audio quality of the picture wasn't very good, because the film was so old and the theatre was not a cinema theatre either... -Mardus 22:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I remember the speech, and my memory is like Mardus': that he says this should never happen again. But what the camera is doing is something quite different, as I recall. The girl has come to the station with a bunch of flowers, sort of a last desperate hope of finding that her boyfriend is not dead, that he will get off the train. She looks and looks, but then it becomes clear that he's not going to miraculously show up. What she does then, is give the flowers away, just to any of the soldiers, more or less at random. She is, as I recall, crying and smiling at the same time. And that is the true ending of the film, the emotional heartbeat that uplifts it, in spite of the dull, propagandistic speech. People who synopsize movies focus too much on the words, I think, and not enough on the images. This is especially a problem with movies made under conditions of censorship and political propaganda.Theonemacduff (talk) 18:09, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I found the ending interesting because a Hollywood film would have had the boyfriend miraculously showing up. I think the propaganda and censorship burdens were probably lighter than in Hollywood studio counterparts of that era. LADave (talk) 18:36, 29 October 2013 (UTC)