Talk:Vampyr

Untitled

this page is poo! it must be made better. there must be a discussion of the groundbreaking aspects of cinematography, use of sound, and innovative special effects of this excellent and important historical film. 192.211.25.9 12:46, 01:00, 9 October 2005 UTC

Some fellow called Fordmadoxfraud has recently employed some butcher-style editing to this article, apparently insisting that Vampyr is above even the slightest negative observation in relation to its reception by modern audiences. Well, as critic Richard Scheib puts it: "Vampyr was not a success when it was released – indeed it resulted in the collapse of director Carl Dreyer’s production company, causing him to have a nervous breakdown and not return to filmmaking for an entire decade.[1]" The film was in fact considered so boring it was reduced in length and "the long periods of silence replaced by dubbed explanation". That was in 1932. Now, does Fordmadoxfraud seriously suggest that modern audiences raised on MTV have become less impatient?! I personally love this film, as do most critics, but I've seen enough people walk out or literally fall asleep during screenings of Vampyr to know that critics and film society audiences do not represent the entire human species. --Minutae 22:45, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm saying negative information needs proper citation, particularly when it's something like "People think this movie is boring." Who thinks that? Some non-notable internet critic doesn't count. Also, please take some time to read through Wikipedia:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Thanks. Ford MF 02:07, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

You are both misquoting me and ignoring that I did in fact immediately respond to the request for citation. Richard Scheib, quoted above, may not meet with your elitist standards, but he is never the less quite correct. And Casper Tybjerg, cited in the article, is certainly not "some non-notable internet critic", but one of the world's leading authorities on Dreyer. There's a current tendency for critics to only mention the strengths of Dreyer's films, but a fair, complete appraisal of any work of art must discuss both its positive and negative aspects. I've tried to address this in an intelligent fashion. I accept your initial edit as a "good faith" move, but not the second time where you might have paused for thought instead of just impatiently erasing a huge chunk of informative text, some of which you happen to disagree with. --Minutae 09:36, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Trivia

I removed the trivia section, along with a lot of detail about the latest release. I got reverted, with the edit summary "restoring correct and useful information". I thought I'd better explain the removal more fully.

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information - being correct and useful isn't enough. There are some things which we do include, and some things that we don't. The details of the special features of the DVD release are clearly too much detail, and bordering on spam. Marguerite Chopin's brief mention in a book really is tangential to this article.

The reason I removed the statement about the Roman Polanski film is that an assertion like that would need a citation to a reliable source before we could include it.

The reference to the 1990 film, described as a semi-remake: again, we'd need a reliable source to show that the 1990 film was in fact a remake of the 1932 one - we'd need to see that that's what the filmmakers intended, rather than it being our own interpretation as editors. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 10:54, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

You are at this poiny simply applying blind-folded drive-by editing of the most destructive type. Your latest edit destroyed the entire DVD section. A more civil approach might have been to add a "citation needed" tag at apropriate points, giving other users a chance to add such citations before removing what in my humble opinion happens to be correct and useful information. As for the DVD section, it needs to be edited down, not butchered. --Minutae (talk) 17:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

My edit wasn't hasty, I thought about it carefully. That's why I took the time to explain it on this talk page. I did indeed take out most of the DVD section - to mention a specific DVD edition of a film is already quite fine detail. To mention what extras it has on it seems to me to be tangential to an article about the film. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.

I also stand by my removal of two unsourced dubious statements. To quote Jimbo Wales, in wikipedia's verifiability policy:

I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information...

–Jimmy Wales

--HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 18:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I notice on your user page that you boast about the increasing number of edits you can do in a year. Clearly your goal is speed not quality. You may also have no idea why detailed information about material (such as DVD bonus material) available on a film such as Vampyr could be important and appropriate as part of Wikipedia's article. But in this case, with a film so badly treated over the years, it is highly important and appropriate to anyone who cares. As for Jack MacGowran's character being inspired by Vampyr, so many critics have noted this over the years, if you can't see it yourself and need a source to seperate it from "random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information", simply do a Google-search and take your pick from the many reliable sources available, or leaf through some film journals. The Kim Newman novel character info is relevant because it takes the film full circle back into the literary genre from which it was originally inspired, and furthermore Kim Newman is also a contributor to one the DVD editions, which may not be interesting to you, but it would to quite a lot of people. --Minutae (talk) 19:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

If the this were my WP:RfA or WP:ER or an WP:RFC or something, then the quality of my edits would be under scrutiny, and I would suggest that a more detailed analysis of my edits would show a different picture of me from the one you describe. As it is, neither your edit history nor mine is up for discussion, and nor is anything else except for the contents of this article, and its relationship to how wikipedia works.

I'm not suggesting that the film isn't important, or that we shouldn't have an article on it. That doesn't mean that we should include every piece of available information about it. In fact, that's Wikipedia policy: WP:What Wikipedia is not says that "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information; merely being true or useful does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia." Wikipedia's non-notable content guideline says that we should "treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Attend to anything that may construe undue weight, including depth of detail, quantity of text ... Keep in mind that an encyclopedia article is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject, not a complete exposition of all possible details." Someone who wants to know about what's on a partiular edition of a DVD needs to look on Amazon, or Criterion's website, or wherever, not here.

As to the Jack MacGowran thing - Whether or not I can see it isn't the point, it needs a verifiable source. And we have to be specific - use a named source: Wikipedia's weasel words guideline warns us against phrases like "some people say...". But you're right, I don't know much about this film - if the references are easy to find, then great - find them, and we can put that fact back in the article.

The Kim Newman thing - if that's true, then great, but it sounds as if it's your own conclusion. Wikipedia doesn't include original work, so again, to include that fact we'd need to find a reliable source to support it. Do you know of some published resource we could use, some author or journalist maybe, who we could quote saying the "full circle" thing? --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 21:07, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Points made in the discussion area don't need to be sourced. Discussions may serve as basis for editorial decisions; I'm sorry if that slows you down, but it works for some of us. Anybody can remove chunks of text while quoting Wikipedia guidelines, whether they are relevant or not; in fact, it often seems that the less intelligent a person is, the more rules/guidelines he or she will quote. As for "the Jack MacGowran thing", you might as well remove the part of the article on Austin Powers that says that character is "a satire of James Bond"; that too has no source, so you could quote the same guidelines while bulldozing around. It too would be a not very clever edit, but at least it would be an edit, so you could add it to the score on your userpage and get to use your quotes some more. --Minutae (talk) 22:34, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

References

DVD section

The DVD section currently has a detailed listing of the content on the two recent DVD releases of Vampyr. As I've stated above, I feel this sections needs to be edited down (I've made a start), or better still rewritten; however this should be done intelligently, based on thorough knowledge of the two versions, with quotes from or reference to notable reviews (when such become available). Meanwhile, I suggest that - considering the importance of these releases in relation to the film - the listing in its current form remains in the article until improved. --Minutae (talk) 22:17, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

This is in response to both Minutae's posts above. I'll go through your points in order:

Nobody's saying that points made on the talk page need to be sourced. Points made in the article do, though - that's what Wikipedia's WP:Verifiability policy is all about.

Sometimes people quote the rules because they're stupid, but in my case I'm quoting them because they're relevant and important and they're the current WP:Consensus about how wikipedia should work. Until those policies are changed, we all need to understand and apply them.

The Austin Powers thing: WP:V says that "Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed." I can't imagine anyone challenging the idea that Austin Powers is a satire of Bond.

The DVD section needs to be drastically cut down. Even to be listing different editions of the DVD is too much detail, and listing all their special features is way over the top.

It's quite clear that neither of us is going to persuade the other. Rather than keep on restating our positions, I'm going to post a note at WP:Third opinion and ask for some more input to this discussion. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 14:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the DVD section should be edited down, I've said so twice, but it should be done with care, insight and inteligence, not a crude hatchet job like you were trying to pull off. A bad edit, no matter how many rules you try to hide behind, is still a bad edit. This section can't be properly edited or rewritten with no insight, so slow down and give people interested in the topic a chance to come by and do a good job. --Minutae (talk) 05:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Third Opinion

Firstly I remind Minutae to refrain from personal attacks as in the above section, comment on the edits not the editor. The bottom line is that all material requires sources. Editors personal opinions of the subject of the article is simply irrelevant. You need to edit from an objective viewpoint. The DVD section seems to contain personal views which need removing, such as 'Poor quality characterised the original American and British home video releases'. This isnt a cited fact but an unsourced opinion. Maybe it could be explained why the differences between DVD versions are so important that they should command such weight in the article? For example a significant debate or controversy? --neon white talk 15:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Neonwhite, before you get too holy on me, let me point out that the time you spent on writing the above you could have used on finding a source for that DVD quality statement yourself (assuming you are familiar with a search engine called Google). Just because I try to stop an editor from making questionable, uninformed edits doesn't mean I suddenly become solely responsible for researching and adding sources to everything. Your points are correct in principle BUT there's a reality to deal with as well: Many Wikipedia articles contain correct, relevant information waiting to be sourced, and finding a source for a correct, relevant statement is obviously a more productive edit than simply removing it. In other words: Don't be too hasty to remove material only because it isn't sourced if you haven't the faintest knowledge of the given subject. Now, I've added several sources to statements in this article (in fact, I seem to recall that over a year ago I did add a source to the "bad DVD quality" statement, but someone may have found it unnecessary and removed it). In other words, you guys might consider chipping in with some productive work, instead of just tearing down and complaining. And if that's what you consider a "personal attack", too bad. --Minutae (talk) 00:19, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

After writing the above, it took me only a few minutes to Google a source, which I found at www.dvdtalk.com: "People familiar with the old Image release of this film will be very pleased to hear that the Criterion release is a great improvement. The Image release had a black bar at the bottom (presumably to blot out the subtitles on the print they were using) where burned in subtitles appeared. That's no longer a problem. This version presents the film without that horrid bar and preserves the original aspect ratio of 1.19:1. (The Image disc is cropped to 1.33:1.) The picture is much cleared and more detailed than the Image version also." I'm sure there are many more such sources to choose from. --Minutae (talk) 00:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Just to set things straight, I am here to provide a third opinion as part of dispute resolution and hopefully end a stalemate, alothough i could involve myself, i am not here primarily to edit the article or search for sources, etc. May i remind you that wikipedia does not contain any information that can be considered 'correct' or the 'truth'. These are merely subjective ideas. The criteria for inclusion is verifiability. This means that there must be a way for readers of the encyclopedia and other editors to verify the information. If this cannot be done, any material lacking sources should be removed, this is stated in policy. There is no reason why the material cannot be returned to the article should sources be found. The personal attack i was referring to was the comment "I notice on your user page that you boast about the increasing number of edits you can do in a year. Clearly your goal is speed not quality." about Hughcharlesparker, the majority of your posts have been perfectly civil, just remember to keep comments firmly on the subject in hand not judging thew abilities and actions of other editors, and no more need be said on the matter. --neon white talk 14:53, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

DVD section, continued

←Nearly two weeks ago, NeonWhite, in his third opinion response, asked for an explanation of why the differences between DVD versions are so important that they should command such weight in the article. There's been no such explanation. The dvdtalk link attests to the existence of an improved release, but not to its importance. Until such an explanation appears, I'm removing the section. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 14:49, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if you were paying attention you'd have noticed that I placed the explanation in the article itself. I also sourced everything, but the references were removed by Peterbrent without valid reason, so I'm putting everything back. If you need me to spell it out here as well, okay, here goes: The Criterion/Eureka-releases were landmarks in the film's history not merely in terms of making Martin Koerber's restored version available to a wider audience, but also because they confirm the growing appreciation of this previously mistreated and neglected film (out of three filmed versions, only the German-language version has survived intact) by packaging it with an extensive selection of bonus material from notable sources, such as an audio commentary by Oscar-nominated director Guillermo del Toro. All this may be jabberwocky to you, but it actually is quite important in relation to the film. --Minutae (talk) 21:17, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I saw the assertion that the DVD releases were landmarks in the films history, but I don't see how that's true. You gave two reasons: firstly, that they make the restored version available to a wider audience, which is obviously true, but not significant. Secondly, that they confirm the growing appreciation of the film; I can't see how a DVD release says anything about a film's popularity, other than that the publisher thinks it's popular enough to sell some copies.

Even if those two things did make the releases significant, that's your conclusion, and wikipedia is not a publisher of original conclusions. You'd need to cite a reliable source to support the idea that these to DVD releases are important to the history of the film. Wikipedia's view of reliable sources is set out in Wikipedia:Reliable sources. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 23:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Guidelines are fine, but in reality Wikipedia also relies on a certain amount of insight and common sense, which is one of the reasons for why we have discussion areas. I suspect you will not find a single person interested in Vampyr who thinks it's not significant that the restored version is now available to a wider audience, and you will also find very few people agreeing with you that two DVDs of this nature (we are hardly talking run-of-the-mill vanilla releases!), issued a few months apart from major distributors and welcomed with rave reviews, don't "say anything about a film's popularity". As for sources, in addition to the many already listed in the article I've now added a link to one of several websites comparing the two DVD releases. --Minutae (talk) 14:22, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Have these people been published? that is the big question. The opinion of fans of the film is not important unless published in reliable sources. What would be handy is for some evidence that the restored version's release was of note, some reviews for instance. We cannot deduce any information about a film's popularity from releases with guessing. I moved the comparison link to external links section where all ELs should go, if you want to 'tie' it to that particular paragraph then a footnote would be better.

I also removed this section :-

The Criterion/Eureka-releases were landmarks in the film's history not merely in terms of making Martin Koerber's restored version available to a wider audience, but also because they confirm the growing appreciation of this previously mistreated and neglected film (out of three filmed versions, only the German-language version has survived intact) by packaging it with an extensive selection of bonus material from notable sources, such as an audio commentary by Oscar-nominated director Guillermo del Toro. Both releases received enthusiastic reviews.

It's full of weasel words, personal opinions and synthesis. Source it all and add citations. Who considers it a landmark? who says they recieved enthusiastic reviews? --neon white talk 17:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

It's now several weeks later, and we still have no valid reason to keep the DVD section in. Since, as discussed above, that section gives undue weight to excessively detailed material, I've removed it. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 22:20, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Be bold!

Hi everyone! I've totally re-did this article with citations and all. If anyone wants to do any cleaning, questioning, or editing on it further, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm just giving everyone a heads up! Andrzejbanas (talk) 19:03, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Resources to use

• BROOKE, Michael & TYBJERG, Caspar: Carl Dreyer [and] Waking life, Sight and Sound (0037-4806) v.18 n.9, September 2008, p.32-36, English, illus, Introduction to the life and cinema of Danish filmmaker Carl Dreyer, followed by an appreciation of his film VAMPYR, with attention paid to how advances in sound and lighting make the film an underrated horror masterpiece.

• ZUCKERMAN, David: Canonical pick: Vampyr, Film Comment (0015-119X) v.44 n.4, July 2008, p.76, English, illus, Short DVD review.

• RUDKIN, David: A body of work, Vertigo (0968-7904) v.2 n.9, October 2005, p.17, English, illus, On the occasion of the release of his book 'Vampyr' (BFI, 2005), the author reflects on the aesthetic and influence of Carl Dreyer's work.

• GRANT, Michael: Fulci's Waste Land: Cinema, Horror and the Abominations of… Film Studies (1469-0314) n.5, December 2004, p.30-38, English, illus, Analysis of Carl-Theodor Dreyer's VAMPYR and Lucio Fulci's The BEYOND.

• National Film Theatre Programmes, June 2003, p.13, English

• FISCHER, Wolfgang: Das Gehimnis von Courtempierre.Rudolph Maté fotografiert... Camera Magazin n.3, March 2001, p.29-38, German, illus, Article about VAMPYR and the background to its making. Looks at the photography by Rudolph Maté, its shooting and the effect of certain scenes. Includes analyses of some of the latter using stills.

• KOLLER, Michael: Annotations on film, Metro (0312-2654) n.119, July 1999, p.100, English, illus

• MEGAHEY, Leslie: The Wonderful Face, Sight and Sound (0037-4806) v.3 n.7, July 1993, p.31, English, illus, Comments on the acting in VAMPYR and LIEBELEI, especially the facial expressions, which, it is argued, are more powerful than today's special effects and clever editing.

• Sight and Sound (0037-4806) v.3 n.6, June 1993, p.70, English, Video note

• Screen (0036-9543) v.17 n.3, October 1976, p.Autumn 29-67, English, Analysis.

• Monthly Film Bulletin v.43 n.511, August 1976, p.180, English

• Midi-Minuit Fantastique n.20, July 1968, French

• Midi-Minuit Fantastique n.20, July 1968, p.68, French

• Film Culture (0015-1211) n.35, December 1964, p.1, English, Article about Carl Dreyer and his films, especially PASSION DE JEANNE D'ARC, VAMPYR, DAY OF WRATH, and ORDET.

• Films and Filming v.7 n.3, December 1960, p.17, English, Detailed analysis.

• Close-up v.8 n.1, March 1931, p.50, English

Resources to use. Great job with the article so far! —Erik (talk • contrib) 19:28, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Cover image

Hi Andrzejbanas, I have a DVD (in Eureka; the Masters of Cinema series) of the movie and the scene of the cover here, that is the daughter of the castle owner lying on the bench appears in the version I have, in about 38 minutes of the movie, I especially checked that because I remembered the comments here to the cover image. So, the cover image is part of the movie (while the cover of my DVD is a totally different one). bw -- Udimu (talk) 05:37, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Could you screencap it? Does it have the scythe and everything? I'm pretty sure the Criterion and MoC discs are using the same print except the Criterion placed the censored scenes on as an extra. If it is the case, I'll have to remove the image as it doesn't provide any commentary on the article anymore. Andrzejbanas (talk) 15:32, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

i can make a pic with a digital camera and send it to you. It is just the woman on the bench, not the shadow above her. bw-- Udimu (talk) 15:55, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I have the screenshot (totally forgot that I can watch the DVD on my computer). how can i send it to you? -- Udimu (talk) 16:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

You can post it on my talk page. If you need more instructions, I can provide them here. Andrzejbanas (talk) 16:52, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

no idea how to do that (i received e-mails from other wiki writers, but never figured out where to find the e-mail adress), tell me what to do or just send me an e-mail and I will reply and attach the image. bw -- Udimu (talk) 17:01, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

and now? I have the screen shot. don't you want to see it? bw -- Udimu (talk) 06:04, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about the delay. I'd rather not have my e-mail posted here, so I'll take your word for it and remove the image. It doesn't add much to the article and isn't discussed really either. Thanks for the input though! Andrzejbanas (talk) 16:15, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

ok, but i am not sure why you removed the image. It is another still from the movie; not bad to see it as illustration for the article. bw -- Udimu (talk) 16:26, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It illustrates the article fine, but for Wikipedia rules, we have must have a reason to show the article off. It's a copy-written image, and unless we can give a reason why we are using it (ie: to show off something that can not be expressed easily in words) we can't use it. Andrzejbanas (talk) 16:49, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

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