Wikipedia:Peer review/Silence (2016 film)/archive1

Silence (2016 film)

I've listed this article for peer review following expressed interest to enhance the article further possibly towards FAC.

Thanks, JohnWickTwo (talk) 15:51, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

@Gertanis: Is this the format or venue you requested for your review comments? JohnWickTwo (talk) 12:26, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Indeed it is, and I shall give you my comments in due course. --Gertanis (talk) 14:23, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Here we go:

• "The film stars Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano and Ciarán Hinds. The plot follows two 17th century Jesuit priests who travel from Portugal to Japan to locate their missing mentor and spread Catholic Christianity." 1) hyphenate 17th century 2) consider pulling the lines together, leaving only mention of Garfield & Driver 3) and perhaps also move the entire sentence up a notch, as it is IMHO more important than shooting locations.
• We have 'The plot' and 'The story' in immediate succession (see above point)
• "A long-time passion project for Scorsese, which he developed for over 25 years, the film premiered in Rome on November 29, 2016" – tense: suggest 'had developed'
• "Silence is the third of Scorsese's three films addressing religious figures struggling with challenges to faith, following The Last Temptation of Christ and Kundun." — 'addressing' → 'about'; 'challenges of faith'
• "The film begins with a prologue" – tautology
• Add actors in brackets after the character they're playing, i.e. 'Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson)'
• Conversely, remove the link apostasy from its bracket and pipelink it for the text renounced his faith
• "The young Father appears to be helpless in the presence of Japanese authorities conducting the torture to try to assist his converts in any way." – ungrammatical and unwieldy: trim it down and clarify the antecedents
• "He explains to Rodrigues that court officials threatened him in order that he betray Rodrigues." Don't understand, do you mean "menaced/coerced him to betray Rodrigues?"
• "...he believes Christianity is futile in Japan." → "he believes/considers Christianity to be futile in Japan."
• "Andrew Garfield as Sebastião Rodrigues (based on Giuseppe Chiara, who later in the film goes by the name Okada San'emon)" – move bracket to follow behind 'Chiara'
• "Garfield detailed that the preparation with Father Martin included extensive research and immersion in the Jesuit lifestyle and frame of mind which was felt to be essential to the accuracy of the film by the producers." – redraw as active voice: "..which the producers felt to be..."
• "Both Driver and Garfield went through a 7-day Jesuit silent prayer vigil arranged with the help of the Jesuit scholar Father Martin to prepare them for their roles in the film. Garfield, in an interview with Steven Colbert, stated that both actors felt emaciated in preparing for their roles and that Driver lost close to 50 pounds in preparation to play his role in the film." – repetitive: this is already given in the Garfield bullet point; also link Steven Colbert
• "Tsukamoto felt that the relation of his character to Rodriguez was of central importance to the thematic content of the film. He adopted a lifestyle of abstention from social interaction and fasting throughout the film." – Rodrigues, I presume? Also 'felt' is not encyclopedic language. The second sentence reads as if he abstained from fasting (i.e. ate a lot).
• "based on the 17th century Grand Councilor" – hyphenation
• "In an interview with America Magazine in December 2016, Scorsese stated that he first read Shūsaku Endō's novel in 1989 when he was invited by Akira Kurosawa to Japan to act in the lead role of one of the vignettes in Kurosawa's film Dreams. Scorsese described in the interview how he read the novel while traveling between airports and hotels in Japan when he was being filmed acting the part of Vincent Van Gogh in Kurosawa's film." – too detailed: simply state that 'he was invited by Akira Kurosawa to Japan to play the part of Vincent Van Gogh in Kurosawa's film Dreams.'
• "Silence is considered a "passion project" of Scorsese's and has been in development since 1990, two years after the release of Scorsese's most controversial film, The Last Temptation of Christ, which also carried strongly religious themes. Scorsese first read the novel in 1989 and obtained the movie rights soon afterwards." – cut the double genitive; is Temptation really Scorsese's 'most controversial' film?; you've already told me that Marty read the novel in '89.
• "In 2009, with the production beginning to coalesce" – too vague: what does this actually mean? Same goes for "By March, although he originally put it on the back burner and consequently dropped out"

That's some specific copyedit suggestions to begin with. I'll drop by later with more on general structure and content. Cheers Gertanis (talk) 20:24, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

These edits have started and it would be of interest to see your comments on general structure and content when you have a chance to drop by again. JohnWickTwo (talk) 16:34, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

A couple more comments:

• Reception and Analysis sections: consider rearranging them, and reducing the amount of quotes. See WP:QUOTE and WP:RECEPTION. To that point, 64.1% on Earwig's tool is a bit much.

• The connecting bridges were just added to introduce the separate paragraphs and their content. Did you have one in particular to discuss. JohnWickTwo (talk) 18:07, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

See Tenebrae (film) and Banshun for excellent examples, on how to do this: try to build a narrative out of the commentary/reception on the film. What have critics in general picked up on? What are the main tenets? A bunch of quotes doth not great prose make. I am sorry for being though on you, but I think this article could be really great; it's just not quite there yet. --Gertanis (talk) 14:47, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

I'll be interested to read that material on those two films. Good idea. If you have edited other articles on Interwiki, it would be interesting to see them since I am sympathetic to a multi-lingual approach to using Wikipedia, if you could indicate one or two Interwiki articles you have edited. JohnWickTwo (talk) 15:36, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Come again? I don't understand how my editing WP-pages in other languages pertains to this review. Please raise such concerns on my talk page, and not here, which is the review page for the article "Silence (2016 film)." Gertanis (talk) 16:29, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

• Dr. Kermode's review is rather more conflicted than you present it, particularly in the Wittertainment segment on YouTube.

• Your comments usually alludes to making coverage of both positive and negative aspects of his comments. Since that section currently follows the Wikipedia convention of positive reviews followed by negative reviews, how do you think to best do this? By the way, your user page says something about English not being your first language and I was assuming your primary edits were in your first language international version of Wikipedia (not French). JohnWickTwo (talk) 18:07, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Pardon? I don't quite understand your comment. My point is that the film critic Mark Kermode remains rather conflicted about the movie, stating that "it is an interesting case. I have to say that I am not entirely of the opinion that it's the masterpiece that some people think it is. Although I think there is much to like and much to admire about it." at 2:48–2:59 in the YouTube piece. Further on he praises Scorsese's distanced camera placement, yet remains critical of the 'Portuguese inflection' in the English dialogue. He singles out the Japanese segment of the cast as particularly brilliant, of course, but concludes that is "a labour of love, but also laborious" --Gertanis (talk) 14:47, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

A number of critics have had issue with the length of the film. At first glance, this appeared to be a secondary concern compared to the other critical commentary being published, though this could be reconsidered if there are more reliable sources. I look forward to your next set of comments. JohnWickTwo (talk) 15:36, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

• I'd love to have some more stylistic analysis, not just thematic (i.e. use of duration, shot-reverse-shot, distanced camera, influence by Bresson, Mizoguchi etc, all of which he's discussed in interviews)

• Especially Mizoguchi since both the director and cinematographer acknowledge him for the ocean boat scenes. JohnWickTwo (talk) 18:07, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

• The sections 'Writing', 'Casting', 'Filming' & 'Music' are all rather short. They could need some expansion.

Gertanis (talk) 17:28, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

• The Music section especially would be nice to expand and possibly split into a separate article for the soundtrack. JohnWickTwo (talk) 18:07, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

• It would be of interest to see your comments on general structure and content as to FA requirements also in as much detail as you can pull together when time allows. JohnWickTwo (talk) 18:07, 11 August 2017 (UTC)