Talk:The Bookshop (film)

Plot Plagiarism

The plot synopsis has been plagiarized directly from the article about the novel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:6000:1526:663A:FCAD:5AD2:F653:193C (talk) 00:07, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Agreed: the plot is more or less a copy of the plot I wrote for the book. I've re-written it so that it now follows the film. MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:04, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Real word perspective in plot section

In this edit, User:Sundayclose removed from the long-standing plot the opening words “Set in the late 1950s, the film opens with an explanatory voice-over narration”. The stated reason for the removal was “Take 10 seconds to read MOS:PLOT: "instead of starting a plot summary with 'It is 2003,' which puts the reader in the frame of reference of the work, start with "'in 2003,' which extracts the reader from that frame." Get consensus to circumvent this guideline”.

I have to say that this makes little sense to me. The existing wording does not use wording of the type “It is 2003,” nor does the guideline make it mandatory to start “In 2003,”. WP:WAF strongly recommends using an out-of universe perspective, and the words “the film opens with..” quite clearly comply with that, much more clearly indeed than after the proposed deletions. The opening narration is an important plot point (of course the plot can be expressed by audio as well as video), and is required to make sense of the final line where “the narrator” was left with no antecedent. I am happy to discuss this further, but in line with WP:BRD and WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS discussion should happen here, not by repeated non-consensual reverts. MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:25, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

You're right about implicit consensus. Stating that "Set in the late 1950s" "does not use wording of the type" "It is 2003" is splitting hairs. Your comment "nor does the guideline make it mandatory" applies equally to WP:WAF; no guideline is mandatory. You're wrong that "the film opens with" is out of universe perspective. If "The film opens with" is part of the plot, then that means the film is about the film itself. If the plot summary was for "The Making of The Bookshop", that would be the case. In such a film it would be expected that the film "The Bookshop" is being discussed. But the plot summary is for "The Bookshop", and that film does not refer to itself. I suggest that there may be wording which maintains an out of universe perspective but does not begin with the film talking about itself. The character Christine is talking at the beginning. Some description of Christine in that context might work. Film plot summaries often use such descriptions. For example, "As Jane Doe walks away, the voice of Jimmy Joe sings 'Goodbye'." Just a hypothetical: "The voice of Christine, a middle aged woman, talks about Florence ...". But there could be many other possibilities. And remember, WP:SPOILER is not an issue for Wikipedia, so it's acceptable to provide some minimal details about Christine. I'm open to suggestion.

By the way, you're right that my use of "Mrs." does not conform to WP:ENGVAR. Thanks for that correction. Sundayclose (talk) 16:31, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I now understand your argument though I don't think it's right. Indeed, in all my years on Wikipedia I have never once come across that interpretion, and it seems to me a real stretch to read the guidelines in that way. If you say that nothing within the plot section can ever stray outside of the strict limits of the plot itself, you are effectively defining that section as being entirely in-universe, which is pretty much the opposite of what the guidelines are getting at.

We agree, I think, that the guidelines in fact recommend an out-of universe perspective, and that wording such as “It is 2003,” should be avoided for that reason. Out-of universe means ensuring that the write-up is rooted in the real world, and one straightforward way of doing that is by brief mention or reference to the real-world work itself. In an article on a film, nobody reading a plot that starts "The film is set in.." could plausibly take that to mean we have a film-within-a-film. "The film" (note the definite article) self-evidently refers to the very same film that the page is all about. Mentioning or referring to the work itself in its own plot section is an extremely common out-of-universe device, as you can easily see by looking at multiple featured articles such as A Christmas Carol ("The book is divided into ..."), The Left Hand of Darkness ("The protagonist of the novel is ...") and Persuasion (1995 film) ("The film opens by ..."). There are many others. MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:16, 7 March 2021 (UTC)