Talk:Psycho (1960 film)

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Good articles Psycho (1960 film) has been listed as a good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do.
If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.
To-do list for Psycho (1960 film): edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
  • Copyedit all the newly added text for grammar, structure, and flow.
  • Add referenced information about the effect the movie had on the rest of the cast.
  • See suggestions at peer review.
  • Incorporate more views in the interpretation section.
Peer review Psycho (1960 film) has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.
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Contents

[edit] Opening statement

The opening statement duplicates several items in the individual sections (Ed Gein info - shower scene - critics reviews). I don't think it would hurt to remove the duplications since they are discussed later on. Just a thought. Philbertgray 16:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

A good opening summarizes/highlights the main ideas in the article. Do you feel it highlights relatively unimportant points or goes into too much detail? MeekSaffron 17:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I think it goes into too much detail since some of the information is either repeated or expanded on within the article. A few examples -
    • This line appears in the opening summary "One key scene, commonly referred to as "The Shower Scene," is studied, discussed, and referenced countless times in books, articles, and film courses with debate focusing on why it is so terrifying and how it was produced, including how it passed the censors and who directed it." Since there is an extensive summary later on it seems it would be just as effective to say something to the effect that The infamous shower scene is one of the most discussed and analyzed in film history".
    • The statement "which was in turn based on the crimes of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein.[1] " is almost identical to the wording in the beginning of the production section. It seems this can be eliminated from the opening statement and the note reference added to the production statement opening. This information appears again in the trivia section with an additional reference to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That could be removed from trivia and also added to the production statement.
    • The film spawned several sequels and a remake, which are generally seen as works of lesser quality" doesn't seem necessary or important enough to the opening summary since there is a section devoted to the sequels as well. Philbertgray 18:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with shortening the shower scene statement, and removing the Ed Gein note. Regarding Gein, I think it being based on real crimes is rather cool as a hook of interest, but the pre-production repeat of the info does not elaborate, and the related trivia point should be merged into it. A section of the book and of course Ed Gein goes into more detail.
I disagree, not strongly, but I think the sequels note in the lead should remain. The sequels and remake seems natural for a lead about the first movie in a series, albeit a not too successful one. Jaws (film) is a similar example of a classic film with less successful sequels. It mentions those sequels in the lead, with a slightly expanded section later. MeekSaffron 18:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I actually take the reverse stance of MeekSaffron on some points:
I believe that the mention of the shower scene should be kept as is. As Meek said, a good lead summarizes the points that will be made in the article, and the current description sums it up nicely without telling too much.
I agree with Meek that the Ed Gein note is a very cool "hook of interest", and because of that, I think it should be kept.
You don't really believe an article on Psycho would need a "hook" do you????? Philbertgray 19:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Finally, I believe that we should take out the mention of the sequels in the league, as Psycho is in a different league than those pictures. I look at Psycho not as a "horror movie" or a "slasher movie", but as a Hitchcock movie", and those are in a league of their own. Mentioning the sequels in the lead does not do anything towards summarizing the topic of the article, which is Psycho, not the sequels. Psycho, in my opinion is not the start of a "series". In my view, it was intended as a stand-alone movie, and some Universal studio executives got greedy after Hitchcock died. Just my two cents. Green451 00:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Psycho is considered a Gore film

Article claims this: Psycho, considered to be the first "gore film," was criticized for making other filmmakers more willing to show gore, providing a reference from Leigh for the statement. Has anyone got this book to check what she really said. I find it hard to believe she stated that this film has been considered to be a gore film. Asa01 02:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

OH! You're right. I misread the book, Bloodfeast is the first gore film. I'll go change that right now.--Supernumerary 02:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I looked up Blood Feast on the imdb and it is listed as 1963--three years after Psycho. Personally, I think The Horror of Dracula from 1958 qualifies as a gore film, and for all I know there may be earlier examples. marbeh raglaim 22:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CCOTW End

Wow! Congratulations everyone! I am amazed at how much this article has been improved. My applause goes to Hondo and Supernumerary, who were the main editors that improved this article to the incredible status it is in now. I can see that from here, the path is a general peer review, then GA, then FA (with any luck). I'm going to nominate it for a general peer review soon. Great job people! Green451 22:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ELAC notice

Hi, with aims to improve Wikipedia, your page has been submitted to the Extra-Long Article Committee for page division. It is strongly suggested that the regular users here divide the article up into separate pages. Click here for suggestions on how to divide a long page. If this does not occur in the coming weeks, this page will then be scheduled for committee involvement. Please comment at ELAC talk with concerns. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 14:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

After all the great contributions and care with which everyone has referenced their material, I would hate to see that work go to waste or be counted against us according to this committee. Please, before anyone starts trimming the article, wait until the ELAC reviews the case. As we might expect this to be a problem for COTW in the future, I urge you to visit ELAC talk to learn more about their cause and how they work. Both careful referencing and the ELAC work to improve Wikipedia, but it's unfortunate if they work against each other as I suspect they are in this case. I've begun a discussion with User:Sadi Carnot to make sure that the references aren't being held against Psycho's kb count. Hondo 17:14, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Hondo, thanks for your comments. There are other long pages that are coded such that the reference files link to a side page. We are still digging around in this area to see how this works. Please comment with more suggestions or comments here. Talk soon: --Sadi Carnot 17:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tab method

Hi, the ELAC team is presently trying out new test methods on how to facilitate the use and growth of long articles. Admin Gurch suggests that “tabs” might be a useful tool in the growth of large articles. Unless there are any major objections, over the next day or two, I am going to format this page with tabs. This will only be a test run. According to Gurch, it has never been done before with articles. Thus, I will implement the changes (which can be reverted in the weeks to follow if need be) and then we can all debate the pros and cons of the new format method. Please leave comment as to suggestive tab names (four in total) or if you have major objections to this move. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 23:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

This sounds cool. I would love to see an article that I worked on possibly break new ground on Wikipedia. Green451 02:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC) I have stricken my support of tabs per discussion on the ELAC talk page. Green451 03:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
My suggestions for tab names are:
  1. Overview/Story (would contain the lead, plot synopsis, and cast list)
  2. Production (would contain Production, Pre-Production, Filming, and The Shower Scene)
  3. Release (would contain Censorship, Promotion, Reception)
  4. Legacy (would contain Innovations in Film, Interpretation, Sequels and Remakes, Popular-culture references, shower scene parodies, and Trivia)
What does anyone else think about the above names? Green451 02:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
They look good except that trivia does not really fit under "Legacy", but then again trivia does not really fit anywhere. So yeah, I'm fine with the division.--Supernumerary 02:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
The article doesn't seem especially long to me, or like one or more of its sections could be helpfully split into additional articles (also, additional articles are I believe not counted when most review FA candidates; I'm not sure if it's the same for GA), but I'll look with an open mind on the tab implementation idea.
Since I prefer scrolling to clicking, would it be possible to have a Wikipedia setting or workaround for such tabbed articles to be presented all on one page if a user prefers? I know there's a workaround to have the show/hide templates be permanently shown if one prefers, for instance. MeekSaffron 04:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
No, it will not be possible for there to be a preference. Each tab will be a separate page and you'll have no choice but to click. This will actually be a step backward in usability for those on slow connections. Right now, the rest of the page is already downloading while the user reads the lead; in most cases, the actual waiting time should not be much greater than for a shorter article. With tabs, the user will have to wait for the first page worth of text to load after clicking each tab, increasing the total waiting time.
This would also interact badly with Wikipedia's "watch" interface: the visual design suggests that all four tabs are part of the same page, yet clicking "watch" will only watch one of them. With the currently favored <ref> method of creating footnotes there will have to be four separate Notes sections, so that when notes refer to other notes or to a bibliography, the user has to click around to figure out what is being cited.
In short I think this is a very poor way of dealing with overlong articles, far inferior to the summary style method we already have. If it *must* be tried, why not create a version of the page in user or project space somewhere, and allow people to review that and comment?
I would also suggest picking a truly long article for the experiment. This article is only about 40KB of actual text; splitting it into four 10KB chunks is overkill. —Celithemis 09:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
38KB by my calculations - not long enough to worry about, not warranting a tag, and not warranting tabs by any means. For a truly long film article, see The Wizard of Oz (1939 film); it has 81KB overall, but because it has NO referencing, all of that is in prose, with a whopping 72KB prose. It would be a better candidate for this committee to expermiment with tabs and such. I removed the extra long tag from the article, but it has been reinstated: the ELAC Project members have indicated they plan to aggressively pursue anyone removing their tags. At any rate, the tag on *this* article isn't warranted, IMO. WP:LENGTH specifically states that, "Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 6,000 to 10,000 words, which roughly corresponds to 30 to 50 KB of readable prose," and this article is well within that range. Sandy (Talk) 09:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
This really troubles me. A cleanup tag implies a clear consensus that something is bad -- usually a violation of policy or a well-settled guideline. I don't read Wikipedia:Article size as indicating a consensus that an article with 38KB or even 48KB of readable text should always be split, and I don't believe any such consensus exists. Yet the wording of the tag is quite stern, even threatening. It suggests that the authors of the page have committed wrongdoing and that an official body of some kind is taking notice. I'm particularly troubled by the use of the word "committee", which, intentionally or not, implies this Wikiproject has some special official status that it doesn't appear to have.
Now we're being asked to go to a page in the project's space, to make a "request" for the tag to be removed. On what authority, exactly, is this demand being made? The subject of whether and how this article should be split should be discussed on its talk page, and in the absence of consensus here the tag should not be replaced.
I strongly oppose this tag being placed on this article. With the current wording I oppose its being *anywhere* but TFD. —Celithemis 13:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Join the crowd: the discussion has moved here, where you might want to register that. (ALoan just changed the template, per consensus on its talk page.) Sandy (Talk) 13:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Size

The overall size on this article is 53KB, but because it is well-cited (with almost 100 footnotes), the actual prose size is only 38KB. The size limitations were put in place long ago, and technical limitations have changed. Further, inline citations are now required on featured articles, and they add to the overall size. It is very rare to see an FA under 50 or 60KB these days, because they are extensively cited, and that alone often chunks up about 15KB. It doesn't appear that this committee is taking time to calculate the prose size before tagging an article: in fact, I found no discussion of how to do that on the project. I removed the tag, because the article isn't extra long, and becuase there are many FAs (or recently removed FAs, for reasons other than size) with prose size over 70KB, and overall size over 110KB, such as History of Russia, Che Guevara, Polish-Soviet War, and Hugo Chávez. I hope the ELAC will focus on problem articles, rather than well-cited articles, or the results will be a decline in verifiability and comprehensiveness necessary for FA. Further, tagging the article page of FAs will not be good for Wiki, and most FAs qualify as what they are calling extra long: I suggest they place the tags on talk pages, not article pages. Sandy (Talk) 07:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Critical re-review

According to the article, after the movie became popular with the public, the critics changed their minds about the movie. Does anyone else think it's strange? Critics seem to be more strong minded today. Me3000 19:10, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Although I never heard of this phenomenon happening with reference to Psycho before reading this wikipedia article, I would not doubt it. Similar "reevaluations" occured for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Fantasia, Metropolis, and Its a Wonderful Life. The Wizard of Oz was a popular film during its first release, but not considered anything close to the iconic classic that it became after it was aired on television. --GHcool 19:58, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Don't forget that the movies you mentioned were considered good several years after their initial release date. With this movie, the re-review occured in only a few weeks or so later. Me3001 21:28, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
According to the DVD documentary, the critics were annoyed that Hitchcock denied them a pre-release screening. marbeh raglaim 23:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review

  1. There's a bullet point in the Production that could do with prosifying. Try intergrating it.
  2. The trivia section can be merged: the Hitchcock cameo in the cast and Leigh's double somewhere else. Maybe in the Reaction/Legacy sections.
  3. One cite lacks a page number.

Good luck. Wiki-newbie 16:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I have made the changes. Take another look please.--Supernumerary 17:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

It's still got a trivia section, which a mature article shouldn't. The JPStalk to me 17:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Trivia section is gone.--Supernumerary 19:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pass

It's good and very informative. Keep copyediting for FA. Wiki-newbie 21:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Hooray! Now let's try to do the same for A Trip to the Moon (film)‎! :) --GHcool 22:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I added some material...

I took the liberty of editing a few of the first paragraphs after the Introduction. I added a few details that help explain 'place', such as the fact that the film opens in Phoenix, then moves to California. I noted the scene in which Marion trades cars, when her strange behavior is witnessed by the highway patrolman. I also expanded the item about the money - the fact that Bates doesn't see the money before he sinks her car in the swamp. I love the way the film opens with Marion as the central figure, then suddenly shifts the focus entirely onto Norman Bates. The technique has been copied frequently since. I've seen this film many times, and I count it in my personal Top 25, so I'd like to help work on this article. Hurrmic 18:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lots of edits, but no discussion

I like the way this article has shaped up since I did some work on it a few weeks ago. My effort lacked style - I just went from memory and filled in the plot a little. I was going to come back to it sooner, but hey, there's been plenty of talent working on it in the meantime. Nice going, everybody! I'm just surprised there's no current discussion going on. I suppose it's better to write the article than to talk about doing it. Hurrmic 20:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

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