Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Christopher Walken filmography

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted 21:51, 5 February 2008.

[edit] Christopher Walken filmography

As far as I know no filmography article has ever been granted FL status, so I'd like to set a good precedent. Specifically, if anyone has any formatting/content concerns or suggestions, I would very much like to incorporate them if possible. So, please let me know what you think, and how (if) I can improve upon the list. Thanks! Drewcifer (talk) 10:59, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support Very nice, but would it be possible to add a bit more to the lead (ie. The movie he was in which grossed the most, etc.) and perhaps explain why he used to be creditted as Ronnie and Ken Walken? -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 13:55, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Good suggestions, I'll see what I can do. Though this leads me to one question I have: do you think data like the gross of carious films would be appropriate? Either in the table on a per-movie basis, or maybe as an additional table summarizing his top 5 or 10 grossing films? I ask because we do that kind of thing for discographies (charts, certifications, etc), so should we do it for discographies? And it might be a good way to gauge the films he's been in. And if so, to what extent? I don't mind doing a little extra work, I just want to set a good precedent for any future filmographies, you know? Let me know what you think. Drewcifer (talk) 14:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

It wouldn't hurt to add the gross of his films, but it doesn't necessarily be helpful. I'd be content with a list of his top 5 grossing films for now. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 14:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm sorry, but I'm also fairly sure IMDB has been deemed an unrelieable source as far as Featured content is concerned. As a side note, if you keep the soruces as is, don't duplicate them under "external links". neutral I can't realy get much further into noms due to not having a comp anymore. Circeus (talk) 02:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering about that, but I was unable to find any information about it. Do you know of any link? Drewcifer (talk) 03:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

• Changed to Neutral The list looks good, but Circeus is right, so I'm neutral until better sourcing is found. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 03:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Y Done Swapped out IMDB and IBDB as sources. Drewcifer (talk) 04:11, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Also done: I added some box office data as well. Drewcifer (talk) 04:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - I would actually urge that the gross lists be dropped entirely. I don't see how it enlarges the purpose of the article - ie, what Walken has worked on. Instead, it implicitly links the quality of the acting to the box office gross, and I think that we can all agree that the current list is not in any way reflective of what are regarded as his best roles. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 00:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't think it should be as it is a vital statistic in Hollywood and if the gross chart is dropped from this article, then the charts and certifications should be dropped from all of the discography FLs and so should the mention of his award wins and nominations as they both link the quality to sales and awards. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 00:45, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The difference is that Walken is not the main creative component of the films, unlike the relationship between music albums and musicians. All it does is further reinforce talk about box office grosses, which primarily affects the producers. Furthermore, it has nothing to do with his performance. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 00:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Just as the awards quantify what the critics thought, box office gross quantifies what the public thought. In dollars and cents terms, Wedding Crashers was Walken's most popular film. Catch Me if You Can was his second most popular film. And In my experience, this seems generally true: what is he going to be remembered for, his role in The Milagro Beanfield War, or his role in Catch Me if You Can? I see very little difference between discogs/album articles saying basically the same thing through charts/certifications. The only real difference being that Walken is not the chief creative force behind the film. But surely, he has some impact on a film? This aggregate impact (as opposed to his impact on a film-by-film basis), is reflected on the total gross of his films ($1.6 billion) and the average gross ($31 million). The average implies a trend: films in which Christopher Walken acts (excluding cameos and minor appearances) tend to gross X. You could look at that statistic two ways: "Walken tends to work on films of a certain quality that average $31million gross" or that "Films with Walken's name attatched to them tend to gross an average of $31 million". Either way, the statistics are presented to give the reader the opportunity to interpret it however they see fit. Even if they take the same stance as you are "Gross income doesn't mean anything", the info is still there to be interpretted as such. All of these statistics are just different ways of quantifying public opinion, which I would argue is more important than critical opinion. Drewcifer (talk) 01:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Really? Then where is Pulp Fiction? The box office info is unless you're actually showing tickets sold, due to the extreme inflation in the cost of a ticket in the past 20 years. And attendance does not correlate to popularity per se. The Phantom Menace being exhibit number one. There are other ways to gauge public support, including People's Choice awards, polls, and whatnot. Your claim that gross equals popularity and talk about interpreting statistics reeks of WP:OR, and furthermore has no way of knowing if people showed up to Wedding Crashers because of Christopher Walken, much less if they enjoyed the film. In the box office interpretation of affairs, purchasing a ticket is equal to a thumbs up from a patron (who has yet to have seen the film at that point), and purchasing an overpriced one is practically two thumbs up at that. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 21:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - Personally, I can agree with both sides on this. If it was a case of Walken being the starring role of the film, like Harrison Ford is for Indiana Jones, Tom Hanks is for Forrest Gump, etc etc, then it would be relevant. The problem becomes that these movies did not feature Walken as the primary character of the film. I think the list indirectly implies that the films grossed that because he was the star, and while he may have stolen the film from the real stars in most of those cases, it would be inaccurate to say that "his" films grossed that much. In reality, it was Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn's Wedding Crashers that grossed 209 million. Otherwise, one could say that anyone that was an extra in the film could consider the film "theirs". It says in the paragraph, "not minor roles", but it wasn't like he was primary character of the film. Any film in which he was the key player, I would use in the list. Like, The Dead Zone, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy....these are films that "starred" Walken. I would list all of his starring roles, not roles that were larger than cameos but still too small to think that they were "his" movies. Aside from that debate, I've found a couple of other issues.
  • First, don't begin a sentence with "Also". I would suggest either dropping it outright, if you want a separate sentence, or connect the two statements with a semi-colon.

Good call, reworded it. Drewcifer (talk) 03:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

• • Second, if you use the term "notable", or "most notable", then it would be good to have a source to back it up. In the SNL section, it states he has a "most notable SNL role", but I can't verify that is what he is most noted for when it comes to SNL.

Both roles/skits have articles of their own, and therefore are notable, no? I only mentioned the ones with articles. Drewcifer (talk) 03:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

• • Third, I'd probably retitle "Miscellanous" to "Other media". The term "Miscellaneous" sounds like trivia, or that you just couldn't find a place for the information. You know where the place is, it's just too small for its own section. Other than that, it's a pretty good looking list page.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Renamed. Drewcifer (talk) 03:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Nowhere does it say "his" movies, it says "films in which he has acted." Also, as I said above, there's different ways to read the table: "Walken tends to work on films of a certain quality that average $31 million gross" or "Films with Walken's name attatched to them tend to gross an average of $31 million". You both seem to be reading it in the former sense, that Walken happened to work on films where he is not the main "star", and that the box office gross had nothing to do with his performance. But if you look at it the other way, as a quantifiable description of the type of films he tends to work on, it becomes obvious what a big star he is. Look at it this way: how would you describe to a Wikipedia reader that Christopher Walken is a bigger star than, say, Alfred Molina? You could just flat out say it, but that would POV, orginal research, etc. So instead, give them some data, and they can interpret it however they want. I guess my point is that giving the reader data gives them more information, as well as an opportunity to interpret that data however they wish. It's not a perfect system (who knows how much impact Walken had on people's decision to go see it? what about DVD sales? What about cameo roles like Pulp Fiction, which is arguably most famous for?), but what it does show is a trend based on a stable, quantifiable statistic. Drewcifer (talk) 03:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem with your assumption there is that it is explicitly in violation of OR as synthesis - Editors should not make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to advance position C. This would be synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, which constitutes original research.[6] "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 04:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I follow you. I'm not advancing a position in the article, I'm just doing so here to show possible interpretations. OR is acceptable in project page discussions no? All the article does is present data, and we should expect the reader to interpret it (or synthesize, as WP:OR calls it), however they see fit, even if they conclude it's not a good indication of anything. Drewcifer (talk) 05:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

We've been over what it implies - most notable or popular roles. That's the whole justification for keeping it. See everything written above. Please, just delete the box office data. It is completely irrelevant to a character actor's filmography, and opens up a whole can of worms for future FLCs. It has nothing to do with a list compiling an actor's filmography, and leaves the door open for filmographies to start integrating additional tables for numerous other factors that, quite frankly, boil down to trivia. Which is how I see this - it's a trivial table attempting to peddle film influence on the basis of receipts. The concept is ludicrous when you realize that grosses do not correlate with the popularity of a supporting actor, and furthermore, the amount of ticket inflation makes all such lists extremely prone to recentism (which explains why the only two items on the list which are older than ten years old are a Bond film and a Batman film - neither of which required Walken to ensure large grosses. In short, this is extraneous trivia not directly relevant to the article scope. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 07:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The main reason I'm pressing the point is precisely the same reason you seem to disagree with me: future FL filmographies. Specifically, with this article I'm trying to set a good precedent for other filmographies to follow. While finishing up this one, I started to work on two others Spike Lee filmography and Woody Allen filmography. It became obvious to me that box office gross was fairly important in director's filmographies, so for the sake of consistency I'd like to see it in all of them. That said, I suppose there could be an inherent difference in actor filmographies vs director filmographies, so a difference in style/content isn't necessarily the end of the world. I think the statistics are worth keeping, but I'm willing to compromise on how they are presented. Would an additional column for Gross in the main table be an acceptable compromise? Drewcifer (talk) 08:02, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

(undent) No, I don't think it has anything to do with the filmographies, nor does it affect the content of the film. If there were a way to track the actual attendence, sure. But the monetary figures are grossly inequitably biased based on inflation, and being as the money is all going to the studio, it's not as if it has anything to do with the actor or filmmaker. I would be more receptive to a salary column, but overall, I don't see the point of including receipts in a filmography. How much more superfluous information having nothing to do with the work shall we provide? Country of provenance? What studio it was shot at? Film gauge? Film stock? Sound mix? I simply don't think these things are relevant to a person's filmography. Keep it simple and directly to the point and scope of the article. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 08:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I tried to compromise, but I guess this is were we disagree. I see gross income data as similar to how discographies chart certifications, chart positions, and the like. It's a measure of a film's success – not a perfect measure, but a good indication nonetheless. I could see where you were coming from with your previous points, but you lost me on this one. Bignole, if you're still following the discussion, does the above compromise work for you? Drewcifer (talk) 09:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's my issue with all this. If you are listing these numbers here in an effort to allow readers the chance to "interpret how they like", then it says to me that the list itself has no true relevance to the actor. It's like saying, Walken has worn a yellow shirt in films X, Y, Z, ..., and leaving it at that. What does the yellow shirt have to do with him? Why is the list so indiscriminate. If you are going to do the "let the reader interpret for themselves", then I say list the box office gross for all the films he has appeared in. There's no reason to single these out, just because they are the top money makers, because it presents an interpretation (even if that isn't your intention) that the films were "his" so-to-speak, thus the film's success was because of Walken. As for that bit about notability, I find it inaccurate (unless sourced) to say "his most notable role", even if the role has a Wikipedia page (which doesn't prove notability, let alone more notability than any other role). The statement "most notable" suggests that they were more noteworthy than any other role, when in fact there is no source to verify that statement. You have to have sources on the pages you make the statement, you shouldn't rely on whether there is a Wiki page for it. If the Wiki page has sources that show it was a notable role, then grab those and bring them over here. If all they show is that the role was notable, then that is what should be said. It shouldn't suggest that it was more notable than any other role, unless the sources say that very thing.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 00:03, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly the compromise I was suggesting: we can't seem to agree on whether the top-10 list is appropriate, so would listing the gross for all of the films be a suitable solution? Girolamo doesn't seem to think so, but what is your opinion of this? Given the arguments presented, I'd be perfectly happy with that compromise. As for the notablity thing, your point is well-taken, I'll be happy to reword it a bit. Drewcifer (talk) 07:10, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

My opinion is, if you're going to be amibiguous about the nature of the "Top List" then there is no point to having them. If you want to stay "ambiguous" then listing all of the numbers would be the way to do that. By selecting a "Top List" you're inadvertantly suggesting that it's because of him, whereas a list of all of them (which, I assume, would be simply tacked onto the filmography list) would keep your ambiguous stance without leaning into any one suggestive area. Might I also suggest adding those filters to the list (if you know how, or can find the code). This way someone can sort the list by title, date, director, highest gross, etc etc.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, that's exactly what I was proposing. Something like:

Year	Title	Role	Director	Lifetime Gross
1985	A View to a Kill	Max Zorin	John Glen	$15 mil.

And yea, I'd like to incorporate the sorting function, but unfortunately it doesn't work properly in tables with cells spanning multiple rows (the years in the table). And really, such functionality would only be useful in the date and gross columns. Not really much of a point in sorting the list alphabetically by title, role, or director name. In this case, I think the years spanning all appropriate rows is more useful than the sorting function. Drewcifer (talk) 14:23, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the sorting function could be useful in the director column, as well. Say a reader wanted to know how many Walken films were directed by Jonathan Demme? The only ways to find out would be to count by hand or use a sort function on the table. But, then, there's the trade-off, because having the years cover multiple rows looks better. Geraldk (talk) 12:11, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems like an unfortunate shortcoming of the current table markup. I've brought up the issue at the village pump, and we'll see how that goes. But for the mean time I would personally prefer the merged cells over the sorting. But, back to the point at hand: would you consider a separate row for lifetime gross to be a good compromise to the current issue at hand? Drewcifer (talk) 16:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Support as currently constructed - I could support it either way. The context of the main table is the roles which he played and the movies he played them in. The gross of those movies is tangential to that context. So from that perspective, they shouldn't be in the main table. On the other hand, it might help a reader with no knowledge of Walken's work or of American cinema to get an idea of which films he was involved in were major films. It matters to a reader's understanding of Walken's career that Catch Me if You Can was a bigger move than Puss in Boots. Geraldk (talk) 18:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the support! I'll leave it as is for now until we can get some more opinions on the issue. Drewcifer (talk) 18:05, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support - Truth is, it looks very good as is, and as there are more and more of these article they will be tweaked more, but it is very strong as is and should be our first actor filmography FL. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 17:07, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words, and your support! Drewcifer (talk) 06:09, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

• Support Although I don't like how "prettytable" looks.--Crzycheetah 03:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! And, just for my own knowledge, what exactly is different between "prettytable" and "wikitable"? I've just been using prettytable because I assumed it's "prettier" (which I'm all for). Drewcifer (talk) 04:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

At first, I noticed that the heading colors here were lighter than usual and were very smilar to the color of rows, so I checked the class. But, when I compare both classes, I don't see a difference. It's weird.--Crzycheetah 05:10, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Uh, I see. Strange. Drewcifer (talk) 16:59, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.