Talk:I Vitelloni

Moving
Typical error of Anglo-Saxons users: giving a capitalized title to Italian films, novels etc. The correct title IS I vitelloni. --Attilios 08:58, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * done. --Richard 17:51, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I have moved the title back to I Vitelloni. This is, after all, the English Wikipedia and foreign-language  titles which are accepted into English usage, follow English-language orthography, not the orthography of their native tongue.  All film reference books including Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, TimeOut Film Guide, Halliwell's Film Guide and Variety Movie Guide as well as virtually all English-language film reviews refer to this production as I Vitelloni, not I vitelloni.  The same is true for  La Dolce Vita, La Strada as well as numerous other Italian, French and Spanish titles.  The use of upper-case characters to designate nouns in German is likewise inapplicable.  WikiProject Opera has controversially negotiated an exception for opera titles which, except for those with traditionally-accepted English-language titles, such as The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, are indicated by title structures which reflects the orthography of those titles' native language, despite the fact that many reference books and most newspaper and magazine reviews refer to them using English-language orthography (initial caps for nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives and interjections).  All other works of art, however, which do not use translated titles, but are known by their original appellation, have no such stated exception and are, in addition, usually shorn of accents and diacritics.  The title, for example, of the English-language translation of Les Misérables is Les Miserables.  All such appellations no longer follow the orthography of their mother tongue, but are subject to the rules of English-language orthography.&mdash;Roman Spinner (talk) 21:47, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

This flawed view, and it is a view not sound reason, to treat foreign names and titles with an English syntax, namely using Vitelloni instead of vitelloni, only displays a gross ignorance in the issues of translating languages. For starters, Roman Spinner, you are quite ignorant of that the fact that languages besides English, also have multiple meanings for words. For instance, when translating vitelloni by direct translation, taking the infinitive vitello, and then the augmentative suffix, '-one' (-oni for plural), does indeed mean 'big calves' as one person put it, but nobody in Italy would even understand it as so. Vitelloni means in Italian, either old veal, or a young man who idles his way through life without a job. The point is, language translation is not just about syntax translating, it involves semantics too. Basically, the issue is this, you can not translate from one language to another with 100% certainty of retaining the semantics. Thus by modifying a foreign language title to a half bastardization of English, only does a poor job of translating and a disservice (read: insulting use) of both languages. The title, irrespective of what has been done in the past, for past behaviour does not mean good or proper behaviour, should be "Il vitelloni" and not "Il Vitelloni". If you are going to use the Italian words or phrases, you should also use the syntax too, then the semantics is not altered. After all, Wikipedia(English) writers often expound quite patronizingly how there should be a proper level of writing by contributors. Thus shouldn't you at least recognize the hypocrisy here and just treat all languages in the same way? I thought English was a very democratic language, why else would it be based upon, German, Italian, Latin, Greek, French, Arabic, and many other languages, and that means not just the vocabulary but also the syntax and grammatical structure. Seems as though, we now have gatekeepers to the English language. This really is ridiculous, that foreign languages have to now have their syntax altered just to accommodated a few ignorant English writers who don't even understand another language other than their own, ergo Roman Spinner. What next? Force Italians to write Pseudo Anglo-Italian, so that they can have their works accepted by ignorant English writers who can't be bothered to respect other people's languages with the same degree of respect as they demand for their own. Its bad enough that we have religious like gate-keeping going on in Wikipedia, but to now have a language police, and for English at that? Get real! This must be a new low, for Wikipedia! 2.238.240.69 (talk) 15:16, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that Roman's view is ridiculous. It makes sense for an English language publication to use English language style, even though it is not the only defensible method. Looking at the practices of other publications is also standard for Wikipedia. --Ring Cinema (talk) 18:09, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Title
The second paragraph of this discussion is at best needlessly detailed for an encylopedia article. "Vitelloni" does literally mean "big calves" (cf. Wikipedia on Italian Grammar) -- the article seems to contradict itself on this-- and makes quite good sense without getting into the discussion of a "dialectical neologism" that may well be no more than a joke on the exegetes. Ludwig X (talk) 15:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Your comment seems to contradict itself, saying the discussion of the title is too long, then that it makes "...quite [sic] good sense..." without, to paraphrase, being too long. I appreciated the discussion of the title myself since I couldn't find a translation for the word, my Italian being weak. It could have been reworked and put closer to the beginning of the article, however, since there is a reference to someone being one of the vitelloni in the beginning of the article, as if the word was known. 98.244.203.49 (talk) 18:54, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Jafeluv (talk) 08:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I Vitelloni → — Proper capitalization of the Italian title. sdornan (talk) 03:17, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose The proposal would be the proper capitalisation when writing in Italian; it is not the proper capitalisation when writing in English.  On English Wikipedia we follow English capitalisation rules.  On Italian Wikipedia they follow Italian capitalisation rules.  This is a proper name and so, in English, is capitalised.  Skinsmoke (talk) 06:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment If you look at the discussion regarding a previous move, the mod moved the page back for this very reason. Two of the pages he cited as justification, Les Misérables and La strada are currently at the very locations he said they shouldn't be. sdornan (talk) 14:46, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Other shit exists.....  Les Misérables, incidentally, is just where it should be.  La strada isn't.  Skinsmoke (talk) 04:00, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose This film has been distributed, marketed and reviewed in the English-speaking world as I Vitelloni, not I vitelloni. All English-language film/movie guides and reference books are unanimous in listing it as I Vitelloni, although exception for use of the form I vitelloni is made in a few sources when discussing this title in its Italian context or commenting on its release in countries which use Latin-based linguistic conventions.  As for the mention above of La Strada (film), on July 24, two days before the start of this discussion, a request opposite to this one, namely to move La strada to La Strada (film) has been initiated at Talk:La strada.  Participants in this thread are invited to join the discussion there.&mdash;Roman Spinner (talk) 05:08, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose Wikipedia should use its own style without importing. --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:00, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Writing credits for infobox
Apparently there is not agreement on how to handle this. There is no category called 'Idea' that belongs in the infobox. We have 'Screenplay' and 'Story', which is sufficient, the rest getting good coverage in the article. The article says that three of them wrote it together quickly. Any reason to doubt that? The story credit might be redundant of the screenplay, in which case I'd suggest we leave it out as well. Comments...? --Ring Cinema (talk) 22:01, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd agree for the sake of simplicity - story credits can always be developed in the body of the article. The problem is that many of the maestro's biographers and critics not only comment on his creative process (who came up with the idea followed by who developed the screenplay) but include filmographies that separate story/idea and the screenplay - including the order in which each participated. It's a distinction engrained in Italian cinema (but not exclusively). Example: the credits in Rossellini's films are careful about who's idea it was followed by the screenplay co-writers. Despite the extra time involved in fact-checking, I now think it's probably in line with an encyclopedic article on Fellini and maybe even stimulating for the happy few. That said, if a clutch of editors want to simplify things, I'm all for it.--Jumbolino (talk) 16:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Order of writers
Should writers be listed in the order they worked or according to the volume of their work? --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:56, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * This a good question. In the case of Fellini's co-writers, I've gone with what's written by his biographers and critics in terms of "volume" - who collaborated most and/or longest - together with authoritative bibliographies listing co-writers in a particular order. When possible, I've checked the order against the screen credits on various DVDs (time-consuming indeed but perhaps the best way to be sure of how all concerned agreed or were forced to agree on credits and order of appearance). I always include sources for verification to avoid OR. Concerning order: on one of Fellini's films, two biographers note Pinelli as co-story writer and screenwriter but will list him last as screenwriter since he contributed chiefly to dialogue - suggesting he contributed less in terms of "volume" than Fellini or Flaiano. Personally, I don't begin making my own interpretations when it comes to editing here: I stick to the information given in published and reliable sources.--Jumbolino (talk) 15:42, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * In a similar vein: is the story credit excisable when it's covered in the article and redundant of the screenwriters? --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Perfectly legit question - I've already tried to express my views on this above.--Jumbolino (talk) 16:21, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Producers and Companies
I make my living as a professional in the European film industry: producers in this business are referenced as both persons and companies (and often credited as such in films) - but maybe not in Wikipedia's filmbox formats. --Jumbolino (talk) 18:41, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think there's a separate field for the production companies. --Ring Cinema (talk) 19:02, 22 May 2012 (UTC)