Talk:The Dickson Experimental Sound Film

A Question

I have a question: What's the melody Dickson was playing called?
Or, What melody did he play?

It's "The Song of the Cabin Boy" from Robert Planquette's operetta The Chimes of Normandy. --Franz 09:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Clean-up

This page needs to be cleaned up.

No evidence

From the article: "...there is no evidence that Dickson intended to present the men—presumably employees of the Edison studio—as a romantic couple."

Well, there is the suggestion in the tune Dickson plays. The lyrics to "Song of the Cabin Boy" are about a cabin boy on a ship crewed entirely by men with no women in sight. Whether contemporary audiences would have interpreted two men dancing to this song to be gay, probably not, but it seems clear to me Dickson was going for some kind of joke.

Incidentally, a short called "The Gay Brothers" did (and possibly does) exist, but the article is correct in saying this film isn't it. I've never seen it and I'm uncertain if it's even still extant, but I'd wager it's using the term "gay" in the same way the later short "The Gay Shoe Clerk" does--fresh and a bit cheeky, not homosexual. --Franz 04:26, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Franz. That's a great observation about the film's music. My only hesitation in incorporating it in the article as evidence suggesting Dickson intended a joke (completely plausible), is that I've been unable to find a single authoritative published source confirming that the tune is "Song of the Cabin Boy"; if you have one--or even an unimpeachable online source (rather than one referencing someone else and/or with clear errors, which is all I've found), let's run with it.

I've read it in a few places, but off-hand I know this page mentions it and cites its sources and this one also says that's the tune Dickson plays.

Mainly what convinces me is just listening to both of them:

Here's an MP3 of Dickson playing

Here's the section of sheet music from Chimes of Normandy *

Here's a MIDI I made of it

Here's a MIDI of just the vocal part played on a violin

The recording of Dickson is very poor and playback speed dances all over the place, but it's clear to me that he's playing the vocal part of "Song of the Cabin Boy".

(Note: the credits listing following the brief Murch note on the restoration says the music is the Barcarolle from the Planquette operetta [which those same credits mistitle]. Is "Song of the Cabin Boy" the operetta's one and only barcarolle?) Best, Dan—DCGeist 05:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC) (also posted on editor's own Talk page)

I'm not overly familiar with the operetta and have never seen it performed, but as far as I know, Grenicheux's barcarolle is the only one (and Grenicheux is the character singing this piece and it definitely is a barcarolle).

* I don't speak French and online translators are giving very interesting, if completely useless, results on those lyrics. I've had no luck finding a human translation of it, but I did find one place that says "Va, petit mousse" means "Go, ship's boy", so I'm ready to believe those that call this segment "Song of the Cabin Boy" and what they say it says.

--Franz 08:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Great, great work by Franz here. Thank you.—DCGeist 17:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Films assessment

In re, the matter of the WikiProject Films assessment, it is easy enough to determine that the Start-class tag is out-of-date by comparing the current article to the state of the article when the tag was applied on August 27: article's state after last edit before 8/27/06. In fact, the original assessment tag was misapplied: the article was identified as at a stub at that point, so either (a) the WikiProjects tag should have been Stub-class, or (b) the stub tag should have been removed from the article when the Start-class assessment was made. Of course, a new assesment would be appreciated.—DCGeist 20:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC) {subsequently signed/date-stamped; sorry I left it out; concentrating on figuring out how to link to the old version of the article, which I'd never done before—DCGeist 23:03, 16 October 2006 (UTC)}

A few comments:

1. It is appreciated if you sign your posts.
2. Who are you to make assessments on the film (if you normaly do, then consider helping us by signing up here)
3. (referring to your comparison) Mistakes happen and the classing may be misapplied.
4. I did change the rating after another reading because there seems to be no more information
5. Why did you change the other rating ({{WikiProject Filmmaking}}) to GA when it has never gone through a GA nomination (accessable through Wikipedia:Good article candidates)

Cbrown1023 21:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I rated it as a GA based on the grading scheme in place. I understand that it is "technically" supposed to be nominated for GA, but for the purposes of the Filmmaking WikiProject, I'm ignoring that as I see that there is a great gap between a B-class article and an A-Class one (which is more or less ready for FAC and has citations). Right or wrong? Not certain. But that's how WP Filmmaking is handling it at the moment. WP Films need not concur with the assessment of another project; I also rated Film as a GA (in contrast to WP Films' A-Class rating), and would've done so even had the article not been GA nom'd. Ultimately the assessments are used by the projects. This has been discussed at WP 1.0 talk pages, notably in light of the rapidly-changing GA standards. In the meantime, I'm restoring the Filmmaking assessment and ask that you respect that. Thanks! Girolamo Savonarola 22:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I definately respect that, it's just I did not know if that was added in error or not, very similar to what DCGeist did and I handled it incorrectly, just like DCGeist did. Cbrown1023 23:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The dance ?

The lads are very close in timing and space, but their embrace is symmetrical, suggesting it's not the usual kind of partner-dance that relies on lead-and-follow for timing. It's hard to make out the footwork: just a one-two-three-tap - is it an identifiable named dance ? --195.137.93.171 (talk) 18:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

https://www.dancilla.com/wiki/index.php/Fingerlestanz 90.205.37.239 (talk) 15:58, 31 May 2019 (UTC)