Talk:If....

Untitled

It's four dots, no? The poster image is wrong. -87.82.14.205 08:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. I was unable to resolve the matter of how the elipsis in the movie title should be written. Wikipedia says, "There is no such thing as a 'four-dot ellipsis'." Lindsay Anderson, himself, used both 3 and 4 dot ellipses (if the transcriptions are accurate). [1] [2] [3] The Lindsay Anderson Collection pages at the University of Stirling uses 3 and 4. [4] [5] [6] The Lindsay Anderson Memorial Foundation web site uses 3 in the text accompanying a poster with 4. [7] The British Film Institute: screenonline site uses 3. [8] I think the article should use 3 dot ellipsis (to be consistent with the article on ellipsis) but comment on the frequent appearance of 4 dot ellipsis. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:26, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

It is four dots. Watch the film - the credits at the beginning and end give the title consistently with four dots, and that's really the only definitive source. IMDb also uses four, as do most posters. Can we move this article back to its old location and restore the four dots as the official title? Edbrims 20:10, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be three dots in the article title to be consistent with Wikipedia usage and usage outside Wikipedia, similar to the example of the Guardian and the BBC articles. [9] [10] I think I'm in good company here. This situation is analogous to certain song titles that are inconsistent with the Wikipedia convention on capitalization. In those cases, the Wikipedia convention is used so that the encyclopedia presents a uniform and consistent appearance to the reader. I'd be happy to refer this matter to WP:RFC if you are unconvinced by my reasoning. In the meantime, I would encourage you to add information about four dots appearing in the credits. That is good information, it is WP:V, and I agree that it belongs in the article. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 21:16, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree at all. Wikipedia should list films by their actual names: its job is just to give the facts, not to correct film-makers' writing conventions. Plenty of precedents for this: the title of the film Two Weeks Notice is missing an apostrophe; David Mitchell's book number9dream has no spaces, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation is missing a hyphen; the song Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart has an apostrophe it shouldn't - but these are listed on Wikipedia with their proper, wrong spelling. By all means redirect from "If..." to help people who look there, but the actual article should live at "If....", as this is its proper name. Edbrims 23:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I've posted a notice of this dispute at Wikiquette alerts. It seemed to fit the criteria for listing there, see WP:RFC. Please review it to ensure that I described this dispute fairly and adequately and make any changes you deem necessary. Also, may I thank you for your restraint in discussing a matter that you have a strong opinion regarding? I may very well be wrong about this, but would like to hear from others before moving it back (and fixing all the links). --Walter Siegmund (talk) 00:20, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

• My view is that the three-dot ellipsis is correct; the extra dot is clearly doing nothing, being merely accidental, and from the evidence provided by Walter Siegmund it's clear that reputable publications, not to mention Lindsay Anderson himself, are happy with the normal punctuation. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting discussion. The correct punctuation is three dots. You see four dots when the ellipsis follows a sentence, meaning one of the dots is a period/full stop. What to do when the filmmakers themselves have made the error is an interesting question, and I think that'd depend on whether they'd made it deliberately to make some point, which I'm assuming they didn't in this case. Given that the Guardian etc is rendering it as three dots, I'd go with that. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:12, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The possibility didn't occur to me until SlimVirgin mentioned it, but indeed the title could be read as "if ...(period/full stop)", i.e., unbounded exploration ending abruptly, thereby mirroring the film in the title. I did a Google search for '"Lindsay Anderson" ellipsis dots' and similar searches in hopes of finding a discussion of intent by the film maker without success. I did find that the screen play was published (see below). Later this week, I'll go to the local library to see if it offers any insight into the mind of the writer or director. Sherwin, David (1969). If.... A film by Lindsay Anderson and David Sherwin. [Screenplay by David Sherwin]. Simon and Schuster. p. 167. ISBN 0671204513. (Library of Congress: PN1997 .S472))

Disclosure: I contacted these two editors directly because I knew that they had some interest in this sort of question from their edits to WP:MOS and other articles. I worked with Mel Etitis on Adi Shankara a couple of months ago and sporatically since. I think this is the first time that I've interacted with SlimVirgin. Edbrims, I don't think of either of these editors as cronies, but thought you should know this history. Also, I would welcome comments by editors in which you have confidence.

Thank you, Mel Etitis and SlimVirgin, for your comments.--Walter Siegmund (talk) 23:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

But it isn't a mistake; it's just a difference of conventions of style. Two Weeks Notice is a genuine grammatical mistake, and if we're listing that as it is, I can't see any reason to rewrite this. The style guides in Wikipedia should only apply to original writing in articles, not to rewriting the title of a 1968 film. Lindsay Anderson might not have been quite consistent afterwards, but the film itself is what matters and it unambiguously spells its title with four dots. What's "correct" doesn't come into it. Edbrims 23:08, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I think those are good points. Thank you for finding those examples.
In the published screen play (Sherwin, 1969, see above), Lindsay Anderson in his introduction uses four dots consistently.Mr. Anderson credits Daphne Hunter with suggesting the title, but sheds no further light on the number of dots. The four dot version of the title appears at the beginning and end of the screen play proper. Interestingly enough, the title on the cover is the three dot version. The three dot version appears in a list of titles on the back cover. But the four dot version appears on the title pages and in the copyright notices. It was published by Simon and Schuster, a major publishing house, so I think it is safe to assume that it underwent editorial review and was competently proofread. The editor would have questioned Anderson and Sherwin on this point, or so I would assume. I think accident or ignorance of usage can be ruled out as a consequence. The cover inconsistency may be explained if it was designed by others without close coordination with the authors or the editors. This is quite plausible, in my opinion. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 23:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

When it comes to disputes about films IMDB has always been the final say according to various wiki articles about disputes and if it lists it with 4 then go with 4. As it is a reference to a piece of art then the director has 'artitic' license with the text and it is a direct quote if that. Most films do not have a period in their title's and when they do it is because of the director's artistic license. I say go with 4. Jsmp01 00:13, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

That is very helpful. I wonder I you would be kind enough to provide a couple of links to the articles you cite? I think it is important to have a complete record of the discussion here. Otherwise, this dispute will recur. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 07:36, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Adaptation. has a full stop in the title. Edbrims 14:57, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

The poll at Talk:Adaptation. was 11 to 6 in favor of the version with the period (full stop) at the end. The poll at Talk:Clerks. was 11 to 5 in favor of the version with the period (full stop) at the end. In neither case does it appear that editors gave extra weight to the way it was listed at IMDb.com. Also relevant are short discussions at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions/archive5 and Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(films)#Handling_of_special_movie_titles. Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Film_titles provides no guidance on this matter.

What seems indisputable is that using the title with the period leads to sentences like, "readers of Total Film magazine voted Clerks. the 16th greatest comedy film of all time.", a sentence that appears not to have been proofread to the average reader, and makes Wikipedia look unprofessional. I think it is telling that it is used only nine of 16 occurrances in the article Clerks..

Moreover, this usage propagates to other articles. In The Jesus Lizard, the reader sees, "... a song on the Clerks. soundtrack..." The reader that is not familiar with the film (and a reader of a music group article may well not be) and does not follows the link back to the article Clerks., may be forgiven for not understanding that this punctuation is deliberate.

When editing, it is natural to place a period after a sentence ending in a wikilink (as at the end of the paragraph above), i.e., [[Clerks.]]. I saw two instances in about 20 articles where this occurred. The result is even more disturbing for If..... But, the result is fine with If.... For the second example, the wikilink is written [[If... (film)|]].

User:Violetriga in the Clerks. discussion voted to keep the period and commented, "Official title is with the full stop and so it should remain. It's natural for it to be referred to without because it looks typographically ugly when mid-sentence." User:Austin Hair's following comment is "it looks bad in running text, but we are, after all, talking about the article's title." I think that those two users did not appreciate that the title would be used in running text with the punctuation when it is wikilinked, unless the editor takes the trouble to add a piped link with the title punctuation deleted, something most editors are not likely to do. In the Adaptation. discussion, this issue did not appear to be addressed. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe one of you fine folks could add a sentence to the article that explains the discrepancy between the 3 and 4 dot ellipsis. Also, the poster shows "if" in lowercase. If the films title is in fact all lowercase, you should also consider adding a {{Wrongtitle}} tag. Ewlyahoocom 17:37, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

• The title of this film is ‘if....’ containing four ellipses and a lowercase ‘i’. It shouldn’t be the judgment of an editor to presume that it’s a mistake of a copyrighter until proven otherwise. It may well be a historical anachronism that could somehow be relevant to the work, and whilst it should certainly of note in the article, it should not presumptuously be altered regarding its original form (which also happens to be present within the film itself). Perhaps the prose in Irvine Welsh novels should all be ‘corrected’ due to its lack of ‘proper’ spelling and grammatical errors, for what does he know? Say it was called ‘IF!’ the weight of the title would be interpreted quite differently. Perhaps this is not actually giving credence to advertising after all, as Wikipedia might suggest. I, for one, suggest altering that rule. If a writer or poet decides to deliberately misspell the title of a work without letting it be known it was intentional then the over enthusiastic actions of a Wikipedia grammar patroller become inadvertently revisionist and flawed. Really, this discussion should be about artistic license in product advertising. Personally, in a modern age, the typography and presentation of a products title is almost as relevant as the product itself. Just a random thought, maybe the lack of conformity in the title and its typography has much to do with the subject matter of the film? This is simply a random thought, but a thought similar to many who might ponder over the production idiosyncrasies of this particular film.

Sorry for all the fuss over a dot, but Wiki editors are not writers or its interpreters. 195.92.168.164 05:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Great dispute, best laugh I've had for ages, thank you all! - AG, Stockport, UK. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.34.69 (talk) 12:15, August 27, 2007 (UTC)

• Why has someone changed the page back from 'if...' to 'If...'. This is utterly pathetic. If some random Wiki grammar patroller with nothing better to do than correct supposed grammar 'imperfections' has a problem with the way a film is titled, why do they have an interest as to why it was stylized in such a way? Why didn't they bother to involve themselves in the discussion about altering the page name before moving it? Why are there editors who have no interest in the topic they are editing persist on shoving their baseless superiority complexes onto a subject they clearly have no understanding of? Isn't it a bit sad? Slightly less sad than me being bothered by it, but at least I have an interest in the article and its subject matter to care. I don't maintain my old Wikipedia account precisely because of pedantic crap such as this. It's an embarrassing tribute to a lack of intelligence and a sense of reasonable judgment and a tribute to blind idiocy disguised as reason. 89.242.17.26 (talk) 02:03, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

if...., A British Film Guide by Paul Sutton

I moved the following comment from the article and added the citation to reference list. Walter Siegmund (talk) 06:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
The most comprehensive account of the making of the film, and the only book written using Lindsay Anderson's own archive, is Paul Sutton's if...., A British Film Guide (I.B. Tauris) written for Turner Classic Movies.[11]

Why haven't we moved it yet?

It seems most are in favour of the four-dot ellipsis but why does this page remain at three. If you are worried about a work being published iin vain of the title well that happens all the time. Consensus from the actual film its self INCLUDING but not limited to the screenplay. Take these two links for example:

1. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Royal-Wedding-Fred-Astaire/dp/B0006GAFXA/ref=pd_bowtega_1/203-3850962-3849548?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1179902947&sr=1-1 Now if you click on the picture of the DVD cover, you will notice that Technicolor is spelled with a "U". That doesn't make it so.

2. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Night-Living-Dead-Judith-ODea/dp/B00005RHJ8/ref=sr_1_6/203-3850962-3849548?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1179903064&sr=1-6 In the picture on this link, Judith O'Dea is credited as Judith O'Hara.

Now what have we learned from this? Well... that you can't always trust the unofficial publishers. If the screenplay says "if...." then the title is the prior. Be it a full stop or a grammatical error, it seems neccesary to restore the fourth dot seeing as there is enough consensus. ESPECIALLY if the screenplay says so, unless it is a working title but that has been disproven from the credit titles.

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. 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.

If... (film) → if.... — It says in the poster and in the screenplay. Check the DVD, it comes with a copy of the screenplay and you can't go wrong with the screenplay. —Reginmund 21:22, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support - It is written if... in the screenplay and that should be the last source when discussion comes to the title. Reginmund 21:23, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose No reason this article should go against the MOS. Besides, the article already redirects to If. Lrrr IV 22:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I might support moving it to If.... (with the first letter capitalized). Lrrr IV 22:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support The screenplay, poster and an alternate poster and the actual film credits all have a lowercase "i" and four dot ellipse, as evidenced here. Doctor Sunshine talk 00:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support Rbb l181 16:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

-For anyone who believes this change is unjustified because of MoS, consider the fact that hellogoodbye is missing a space and Two Weeks Notice is missing an apostrophe. If those article's title's are justified, what makes if.... any different? Besides, there are several RC Patrollers here making sure that nobody removes the fourth full stop. Reginmund 00:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Ahem. If the argument is solely about the use of I vs i, well... Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Lower case first letter. Charles 21:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually the main argument is about the omission of the fourth full stop. Reginmund 22:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, okay. It serves in repsonse to Lrrr IV whose desire for a capital I is unnecessary. Charles 22:33, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.

This article has been renamed from If... (film) to if.... as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 06:37, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Tonbridge school shooting

In my research, the incident mentioned in the article about students threatening the school with guns is false. The original script by the writers in fact did not mention a shooting at all. I vote we remove it, unless anyone can come up with evidence verifying it. -Son of ecgtheow.

I agree. I was at Tonbridge a few years after Sherwin and Howlett, and I never heard any mention of such an incident. Geoffw1948 10:07, 29 July 2007 (UTC)GeoffW

Query. There is a popular belief that the use of black and white in the film was due to a lack of money. Is there any evidence to support this ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.13.143.58 (talk) 23:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I was also at Tonbridge School - The housemaster in the film comes from a Mr. Kemp who was a long-time housemaster and Deputy Head at the school. David Sherwin gave an interview in one the Tonbridgian school magazine in which he stated that lack of funds was indeed the reason for some of the scenes being shot in black and white. Although a number of the public school features/eccentricities in the film were common to many schools, it is clear that many are direct references to David's time at Tonbridge. It is interesting that the chapel at Cheltenham College (the location for the final scenes) bore a very striking resemblance to the chapel at Tonbridge (destroyed by fire in 1987). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.139.95.180 (talk) 06:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

A house master at Tonbridge during the 1960's was Roy Ford who later became headmaster at King's School Rochester. As a student at Kings School Rochester during the 1980's there was talk that the title of the film was taken from his propensity to begin sentences with a dramatic "If...". Is there any other evidence for this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.103.221.30 (talk) 08:23, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

A Clockwork Orange

In the documentary film The Return of a Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell said that he had not understood how to do Alex's part, So Kubrick told him, 'Remember that scene when you [I don't remember exactly how he said it; he mentioned a part when he comes through big doors and makes an expression that could be defined as well-defining Alex]? That's how you should do Alex. [Or something like that. Look for it on YouTube.com.]' McDowell said he understood from that how to do Alex. Siúnrá (talk) 16:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Confirmed. I will post it.--Louiedog (talk) 04:03, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Simon Ward

Where is his participation disputed? IMdB says he was in it, albeit uncredited. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 10:41, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

What is this "If.... (styled as If....)" nonsense at the intro of the article?

Again, and for the unlikely last time, the film is titled 'if....' A lowercase 'i' with four ellipses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.150.196.87 (talk) 04:53, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

You are correct. Wikipedia does not seem to be able to adapt there programming to use a lower case letter as the first word in an article title. That does not mean that we have to use an upper case letter anywhere else in this article. So I have altered those that I could find. If I missed any help form other editors in correcting them will be appreciated. MarnetteD | Talk 03:25, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

As per WP:MOSTM and WP:NC we use correct standard English, not the random stylistic preferences of individuals. The film is title If it is styled as if..... Lowercase titles are wrong. Wikipedia uses correct English which means capitalising names, including titles of films. Nouse4aname (talk) 15:08, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:MOSTM is irrelevant as this is not a trademark but the title of a film. We cannot do anything about the article title starting with upper case, but there is no need to repeat that in the rest of the article. See the discussion starting at the top of this page (the parts of it that are about the lowercase initial, not the business about the number of dots). -- Alarics (talk) 12:45, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

MOSTM is not restricted to trademarks only. MOSTM uses the following examples as instances of using standard English over non-standard stylistic preferences: the film Alien 3, which is styled as Alien³, and the TV show Thirtysomething_(TV_series), which is styled as thirtysomething. See also: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Composition_titles. "Capitalize the first letter in the first and last words in the titles of English compositions (books and other print works, songs and other audio works, films and other visual media works, paintings and other artworks etc.)". MOSTM is applied to all instances where a title is styled with a lower case letter, despite originally designed specifically for trademarks, this same rule is applied in various other instances of incorrect styling issues contradicting standard English capitalisation. As stated repeatedly, Wikipedia does not lend undue weight to non standard formatting. Instead, Wikipedia uses standard English language, which requires the capitalisation of titles, including those of films. Nouse4aname (talk) 15:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

As MarnetteD notes in his/her edit summary today, a consensus on this had already been reached and it is in favour of reproducing the title of the film with a lower case initial letter, as in the film itself, the book of the script, and the poster.-- 18:32, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed move

Does anyone else think this shouldn't be the first result for "If...," but rather "If... (film)" with "If..." going to "If"? Just because I came to "If..." looking for the Kipling poem. Twin Bird (talk) 04:21, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

IMO there is no reason to move this page. Kipling's poems page is here If— with a hyphen. This film has, from its initial release, always used four periods. As I peruse the net I can find no agreement on how to title the poem. This site [12] uses five periods, this one uses [13] none as do most of the others that I found on google. Readers looking for any of the articles that have "if" as there title will most likely type if and get taken to the dismabig page anyway. Your suggestion would also require moving the page for the poem so you might want to put a note on that pages talk page. MarnetteD | Talk 18:04, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I would actually be in favor of adding the disambiguation simply because of the number of "If..." type of articles we have. There is If... (The Bluetones song), If... (comic), If... (TV series), If... (Desperate Housewives)...there's a couple others that don't have pages as well. I get that this is "If" with 4 periods, but and extra period isn't really enough to argue that it's a unique spelling. We cannot load this page with "for the comic see, for the TV series see, etc." because it would be too long. I think "If..." should redirect to "IF" and this page should be disambiguated as "film". IMO.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:00, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your input and I take your point. I was only looking at the case narrow focus of this films page re Kipling's poem page. You have pointed out the wider aspects of the numerous wikipedia articles that have "If" as their title. As long as we are moving this page to "If.... (film)", since the periods are part of the official title of the film, I would concur with the move. Perhaps we should leave this open for another 3 or 4 days to see if anyone else responds and then we could make the official move request. MarnetteD | Talk 03:06, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Stephen Frears

The film is being broadcast at the moment of me typing this, in the early morning on Film4. The Radio Times listing for this showing credits Anderson and Frears as co-directors. Does anyone know what might be the justification for this? Harfarhs (talk) 02:10, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I put on my DVD and ran the credits. Frears is listed as assistant to the director not co-director. If you check this website [14] it backs that up. I think that the person who wrote the RT listing substituted "co-" for "assistant" through a misunderstanding (or lack of) of the terms. Hope you enjoyed seeing the film (again or for the first time) I like the fact that we get to see one of the few " in front of camera" performances of the young Charles Sturridge. Cheers. MarnetteD | Talk 02:26, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, thanks. Yes, I enjoyed it again!! Looking at the Frears article here, I wonder whether some person/people has/have been exaggerating his roles: see my addition to the Frears talk page. Harfarhs (talk) 19:51, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

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Private or public school?

I made a change because the film depicts the situation in a private school, not a public one. The change was undone and I do not understand why! I saw the movie recently and it is clear that we have students paying fees and the atmosphere inside is typical for a private school. This is significant and we need to underline this. Even IMDB is on my track: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063850/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.124.176.185 (talk)

The third sentence of the article you linked to (Independent school (United Kingdom)) explains the situation: "Many of the older, expensive and more exclusive schools catering for the 13–18 age-range in England and Wales are known as public schools". The film is set in a Public school (United Kingdom), which is why you were reverted, and why I am about to revert you once again. Thanks. TwoTwoHello (talk) 15:02, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Title

Isn't the title a reference to the Kipling poem If-? It seems to be the sort of thing they'd make you read in a British public school. 2601:1C2:1600:8870:101C:7157:6A71:FE5B (talk) 02:06, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Almost certainly (though you might not be able to find an acceptable source to put it in the article).

There are striking parallels between this film and Kipling's collection of schoolboy tales titled Stalky & Co., e.g. (1) three nonconformist boys in the Sixth Form as the central characters, (2) a school cadet program that goes badly wrong, (3) a romance with an off-campus shopgirl, (4) a school chaplain who understands and likes the rebels, (5) loud African music (a Nigerian drum in Kipling's book).

I sometimes like to refer to this film as "Stalky on Drugs". Hcunn (talk) 15:22, 19 December 2023 (UTC)