National Gallery (2014)

If you can visit the National Gallery in London personally, more power to you. For those of us who can’t, though, National Gallery is the next best thing. As is par for the course in a Frederick Wiseman doc, we learn a lot about the subject matter, and we do it by smosis; not in scripted interviews, but like any other museum visitor; i.e., listening to the guides, whom Wiseman allows to go on at length to better recreate the real experience.

Additionally, as he is also wont to do, Wiseman peeks behind the scenes at the internal mechanism of the institution; in this case, the backstage look is not limited to the administrative inner workings, but also includes invaluable visits to the workshops where anonymous artists carry out the very important task of retouching, restoring, and preserving.

Specifically, the National Gallery is an art gallery — that is, a space destined exclusively for the exhibition of artistic works of a pictorial nature —, but this institution emphasizes the integration of the arts, and accordingly the museum halls welcome such artistic expressions as a piano recital or a ballet.

Was it heart and soul that was supposed to distinguish human beings from animals? Well perhaps here it ought to be more art and soul as we take three hours to look into the workings of the UK’s National Gallery in London. Now I know, the thought of a three hour long documentary might be a bit off-putting, but this has been segmented quite sensibly into vignettes that illustrate the myriad of aspects of the work that goes on - and there is no narration. From exhibitions, conservation and restoration through to gala fund-raising, this proves to be an informative and not always flattering look at the operation and logistics behind administering and displaying this phenomenal collection of art. Some of the board meeting footage does make you wonder if these are the correct people to be running something this significant to the nation. Indeed, on a few occasions their conferences appear downright amateur and their attitudes to the broader public at times seem to suggest that we are little more than a necessary evil in "their" gallery. The painstaking work involved in hanging and lighting some of these fairly hefty and often intricate pieces of work is quite intimately presented as are their public tutorials that attempt to help the general public understand so much more about the works and their artists than might be immediately obvious to the untrained eye. It’s a charity and so, like many others, is always cost conscious as it tries to encompass the widest variety of British and European painting and though occassionally it does stray a little into the realms of elitism, it’s still an impressive illustration of a chronology of mankind expressed through the eyes of the rich, the religious, the powerful and sometimes even the horse-lover, and it does open eyes a little to the delights in a building that maybe suffers from an image of exclusive stuffiness filled with tourists. It’s the kind of film you can watch in chunks, so no need to binge - but if you do, you’ll probably find it quite a compelling feature.