The National Gallery is one of those places where the world outside no longer exists. It is a little corner of solitude where thousands of people can come to be alone.
It is no wonder then that I took to Frederick Wiseman's three hour saunter through the institution so readily. Wiseman's documentary portrait is as welcoming and as serene as the gallery itself. He lingers. He listens. He captures the place perfectly, and not just those areas that I haunted with comforting regularity. Wiseman takes his camera through those doors marked "no access" and into private discussions by the team that keeps the gallery funded, curated, promoted and accessible.
As you'd expect, those discussions, especially the ones focussed on accessibility, are not one-sided affairs. Wiseman picks up on the gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) push and pull between the gallery's role as a guardian of "high culture" and the necessities of business in a populist market. He finds drama in the dichotomy but it is a very gentle drama. The straining elitism of the gallery's director, Nicholas Penny, is diluted against the myriad of programs put in place to engage the masses. Art appreciation classes for the sight challenged (using heat raised reproductions of Camille Pissaro's 'The Boulevard Montmartre at Night'), life drawing classes, and the innumerable mobs of school kids who swarm about teachers and tour guides telling fascinating stories about the artworks, work together to undermine "barbarians at the gates" mentality.
Just as I used to, Wiseman wanders the gallery with a diffuse purpose. The art is not necessarily his primary concern. He drifts from moment to moment, catching snippets of gallery tours and petite private dramas, with a precise ear for when to move on. He is methodical with his camera, but generous too, so despite National Gallery's undeniably measured pacing the time flies by all too quickly. Five minutes observing a restoration expert cleaning a layer of old varnish off a seascape, slowly turning the green-grey sky into a brilliant blue, feels like seconds, and you leave with a regret that you'll never get to see her finish. A talk through the gestation of George Stubbs' magnificent portrait of "Whistlejacket", complete with tales of horses hanging on meathooks disturbs as much as it enthrals, a guide's truncated theory on the murder mystery enclosed within Hans Holbein's "The Ambassadors" leaves you desperate to unpick the truth, and a presentation of a restoration of a portrait by Rembrandt becomes a consuming artistic detective story. Wiseman steps from moment to moment with master's delicate feel for structure. He repeatedly leaves you wanting more. Even the careful construction of a new gilt frame captivates.
National Gallery may be carefully curated by Wiseman but he presents each moment in his museum without intrusion. There is no voice over. There are no probing questions. Any commentary comes from the gallery's ecosystem. Television interviews are incorporated in situ, department meetings provide social critique, and art history is presented, as it is presented day in day out, in front of the works themselves and directly to the gallery's patrons, be they four year old children being drawn into the wonder of artistic narrative or a delegate of officials from a similar institution visiting in preparation for an upcoming exhibition. Wiseman eavesdrops on information from every possible source and the snippets are never less than engaging.
All in all, National Gallery is a superb exploration of its subject. Nuanced, detailed and sturdily put together. For those who have been, it will transport you back there from its very first shot; for those who haven't, it will undoubtedly have you considering the trip. I'd not seen Wiseman's work till this and now that I've dipped my toe in the pool I'm entranced. I'd like to say a three hour documentary is more like a dunk in the pool but with Wiseman's back catalogue of documentary films currently numbering 38 (and his previous film, At Berkley, running over four hours), I think I've barely dipped a toenail. Much to look forward to.
★★★★
National Gallery screened at Sydney Film Festival 2014.
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