It's hard to know where to begin when analyzing what's so wrong with this long, boring film. Fundamentally, it's that museums are embedded in history, collecting and displaying great art from the past, and educating the public about their collections. Director Wiseman is not just ahistorical in his approach, but anti-historical, in his affectation to identify no one in the film. It DOES matter that the NG's director at the time was Nicolas Penny, just as it's important to know that Larry Keith was head of conservation. What they say isn't ahistorical gospel but very individual opinions. To erase their identity is to erase history. What we are shown instead well could serve as a PR effort to get money from the government because one would think, on the basis of the film, that the museum does nothing but cater to the public. How tiresome are Wiseman's head shots of the audience! How irrelevant are his juxtapositions with painted heads! Collecting? That is a primary mission of museums, if not its first purpose; but not a word about that activity in this film. Rather, what we are subjected to for three hours could pertain to any great museum: to the Louvre, the Met, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, etc. That the film gives no idea of what is special about the NG underscores its superficiality and disregard of history.
Review of National Gallery
