The next feature from Frederick Wiseman takes us on a three-hour tour of one the world’s greatest art museums, and it’s hitting theaters this fall. Titled National Gallery, which obviously means that’s the institution it’s about (or, as I see his films, the institution it’s of), the documentary opens at New York’s Film Forum on November 5th before rolling out to other U.S. cities.
Here’s what Wiseman has to say about the film and the London museum in a statement sent out with the the announcement:
“I am trying to show as many different aspects of contemporary life as I can and organize them into a dramatic narrative structure. I first thought of making a film about a museum 30 years ago but other subjects intervened. I chose the National Gallery because it has one of the greatest collections of paintings from the 13th to the end of the 19th Century. Filming at the National Gallery was an opportunity to photograph some of the greatest paintings in the history of Western Art and to show the efforts involved in their restoration, preservation and presentation to the public and scholars of art.”
