In the Uffizi Gallery, the documentary film by Corinna Belz and Enrique Sánchez Lansch about the Florentine museum, is above all a portrait of its German director
Is it possible to portray an institution like the Florentine Uffizi Gallery, one of the most important museums in the world, in a 90-minute documentary? You can at least try, even if in the film the librarian of the house recommends five days alone for the tour.
The title and claim of the work by Corinna Belz and Enrique Sánchez Lansch are reminiscent of the large portraits of institutions by the American Frederick Wiseman. His overly long films about London’s National Gallery, the Paris Opera Ballet and the New York Public Library set standards. Like Wiseman, Belz and Lansch also choose an observational, commentary-free film style and assemble impressions from in front of and behind the scenes in a loose sequence. However, one soon notices that they distance themselves from Wiseman’s style-defining approach on one crucial point, and that has nothing to do with the shorter running time. Wiseman’s radicalism consists in not serving any hierarchies, neither in the form nor in the institutions depicted. On the other hand, there is the conservative approach of portraying an institution from the head up.
Belz, who made her best-known films about the painter Gerhard Richter, the writer Peter Handke and the curator Kasper König, once again portrays a powerful man in the cultural sector: the main protagonist of the film is the German director of the Uffizi Gallery since 2015, Eike Schmidt. What announces itself as an institutional portrait is actually predominantly a director’s portrait. In this respect, however, it is far less profound than Belz’ approaches to Richter and Handke, who at least pushed their dominant protagonists to the limits of their self-confidence through perseverance.
In this case, too, Belz might have made a more convincing film if she had openly conceived it as a portrait of this art historian and cultural manager. But one learns nothing about his career or his specialty, the ebony sculptures of the Medici. Even his affinity for digital publicity and social networks, which is unusual for Florentine museums, is irrelevant. Instead, one experiences Schmidt as a friendly boss who is happy to bow to the opinion of an employee in low-threshold debates such as the printing of business cards.
In every scene, Schmidt comes across as confident and purposeful; he is a man who lets himself be addressed as “Mr. Director” on the phone, but always seems to communicate at eye level – in informal work discussions, colleagues can also dare to answer a mobile phone call.
It is hard to imagine that in 2020, after the end of filming, all four members of his scientific advisory board would resign in a dispute over a Raffael loan approved by Schmidt. They had long before worked out a list of the 24 most valuable works, against which Schmidt now used his director’s veto. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to consistently portray this media-savvy director, who is very popular in the region, with all facets of his work?
Belz and Lansch are also under his spell when they try to draw a picture of the house at the same time; but the famous collection is only partially accessible. Understandable to only pick individual works; Interesting aspects can be created with less well-known exhibits in particular. Here it is a work by Andrea Commodi that Schmidt brought from the depot, Engelfallen. But the mediation experiences little deepening. You learn nothing about this interesting master of the early baroque and his masterpiece, which today seems almost surreal.
In only a cursory sketch of the individual working areas of a museum, art mediation, restoration, curatorial work, everything remains on the surface.
Nevertheless, the film does not do without obvious staging, the librarian repeatedly speaks directly for the camera, even the conversation between two female visitors at the end of the film seems staged. And hearing a museum attendant rave about his life with the masterpieces in gratitude only masks the social component.
One can imagine that there are still several better films slumbering in the material shot, but the disappointment prevails here. Not only does one learn little that is new about this wonderful museum. In the over-presence of the director, the film uses the socio-politically questionable model of the “glass ceiling”. Just as this institution does not emphasize the work of its curators below the director level in its self-portrayal, this film gives them profile. As if the principle of court reporting still applies even after half a millennium of museum history.
In the German media in particular, there is always an increased interest in the successful work of one’s own compatriots abroad. It is a phenomenon that can be traced since the post-war period, when it was accompanied by the ambiguous drive for national recognition. If a German film with the title “In the Uffizi” mainly tells of the German director, an equally ambivalent impression is created. In contrast, what democratic power do Frederick Wiseman’s films develop through the broad selection of their equally weighted protagonists? Anyone who touches on his method on the one hand and turns it upside down on the other hand in this political question obviously has more conservative ideas about the organization of public institutions.
Corinna Belz, this specialist for dominant masculinity in the art world, respectfully pushed even Richter and Handke to certain limits. Here she doesn’t even approach the curtain, let alone what might lie behind it.
In the offices. Directed by: Corinna Belz, Enrique Sánchez Lansch. D 2020.
