Parky at the Pictures (DVD 30/4/2015)

Employing a match shot of a wheelchair and bicycle to flash back from a scene at Buckingham Palace, the action opens in Cambridge in 1963 as Oxford-born physics PhD candidate Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) contemplates a suitable subject for his research. Cosmology supervisor Dennis Sciama (David Thewlis) is intrigued by his ambition to challenge the decaying star theories of established scientist Roger Penrose (Christian McKay) and posit that the universe was created by an explosion inside a black hole. However, Hawking is distracted from his studies by Romance languages and literature student Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones) and their romance blossoms, even though Hawking is beginning to notice an increased difficulty in controlling his muscles and a marked decline in his energy levels.

Concerned by his condition, Hawking consults a doctor (Adam Godley) and is diagnosed with degenerative motor neurone disease and given two years to live. Naturally, he is devastated by the news. But Wilde is determined to support him and accepts his marriage proposal and vows that they will face whatever the future has in store for them together. Her parents, Beryl and George (Emily Watson and Guy Oliver Watts), have their misgivings and Hawking is encouraged by his own family - parents Frank and Isobel (Simon McBurney and Abigail Cruttenden) and sisters Phillipa and Mary (Charlotte Hope and Lucy Chappell) - to make the most of the time left to him and have any children quickly.

Wilde is eager to fall in with such a plan and is soon nursing three children (Robert, Lucy and Timothy) as well as her ailing husband, whose refusal to use a wheelchair often leaves her struggling to help him move around while trying to hold an infant. Yet, despite his physical deterioration, Hawking's mind remains as sharp as ever and his star ascends within the academic community and he is eager to accept invitations to attends symposiums around the world. Wilde accompanies him on such occasions, but, having sacrificed her own intellectual aspirations, she resents having to be the consistently proud and cheery champion of her spouse's genius.

As a devout Christian, Wilde draws on her faith and joins a local choir with Hawking's ready agreement. However, she becomes increasingly fond of organist Jonathan Hellyer Jones (Charlie Cox), who becomes something of a fixture around the house and a surrogate father to the growing children. During a camping trip, however, Wilde and Jones become lovers and she is torn between her love and sense of duty towards Hawking and her realisation that she can never have the kind of family life with him that Jones could offer. Her guilt is exacerbated by the fact that Hawking's growing frailty and inability to speak has left him dependent upon both his care assistant and speech therapist Elaine Mason (Maxine Peake).

Wilde is shocked back to reality, however, when Hawking suffers a life-threatening collapse that requires a tracheotomy and Jones discreetly withdraws to allow her to focus on his maternal-matrimonial duties. The incident only increased Hawking's dependency upon Mason, who begins to exhibit signs of controlling possessiveness, as her patient becomes an international celebrity following the 1988 publication of A Brief History of Time. Two years later, Hawking and Wilde come to the calm conclusion that their marriage has run its course and they decide to separate. But it is Jane who accompanies him to the palace to collect his CBE, as he is fully aware of the debt he owes her.

Hawking and Wilde may well have maintained similar levels of civility as they accepted the changing nature of their relationship, but such rational acceptance makes for scant emotional drama. Consequently, this sincere profile rather peters out and many viewers will leave feeling short-changed rather than inspired by this lukewarm exercise in stiff upper lippery. Following Daniel Day-Lewis's lead in Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot (1989), Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne ably conveys the physical and psychological effects of a debilitating and, ultimately, dehumanising, disease, while being careful not to overplay the characteristic poses and tics (Hawking provides his own Equaliser vocalisation). Similarly, Felicity Jones avoids seeming like a passive victim or a pious hypocrite. But the script very much takes her part and Maxine Peake is left with a thankless task of playing the interloper whose reputation has since been besmirched by accusations of physical maltreatment.

But while it's a shame that McCarten feels the need to sanitise a story that is already very well known, his decision to water down the scientific discussion is even more disappointing and damaging, as it undersells Hawking's achievement (which owes much to his willingness to retain an open mind and even accept errors of judgement) and also insults the intelligence of the audience. Moreover, it glosses over the extent to which Hawking and Wilde's steady detachment was rooted in their intellectual differences as much as their shifting physical and emotional needs. Thus, while such casual chauvinism undoubtedly reflects the attitudes of the narrative's time frame, McCarten and Marsh miss the opportunity (outside the odd witty exchange about religion) to explore Wilde's own abilities and ambitions outside being a loyal wife and selfless carer.

John Paul Kelly's production design and Steven Noble's costumes (77 changes for Redmayne alone) are unfussily authentic, while Jan Sewell's hair and make-up effects are impeccably judged. However, while cinematographer Benoît Delhomme deftly catches the colour schemes of college stonework and the English seasons, the blocking of the action is as cumbersome as Marsh's scene transitions and use of fire, water, eyeballs, whirling wheels and swirling coffee to allude to such complex scientific phenomena as black holes, space-time singularities and the reconciliation of quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of relativity, which he hints are nothing in their impenetrability when compared with the mysteries of the heart. The montages edited by Jinx Godfrey to Johann Johansson's calculatingly saccharine piano score also feel self-conscious and it is difficult to avoid drawing the conclusion that Marsh (who already has an Oscar from his compelling 2008 documentary, Man on Wire) was more conscious of the need to garner prestigious awards than Martin was when he made his infinitely more nuanced and demanding teleplay.

Having completed the clean sweep of Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA, Redmayne must have been hugely unpopular in the home of Michael Keaton, who was pipped each time for his flamboyant turn in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman: or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Critics Stateside raved about this meta-satire and pronounced it a return to form for the Mexican director after 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006) and Biutiful (2010) took some of the lustre off his nuevo cine masterpiece, Amores Perros (2000). But, while there is no question that Keaton exhibits great physical courage, as well as actorly skill as the washed-up Hollywood action hero seeking legitimacy on the Broadway stage, this despicably chauvinist insider insight into the thespian psyche falls prey to the fatal combination of being underwritten and overplayed.

As a falling star streaks across the sky, actor Michael Keaton levitates in his underwear in his dressing-room at the St James Theatre on West 44th Street in New York. Back in the 1990s, he was the star of the Birdman franchise and a poster for the second sequel adorns his wall as the gravelly voice of the superhero urges Keaton to forget about seeking valediction by treading the boards in a self-funded, self-penned and self-directed production of the Raymond Carver short story, `What We Talk About When We Talk About Love', and return to the silver screen. However, such is his commitment to the off-Broadway project that he has hired daughter Emma Stone to be his assistant (as a way of trying to atone for the childhood neglect that caused her to wind up in rehab) and found a role for girlfriend Andrea Riseborough, who is desperate to start a family, even though she has a soft spot for co-star Naomi Watts, another film star hoping to increase her credibility by doing a play.

As rehearsals progress, producer Zach Galifianakis worries that Keaton is behaving oddly. So, when a light falls and hits mediocre actor Jeremy Shamos, Galifianakis insists on replacing him with Edward Norton, a Method devotee who is dating Watts and whose name could bolster the box office. Convinced that he had caused the light to fall with his telekinetic powers, Keaton agrees to the switch. But he quickly discovers Norton to be a temperamental egotist who not only demands advantageous rewrites, but who also has a penchant for deleterious practical jokes. Thus, he substitutes water for gin during a preview performance and the tipsy cast members begin bickering in front of a bemused audience.

Riseborough adds to Keaton's growing woes by announcing she is pregnant. But Norton again proves the main source of trouble, as he goes on stage sporting a bulging erection that amuses the audience much more than it does Watts, who is so mortified by his antics that she terminates the relationship. Rumours of these teething troubles reach influential New York Times critic Lindsay Duncan, who tells Keaton that she detests Hollywood has-beens trying to revive their fortunes on the Great White Way and threatens to give his production a damning notice even before she has seen it.

Driven to distraction, Keaton goes to the theatre roof and wrestles with his alter ego. He rushes to the ledge and flings himself down. But, instead of plunging towards the street below, he takes flight and sails along Park Avenue before landing safely. However, Keaton is soon disabused of any thought he might have had about turning the corner when he gets locked out of the venue (when a fire door slams on his rope while he is getting some fresh air before the dramatic finale) and has to walk through Times Square in his underpants in order to gain readmission through the foyer.

Keaton is appalled that the early reviews all focus on Norton's livewire display. But, while ex-wife Amy Ryan offers some timely words of support, Stone is less forgiving when Keaton catches her using drugs again and she lets him know in no uncertain terms that her problems are deeply rooted in his selfishness. Stone's suggestion that Keaton stops living in the past coincides with Riseborough admitting that she is not pregnant and he ends the romance. Thus, he is in something of a state by opening night and takes a real gun on to the stage for the finale. Duncan storms out of the theatre, as Keaton shoots himself in the face. But, as he recovers in hospital, he learns that he has only blown his nose off and that Duncan was so impressed by his `super realism' that she has given the play a rave review.

Stone offers her congratulations. But, when she pops out of the room, Keaton sees some birds fluttering outside his window and he climbs out on to the ledge to join them. On returning, Stone is surprised to find the room empty and is horrified to see the open window. However, instead of seeing her father lying dead in the street below, she looks up and smiles quietly to herself.

Laced with visual allusions to both Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963), this is a film that is destined to divide audiences and critics alike. Those who buy into the backslapping luvviness are likely to be wowed by the countless throwaways riffing on everything from social media, actorly snobbery and comic-book blockbusters to Justin Bieber, Roland Barthes and George Clooney. But there is precious little finesse in a scenario concocted by Iñárritu in conjunction with Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. and Armando Bo and, consequently, each one-liner is followed by the briefest pause designed to accommodate the drum roll and cymbal crash that nodding industry lags will doubtlessly hear as clearly as Keaton heeds Birdman's interior monologue.

But if admirers are able to forgive the smugness, there is surely no way they can condone the sexist depiction of the female characters, who are either shrews, nags or prudes. It's bad enough that Riseborough has to play a character who tries to trap her man by pretending to be pregnant, but she also has to endure a purely specious kiss with Watts, who is shockingly wasted as Norton' insecure paramour. Indeed, it feels as though someone had the brilliant idea to perform a little gender reassignment on Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve (1950) and, while this may reflect the current state of Hollywood (with actors of both sexes struggling to sustain fame once they have been forced to disembark from the mega-hit gravy train, if they were ever lucky enough to scramble aboard), the message is put across too coarsely for it to register as perceptive satire. The assault on sniping critics is also thuddingly gauche.

Exposing his thinning pate and thickening waistline, Keaton throws himself into the best role he has had since Batman. But Iñárritu nods and winks far too frequently and blatantly in the direction of his casting coup for its efficacy to retain its sheen, in spite of the neat gag of having Birdman sound more like Christian Bale's Caped Crusader than Keaton's own. Edward Norton also enjoys himself in sending up Stanislavskian pretension (while getting away with the fact that he, of course, headlined Lous Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk in 2008), while Zach Galifianakis shows admirable restraint as Keaton's lawyer sidekick.

But the standout contributions come on the craft side, with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki keeping his camera in almost perpetual motion through meticulously choreographed takes that have been artfully edited by Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione to make them appear seamless - even though the action takes place over several days. Antonio Sánchez's score is equally acute and propulsive, as not only do the passages of jazz drumming energise proceedings, but they also raise questions about their source and the extent to which they are connected to the disembodied voice Keaton keeps hearing and the visions (or hallucinations) he experiences. Yet, while there are bravura technical and dramatic moments to admire here, they are swamped by the self-satisfaction that Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman managed more successfully to avoid in Being John Malkovich (1999).

Such is the versatility of Québecois director Jean-Marc Vallée that dramatic changes of scenery have become the norm. Since debuting with the award-laden serial killer saga Black List (1995), he has made a Western (Los Locos, 1996), a revenge thriller (Loser Love, 1999), a period study of homophobia (C.R.A.Z.Y., 2005), an historical biopic (Young Victoria, 2009), a cross-decades love story (Café Flore, 2011) and an Oscar-winning, fact-based AIDS drama (Dallas Buyers Club, 2013). So, in choosing to hook up with novelist Nick Hornby to adapt Cheryl Strayed's bestselling account of the trek that changed her life, Vallée is simply following his impressive instincts. But, while Wild may look magnificent and may well snag Reese Witherspoon an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, this 1000-mile rite of passage is hamstrung by the tonal lurching and sketchy characterisation that seem to be an unavoidable by-products of its structural convolution.

It's the summer of 1995 and Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) is only partway through her three-month odyssey from along the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert in Southern California to the Oregon-Washington border. She is already beginning to regret bringing such a heavy backpack (which she has dubbed `the Monster') and now wishes she had taken more time choosing her footwear, as her hiking boots are a size too small and they have just removed a toenail. As she inspects the damage, one of the boots falls down a chasm and Cheryl tosses the other after it in frustration.

Forced to make do with a pair of sandals customised with some duct tape, she struggles on and the action flashes back to the phone call she made to her ex-husband, Paul (Thomas Sadoski), to ask him to support her by dispatching supply packages to pick-up points every 100 miles or so along the route. He agrees to help, in spite of not being able to fathom the reason for the enterprise, and we see Cheryl struggling in a pseudo-slapstick montage to pack her haversack and then carry it on her back.

Heading out to the gas station from her motel room, Cheryl hitches a lift with a friendly couple and a song on the radio prompts her to recall her younger self (Bobbi Strayed Lindstrom) dancing with her mother, Bobbi Nyland (Laura Dern). However, the reverie proves all-too-brief, as Cheryl is dropped at her destination and ventures into the wilderness. As she camps for the night, she writes an entry in her journal and thinks back to how Bobbi had always been there for her and how she had once ticked off her younger brother, Leif (Keene McRae) for expecting their mother to wait on him hand and foot.

Fortified by porridge, Cheryl makes steady progress and has covered 30 miles by the end of Day Five. However, her food supplies have so dwindled by the eighth day that she asks a farmer named Frank (W. Earl Brown) if there is anywhere she can buy some food. He is working with his tractor and tells Cheryl to wait in his truck until he has finished for the day. Having little option, she agrees, only to spook herself out when she finds a gun in the vehicle. She feels even more insecure when the stranger suggests she comes back to his place for a shower and a hot meal and she sips with some trepidation from his hip flask. However, even though she warns him that her husband is waiting for her further along the trail, Cheryl still accepts some liquorice and is mighty relieved to find that Frank is married to the no-nonsense Annette (Jan Hoag), who not only welcomes her inside, but also jokes that she might just join her the following day to get away from her trying spouse.

Amused by her hosts' banter, Cheryl thinks back on the end of her marriage to Paul and remembers the surprise on the face of the tattoo artist when he learned that they were getting inked to forge a permanent bond that would outlast their divorce. They had managed to stay together for seven years, but Cheryl doesn't blame Paul for calling it a day, as she had not made life easy and had cheated on him endlessly. She feels more remorse the next morning when Frank drops her back on the trail and lets her know that he doesn't blame her for being a bit scared of him the night before.

He wishes her luck in her endeavours. But even though she succeeds in lighting a fire, Cheryl begins to wonder why she has set herself such an onerous challenge, especially when she has to make a detour to avoid a snake. An incident with an insect also terrifies her and Cheryl thinks back to her friend Aimee (Gaby Hoffmann) telling her that she has nothing to prove and that she should quit at any time the going gets too tough. This causes her to think about a blazing row with Paul and how she gave up too soon with him and has now lost him to another woman.

However, just as her spirits plunge around the 80-mile mark, Cheryl spots a fit young man named Greg (Kevin Rankin) skinny-dipping in the river. She is embarrassed, therefore, when he calls over to her and reveals that he has been averaging 20 miles a day since he set off. He suggests that she checks into a campsite and rethinks her plan of campaign and this jolts her back to the first time she heard about the Pacific Crest, when she found a guidebook in a shop while waiting with Aimee for the results of a pregnancy test. She had been angry and vowed not to keep the baby, as it would interfere with the lifestyle she had envisaged for herself.

Now back on the path, Cheryl feels pleased with herself for negotiating a difficult climb. She is also happy to bump into Greg at Kennedy Meadows, where his friend Ed (Cliff De Young) shows her how to pack `the Monster' more efficiently. His kindly guidance reminds her of a debate she had with Bobbi when they found themselves on the same Minneapolis campus about the merits of James A. Michener's writing, in which the 22 year-old Cheryl insinuates that her mother lacks her intellectual sophistication. Shortly afterwards, however, they are informed that the 45 year-old Bobbi has a tumour on her spine that she is not expected to survive.

Arriving at Reno, Cheryl calls Paul to let him know she is faring well. However, she decides to hitch a ride and is put out when Jimmy Carter (Mo McRae) accuses her of being a vagabond. He writes for The Hobo Times and speculates that Cheryl has been inspired to wander because she couldn't face up to a trauma. She is stung by his remarks and his casual chauvinism. But she still accepts a care package and feels decidedly uncomfortable when he accepts a lift from a woman and two men, one of whom keeps ogling her as they drive along.

Her eye is drawn to the photograph of a young boy who was killed by a speeding truck and she harks back to the anguished times she spent urging Bobbi not to give up her fight. This fortitude helps Cheryl through the snow that falls heavily on Day 30 and she dismisses the skiers who tease her that she has lost her way and wandered back into California. As she notices a fox watching her, Cheryl recalls remonstrating with the doctor who had given Bobbi a year to live and now cannot explain why her condition has deteriorated so rapidly.

The pain of loss continues to haunt Cheryl for the next week and she wonders why Leif resisted visiting his mother in the hospital when he knew how much he meant to her. Eventually, she persuades him to come. But, while they say their goodbyes, they hardly make peace and Cheryl goes seriously off the rails and not only begins cuckolding Paul, but also starts using heroin and not even Aimee can bring her out of the slough. That is, until she decides to separate from her husband and she finds the trail guide by serendipity.

There is more to endure on the path before Cheryl reaches journey's end. She has encounters with a snarky park ranger (Brian Van Holt), fears being stalked by a pair of bow hunters in the woods (Charles Baker and JD Evermore) and shares her experiences with another solo female trekker (Cathryn de Prume). But, much to her surprise, she also meets Jonathan (Michiel Huisman), who invites her to a gig after they sleep together and she writes Paul's name in the sand for the last time to signify she is no longer dependent upon him and can stand on the two feet that have carried her to the brink of a fresh start.

A clutch of films have focused on intrepidity in the great outdoors since Sean Penn directed himself as Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild (2007). Standing just 5' 1", Reese Witherspoon certainly deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as James Franco and Mia Wasikowska for their respective efforts in essaying Aron Ralston in Danny Boyle's 127 Hours (2010) and Robyn Davidson in John Curran's Tracks (2013). She may be a decade too old for the role (and, indeed, is only nine years Dern's junior), but she conveys a wider gamut of emotions here (while under extreme physical duress) than she exhibited in her Oscar-winning turn as June Carter Cash in James Mangold's Walk the Line (2005).

Moreover, Witherspoon also co-produced the picture, which seems destined to become a feminist classic, even though it was written and directed by males. In truth, Hornby strains a little too hard to find audio and visual cues to trigger the flashbacks, but Vallée (masquerading as John Mac McMurphy) and co-editor Martin Pensa amusingly avoid seamless transitions, as if self-guyingly to draw attention to occasional gaucheries like the match cut between a panting Witherspoon emerging from a hedge and her wilder self gasping during a vigorous bout of coitus. However, some of the promiscuity and smack-taking montages feel mannered, as does the inclusion of snippets of poetry by Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. Moreover, too many of the soundtrack prompts appear to have been selected to manipulate audience response during moments of sinister suspense that turn out to contain red herrings rather than rapacious predators.

Yet, this is a slickly assembled picture, with Yves Bélanger's widescreen imagery often taking the breath away, as it emphasises Witherspoon's insignificance in the grander scheme of things. On screen throughout, she excels whether persevering in the face of physical and psychological upheaval or having the awareness to recognise the landmarks on her way to xelf-discovery. Dern provides admirable support, but there is something Sirkian about the positioning of her demise within the narrative and this tendency towards melodrama in the flashbacks has an undeniably enervating effect. But Vallée's sincerity can never be doubted, while Witherspoon proves (as she has done previously with Alexander Payne's Election, 1999 and Robert Luketic's Legally Blonde, 2001) that, when she finds the right role, she is one of the finest screen actors of her generation.

Coming to DVD five years after it was released, Jeff Malmberg's Marwencol reveals how 38 year-old former sailor Mark Hogancamp used a make-believe Belgian village caught in the crossfire between the Allies and the Nazis to regain his sense of self after he was subjected to a savage homophobic beating in Kingston, New York, which left him unable to walk or remember anything of his past. Gradually revealing essential details about Hogancamp's preoccupations, this is a teasing portrait of the artist as a cross-dressing man. However, it works best as a showcase for his unique achievement.

After months of painful recuperation, Hogancamp returned home cured of his alcoholism and divorced from the Eastern European wife he has no recollection of marrying. He does, however, have a crush on his spoken for neighbour Colleen, and her name forms part (along with his own and that of his friend Wendy) of the moniker he gives to the Second World War village that he populates with GI Joes, Barbies and other scale action figures, which are divided into local civilians and American, British, Wehrmacht and SS troops.

The narratives invariably involve his bar-owning, uniformed alter ego, Hogie, being subjected to hideous torture at the hands of Gestapo thugs before he is rescued by either his heroic sweetheart Anna or the blue-haired, time-travelling Belgian witch, Deja Thoris. But while each tableau is meticulously arranged and photographed, they serve as much of a therapeutic as an artistic value, as the violence meted out to Hogie's persecutors dissuades him from seeking actual revenge on his assailants. Furthermore, the characters (who are all named after his closest acquaintances) also provide him with protection and companionship, as he never goes for a walk without towing a jeep full of heavily armed dolls and sleeps beside three figures tucked into a bed on his night stand.

Such insights into Hogancamp's psyche and creativity are interesting enough. But a combination of his own reticence and Malmberg's solicitousness prevents a deeper understanding of his insecurities and inclinations. Thus, it's just as well that he is discovered by photographer David Naugle and Esopus editor Tod Lippy, as the arrangements for an exhibition of his refreshingly irony-free, pseudo-comic-style work at the White Columns gallery in New York give the stalling picture some much-needed impetus.

Much of the run-up to the show centres on Hogancamp's trepidation at sharing his secret world with strangers and the dilemma over whether to wear men's attire or a black dress slit to the waist. Naturally, the evening is a success and Hogancamp feels comfortable enough by its end to don some seamed stockings and slingbacks However, it might have been revealing to have included a little feedback from those attending the opening, as the tendency to unquestioning approbation becomes a little wearying and further precludes a rounded appreciation of a remarkable, but highly complex character, who resolutely remains an outsider, in spite of his seeming acceptance by well-meaning, but not entirely altruistic interlopers into his cherished privacy.

Robert Kennedy proves admirably adept at marshalling the audio and visual items that make Ron Mann's profile Altman so slick. Anyone familiar with excellent tomes like Patrick McGilligan's Robert Altman: Jumping Off the Cliff (1989) or Mitchell Zuckoff's Robert Altman: The Oral Biography (2009) may find the saving grace of a study that has not only been sanitised to ensure family co-operation, but which is also patchily incomplete in its overview of the life and times that shaped the cinema of a New Hollywood titan, who refused to the last to play by the rules of the game.

Skirting his 1930s Kansas childhood, the picture keeps its focus firmly fixed on Altman's professional life, which began with the Calvin Company in Kansas City after he returned from war service as a bomber pilot. Thus, while we learn about his first attempt to make it in Hollywood as the co-writer of Richard Fleischer's Bodyguard (1948) and his direction of industrial shorts like How to Run a Filling Station (1953), there is no information about his failed marriages to LaVonne Elmer and Lotus Corelli, who respectively bore him his daughter Christine and sons Michael and Stephen. Similarly, little is divulged about how he made ends meet before he was offered a chance to direct `The Young One', a 1957 episode of the popular TV series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

The same year saw Altman make his feature bow with The Delinquents, which chronicled the misdemeanours of a Kansas City punk played by Tom Laughlin. However, it failed to make an impression and Altman spent the next decade working on such shows as Whirlybirds, The Millionaire, US Marshal, Troubleshooter, Bonanza and Bus Stop. However, he alienated his employees when he used handheld camera, low-key lighting and overlapping dialogue on the `Survival' episode of Combat! (1963) and was fired, even though Vic Morrow earned an Emmy nomination for his performance. He ruffled more feathers when he resigned from Kraft Suspense Theatre in 1964 after the sponsor refused to sanction the casting of a black actor. But was having two character talk at the same time also seemed to annoy studio boss Jack Warner, who removed Altman from the moon saga, Countdown (1967), and another two years passed before he could raise the funds to mount his own adaptation of the Peter Miles novel That Cold Day in the Park.

But everything changed with M*A*S*H (1970), a farce set in a Korean War field hospital that was adapted by Ring Larnder, Jr. from a novel by Richard Hooker and caught the back end of the counterculture boom that had followed the collapse of the Production Code. With its irreverent approach to conflict, authority and death, this anti-war classic transformed Altman into the 45 year-old new kid on the Hollywood block. However, he had no intention of becoming a studio lackey and he embarked upon a series of acute pictures that introduced the phrase `genre revisionism' into the film studies lexicon. But, while Brewster McCloud (1970), McCabe & Mrs Miller (1971), The Long Goodbye (1973), Thieves Like Us, California Split (both 1974) and Nashville (1975) were all acclaimed as modern American masterpieces, the likes of 3 Women (1977) and A Wedding (1978) were dismissed as disappointments and Images (1972), Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976), Quintet, A Perfect Couple (both 1979) and HealtH (1980) were rounded upon as disasters.

The calamitous misfire of Popeye (1980) virtually made Altman a pariah and he had to endure a difficult decade, in which he almost made as many TV-movies as features and few of Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), Streamers (1983), Secret Honour (1984), OC and Stiggs, Fool for Love (both 1985), and Beyond Therapy (1987) found much critical favour. The beacon was re-lit, however, with the HBO political satire, Tanner `88, which ran for 11 episodes around the presidential election that saw George Bush, Sr. beat Michael Dukakis to the White House. Following the rare period biography, Vincent & Theo (1990), Altman was welcomed back to the auteur fold with The Player (1992) and Short Cuts (1993) before he missed his step again with the haut couture satire, Prêt-à-Porter (1994).

Following a heart transplant that was hushed up to avoid insurance complications, Altman remained wildly inconsistent until his death at 81 in November 2006 (a few months after he received an Honorary Academy Award from an industry he viewed with deep suspicion). For every Gosford Park (2001) and A Prairie Home Companion (2006), there was a Kansas City (1996), The Gingerbread Man (1998), Cookie's Fortune (1999), Dr T and the Women (2000) and The Company (2003). But Altman was now enshrined as a national treasure, whose maverick ways were indulged by adoring critics grateful that someone was still prepared to defy the Tinseltown machine that now resided in the portfolios of multinational conglomerates. It's become a cliché to discuss Altman's achievement in terms of triumphs, struggles and comebacks, but his career was so full of peaks and troughs that it is hard to see how easily Mann and screenwriter Len Blum have managed so successfully to smooth them away.

Part of the explanation lies in Mann's heavy dependence upon the good graces of Altman's widow, Kathryn Reed, who acts as his narrator, alongside the splendid clips of her husband holding for everything from ensembles and improvisation to aesthetics and studio politics. But there are many acolytes willing to be associated with this exercise in cinematic hagiography and Paul Thomas Anderson, James Caan, Keith Carradine, Elliott Gould, Philip Baker Hall, Sally Kellerman, Lyle Lovett, Julianne Moore, Michael Murphy, Lily Tomlin, Robin Williams and Bruce Willis all provide sound byte answers to the request to define the meaning of the word `Altmanesque'.

It's a nice gimmick and the responses form into a patchwork that is laudably sincere and apposite, in spite of the odd instance of fulsome pomposity. Yet, one cannot help wishing this delved a little deeper in a lot more places and that a couple of non-fawning critics had been invited to provide a bit of desperately needed qualitative analysis. But, for all its superficiality (especially where Altman the husband, father and friend is concerned), this is a decent beginner's guide to Altman's idiosyncratic and iconoclastic oeuvre and it will have fulfilled its purpose if it sends people back to the best and the worst of his gleefully eclectic output or prompts newcomers to seek them out for the first time.

At 84, Frederick Wiseman is half a decade younger than Lanzmann. But the master of Direct Cinema has been much more prolific in a career that has seen him produce 43 films in 48 years. Although none can match Shoah's 566 minutes, many have come in around four hours, including At Berkeley (2013), which went on general release towards the end of last year. Coming in at three hours, National Gallery might be considered a miniature. But this profile of a revered landmark that has stood on Trafalgar Square since 1838 is every bit as compelling as La Danse (2009) and Crazy Horse (2011), which respectively ventured behind the scenes of the Paris Opera ballet corps and French capital's leading burlesque venue. Documentaries about galleries and museums have become increasingly common since Nicolas Philibert made La Ville Louvre in 1990. Indeed, 2014 alone saw the release of tours of the Hermitage, the Vatican Museums and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, as well as the latest entries in producer Phil Grabsky's ongoing Exhibition on Screen series (more of which anon). But, for once, Wiseman is less interested in the mechanics of a great institution than in the art on display and how the curatorial and docent staff strive to make it relevant to visitors of all ages and backgrounds.

Opening with a montage of masterpieces, Wiseman fixes on a cleaner burnishing a floor with an electric polisher and captures the reflection in the shiny surface. In so doing, Wiseman announces that he is going to concentrate on ways of seeing and how the eye can be guided and the mind can be taught to look at and think about painting in new ways. To this end, he has a female guide ask a tour party to forget that they are viewing Jacopo di Cione's altarpiece in an art gallery and imagine they are 14th-century Tuscan peasants gazing at it by candlelight and feeling their faith being reinforced by the flecks of gold that would have been picked up by the flickering flames. It's a bold approach to making art come alive and the impression it leaves lingers during footage of a meeting at which National Galley Director Nicholas Penny resists the efforts of Head of Communications Jill Preston to consider an outreach initiative designed to enhance visitor appeal.

Penny's concerns about lowering standards are understandable. But one only has to witness the pleasure being experienced by a class of blind art lovers discussing Camille Pissarro's `The Boulevard Montmartre at Night' to realise that there should be no boundaries when it comes to connecting the public with the treasures entrusted to Penny's care. The case is reinforced as an enthusiastic male guide introduces a group of small children to Orazio Gentileschi's `The Finding of Moses' by reassuring them that paintings are simply trying to tell stories in the same manner as their picture books.

The guide explaining the history of Hans Holbein's portrait of Christina of Denmark takes a more sophisticated approach, but still captures the personality of a sitter who clearly didn't relish the prospect of marrying Henry VIII. A lecturer urges teachers to decode paintings and make them more relevant to their students by considering what might have been in an artist's mind when they created a particular masterwork. But this campaign of enlightenment is not solely restricted to visitors and guests, as a pair of curators debate the impact that restoration can have on understanding the meaning of a picture and how it was produced.

Heading into the galleries, Wiseman and cameraman John Davey watch aspiring amateurs sketching earnestly. But they are just as intrigued by the visitors gazing at paintings and listening to headset commentaries, as well as those dozing or kissing on the benches provided in the centre of the rooms. However, they have to eavesdrop to the Di Cione guide, as she treats her party to her interpretation of Peter Paul Rubens's `Samson and Delilah' and coaxes them into imagining what it must have felt like to betray a loved one out of patriotism. She also asks them to reflect upon the fact that the painting once hung in a burgomaster's house and that the flesh on display must have shocked some of his more prudish neighbours.

Another female docent suggests that while a painting captures a specific moment in time, it is always possible to reinterpret its precise meaning. She finds this sense of ambiguity beguiling, but those using the bank of computer screens provided for visitors seem less inspired. Amusingly, Nicholas Penny seems equally nonplussed as a committee strives to convince him to have the finishing line for a marathon outside the National Gallery in order to raise its profile. He worries that such a sporting association would cheapen the institution's reputation and frets that its charitable status might be compromised if it was seen openly supporting the sponsor of the race. Once again, Jill Preston leads the chorus trying to change his mind, but Penny feels such cheap publicity would make the gallery seem desperate.

Meanwhile, the Di Cione guide is talking a group through the symbolism in Holbein's `The Ambassadors', which some claim holds clues to a murder conspiracy. She points out the ingenuity of the anamorphic skull in the foreground and also notes the crucifix at the rear, which she suggests might be the artist's way of reminding the handsome young duo posing for him that the end can come at any time. A colleague continues on a sombre note as she informs a school party containing several black kids that a distressing number of the pictures bequeathed to the gallery were initially purchased by slave traders seeking to show off their wealth. She reminds them that paintings that seem old and musty can often have surprising connections with modern life.

Elsewhere, an audience listens to a lecture on George Stubbs's methodology and Wiseman follows this with another spot of people watching that includes a neat match shot between the hats being worn by the subject of a painting and the woman (supposedly) looking at it. The Gentileschi guide returns to tell a school group that it is more rewarding to study art than maths because it offers more ways of being right. He uses Giovanni Bellini's `The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr' to explain how authors and film-makers have a lot more time to tell their stories than painters and praises them for being able to convey the most dramatic moment of a narrative in a single image. Engaging his audience, he gets them to speculate about the reasons for the inclusion of some woodcutters looking away from the crime and uses this to urge them into always taking a second look, as you never know what you might find.

Slipping away from the public space, Wiseman sits in on a nude life class as the teacher offers suggestions about composition and the different ways in which the female flesh and the vertical pole on which she is leaning can be depicted. He then ventures into the square to film the fountains at night and contrast the bustle of nocturnal London with the quiet of an early morning as people queue in the cold to get into the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition. Once again, Wiseman and Davey capture faces in close-up and juxtapose them with the works on display inside the gallery. This time, the pictures are as celebrated as `The Virgin on the Rocks', `St Jerome in the Wilderness', `Lady With an Ermine' and `Salvator Mundi', but Wiseman notes the reverence of the onlookers and the same sense of humility in the presence of genius affects a curator discussing Leonardo's technique and humanity with a TV crew.

This use of lectures and interviews allows Wiseman to bend the rules of observational cinema while retaining his usual distance. But he comes in for a closer look as a frame restorer cleans a section prior to making new shapes in the wood. Elsewhere in the bowels of the gallery, a man toils on a canvas, while a female curator invites a male colleague to take a minute sample for analysis from a picture she has been working on. The intricacy of this task is contrasted with a man cleaning a much larger canvas and a woman mixing chemicals to apply to the surface of another smaller item.

Outside, patrons queue in the rain to see Leonardo's `The Virgin and Child With St Anne and St John the Baptist' and `The Last Supper'. But the NG management team is fully aware that such bumper paydays will be fewer and further between over the next couple of years and a meeting focuses on the need to make budget cuts to tide the gallery over this leaner spell. Clearly Wiseman timed his visit well (he spent 12 weeks in London in 2012), as the gallery was also hosting an exhibition about the debt that JMW Turner owed to Claude Lorrain and he attends a lecture on how `Dido Building Carthage' not only reflects Turner's fascination with Antiquity, but also implies his views on the recent collapse of the Bonapartist empire in France.

Repairing to a quieter corner, Wiseman catches Larry Keith explaining how the removal of yellow glaze from Rembrandt van Rijn's `Portrait of Frederick Rihel on Horseback' has revealed new information about the colour tone and depth of the image. However, he also produces an x-ray image to reveal the image of a man standing in a field that Rembrandt clearly abandoned in order to paint this equestrian work. He points out areas where well-meaning restorers from earlier ages had damaged the canvas, but concedes that no painting is immune from the ravages of time and that difficult decisions have to be taken about preserving the integrity of Old Masters, as well as their sheen.

Following brief cutaways to show the Leonardo `cartoon' being photographed and a woman painstakingly applying gold leaf to a frame, Wiseman snatches another snippet of an interview being conducted by a rival crew. The speaker declares how the show has enabled scholars to gain a better understanding of how Leonardo prepared his palette and applied his paint. But a colleague also interjects that the process of hanging the pictures has also alerted them to themes and details they had not noticed before.

After dropping in on another life class, in which the tutor remarks how good it is to remind ourselves that we are all the same when unclothed, Wiseman joins the small crowd watching some eco protesters draping a banner about saving the Arctic across the famous portico entrance in an attempt to draw attention to the NG's connection with Shell. However, work goes on uninterrupted inside, as a critic does a piece to camera about Turner's use of black in `The Fighting Temeraire' and a curator supervises a crew lighting the Master of Delft's giant Crucifixion triptych. An Australian expert continues this theme by showing a couple of students how Rubens's use of light in `Samson and Delilah' was possibly influenced by the fact that he knew the picture would be hung over a chimney with a window to the viewer's left. He also explains how light reflects off flooring and Wiseman again shoots into the polished tiles to achieve a striking effect.

A couple of young curators take this factor into account as they discuss the new layout for a gallery undergoing renovation. But Wiseman leaves them to pay brief calls on lectures about Titian's love of Ovid, Michaelangelo's `The Entombment' and Nicolas Poussin's `The Adoration of the Golden Calf', which had recently been returned to show after being vandalised by a man with an aerosol can. Another guide marvels at how a still life artist has preserved a lobster and a lemon for posterity, while a rather dull quartet debate the accuracy of the musical notation contained within Jean-Antoine Watteau's `The Scale of Love'.

Indeed, Wiseman seems to lose momentum at this juncture, as he watches a female guide discussing the emotional content of Counter Reformation art and flits between close-ups of Caravaggio's `Salomé Receives the Head of John the Baptist' and `The Supper at Emmaus' during a Beethoven recital by pianist Kausikan Rajeshkumar. Footage of a reception for the Turner show also feels a tad dry, but Larry Keith returns with a colleague and a couple of students to enliven proceedings with a discussion of Diego Velásquez's `Christ in the House of Martha and Mary'. A seemingly less extrovert expert explains the craft involved in achieving the texture of the frame surrounding Rembrandt's `Self-Portrait at the Age of 63'. Yet Wiseman seems more taken with his hesitant approach than Penny's confident assessment of Poussin's imitation of sculptural effects in `The Triumph of Pan'.

As Betsy Wieseman waxes lyrical about Johannes Vermeer's `A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal', Wiseman shifts between the canvas and her hearers. It is readily apparent that the majority are white, educated and somewhere in affluent middle age and, as Wieseman restates the idea that no two people see the same painting (and that few see the same painting on a second viewing), it seems as though NG diversification strategies still have a way to go. Larry Keith similarly pitches his discussion of Caravaggio's use of ground to build up the paint in `Boy Bitten by Lizard' towards a specialist audience and it is somewhat ironic that Penny provides a more accessible insight into the ownership history of a pair of Titian pictures of the goddess Diana.

Wiseman might have been advised to end his tour in the rooms devoted to the Impressionists, as the paintings are so iconic and the visitors are clearly excited to see them. However, he cannot resist the temptation to include two more items that feel rather tacked on. The first centres on Jo Shapcott recording a reading of her poem, `Callisto's Song', which was inspired by Titian's `Diana and Callisto', while the second features Leanne Benjamin and Edward Watson in a balletic piece entitled `Machina for Metamorphosis' by choreographer Wayne McGregor. Staged between two paintings from the Titian show, this feels staged for the camera rather than happened upon, as there is no audience applause at the end. Moreover, the sight of the dancers disappearing through a doorway into darkness feels like an unsatisfactory ending to a film about an art gallery.

Notwithstanding this minor cavils, this is a typically astute and alert piece of Direct film-making, in which no people or paintings are identified by captions on the screen. Acting as his own sound recordist (with the assistance of Emmanuel Croset), Wiseman excels at picking up the ambience of the galleries, while his precise editing reinforces the aura of hushed bustle. He particularly impresses here with the cross-cuts between painted and rapt faces, some of which are as witty as they are deft. But this differs significantly from his other snapshots of institutions in action, as the operational side plays second fiddle to the artefacts and the ways in which they are cherished and showcased by the knowledgeable and dedicated staff. In some ways, therefore, this could be branded an infomercial. But Wiseman allows himself the odd sly aside that suggests the National Gallery may need to make some compromises if it is to respond to the social, cultural and financial challenges that lie ahead.