Toute la memoire du monde
Directed by Alain Resnais
Concept by Remo Forlani
1956/France
Films de la Peliade
First viewing/YouTube
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” ― Jorge Luis Borges
Resnais’s documentary about the French National Library is also a poetic study of memory.
The documentary begins by telling us that because man has a bad memory he writes things down. Over the centuries, man had to build himself a fortress to contain all these words. One such fortress is the Bibliotheque National in Paris. This is the French equivalent of the American Library of Congress, where authors are required to deposit all published materials. We start deep within the warehouses and progress to the different departments where manuscripts, books, and prints are stored. We see how the works are catalogued and sorted.
The entire thing is exquisitely shot and strangely moving. One thing I thought about is the sheer amount of labor it took to catalogue the collection before the age of computers. Recommended to any library lover – or non-library lover really. The complete 21-minute film is currently available on YouTube with the original soundtrack (not the noise heard on the below clip).
Clip – original soundtrack removed and replaced by ??? “music”
