All the Memories of the World

Toute la mémoire du monde - Alain Resnais

"Toute la mémoire du monde" est un documentaire réalisé par Alain Resnais en 1956. Ce film explore la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris,

All the Memories of the World

The potential and limits of dutifully archived human knowledge, masquerading as a documentary on the organization of the National Library of France- the Bibliothèque nationale de France— is a 22 minute film.

Alain Resnais (1922 – 2014) was a French film director and screenwriter. His work frequently explored the relationship between consciousness, memory, and the imagination.¹

Collective memory was considered in Toute la mémoire du monde [All the Memories of the World] (1956), in which the seemingly endless spaces and bibliographic riches of the Bibliothèque nationale are depicted. The musical score by Maurice Jarre is haunting.²

View the 22 minute film below in French with English subtitles.

1. Monaco, James. Alain Resnais: the Rôle of Imagination. London: Secker & Warburg, 1978.

2. Jarre won three Academy Awards for Best Original Score for Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and A Passage to India (1984).