All the World's Memory
Architecture & Design
•
21m
Directed by Alain Resnais • Documentary • 1956 • 21 minutes
This recently restored early short by French New Wave director Alain Resnais (perhaps best known for Hiroshima Mon Amour), pays homage to the National Library of France. For centuries, the library has served as a repository for all the country’s publications, and more: Maps, prints, comic books, priceless manuscripts, gems, and medals all form part of the collection.
Much like Susan Orlean’s The Library Book, ALL THE WORLD’S MEMORY takes us on an impressive and impressionistic tour, from the reading rooms, to the stunning architecture, to the stacks and the physical plant. We also accompany a new arrival to the library – a recently published book – on its journey from reception to cataloguing to the moment it takes its place on a shelf, joining millions of other items that have made their home here for centuries. At the intersection of artistic and informative, ALL THE WORLD’S MEMORY is a unique look at the effort to catalogue as much knowledge as possible in one of the world’s great libraries.
Resnais would go on to make his mark in feature films, but this early-career short demonstrate an already keenly developed eye.
The film has been restored in 2K thanks to l’Agence du Court-Métrage and the support of the CNC.
Up Next in Architecture & Design
-
Great Expectations
Directed by Jesper Wachtmeister • Documentary • 2007 • 52 minutes
Great Expectations provides an astonishing journey through innovative, futuristic, utopian and sometimes bizarre architecture projects-including concrete illusions of grandeur and Lego-like modular apartments to an Instant City Ai...
-
Notre-Dame of Paris, Rising from the ...
Directed by Laurent Fléchaire • Documentary • 2021 • 58 minutes
Three years ago, Notre-Dame of Paris cathedral’s roof tops were destroyed by flames in front of the eyes of the whole world. Since then, we have seen the clearance and securing efforts and eventually the start of a huge reconstructi...
-
Eames: The Architect & The Painter
Directed by Jason Cohn & Bill Jersey • Documentary • 2011 • 84 minutes
Design history was born in a cavernous warehouse on a gritty street in Venice Beach, California, where Charles and Ray Eames set up their Renaissance-style studio in the optimistic flush of American victory during World W...
