Watch All the World's Memory For Free

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

"Toute la mémoire du monde" or "All the Memory of the World" is a French black-and-white film by Alain Resnais from 60 years ago. It's interesting that two of the three people involved with this documentary became over 90 years old and the third also made it past 80. Admittedly, most of the books in this documentary are much older still. And that's basically what it is: a 20-minute documentary about a gigantic library in the French capital. I have to say it was never really interesting and even to people who often go to libraries I'd rather recommend to read a good book than to watch this one here. It's really only worth a watch for nostalgic reasons, maybe especially for French or even better Parisian citizens. The rest can really do without it. Not recommended.

This one prefaces Resnais subsequent work, memory and what forms appear in it. The consistently brilliant touch of this is that he visualizes memory by means of cinema, a space which the camera can literally explore.Here he stumbles upon a fitting metaphor for the mind, the National Library of France. We see how knowledge is routinely amassed and categorized there, how people daily wade through so much information which then is merely stored away for future reference. What looks frightening to me is not that what is infinite and beyond words is believed that it can fit into shelves, but the megalomania behind the enterprise, the belief that among these shelves the secrets of the universe may be unlocked one day.But what is stored away there is merely thought or the objects of it. Our civilization destroyed by some imaginary catastrophe, how will an alien visiting the ruins of this library know how we experienced through our eyes a gust of wind or a sunset?To accommodate with the ever increasing influx of information, we're shown how the library burrows further underground, digging deeper inside of us. Resnais explores this cavernous place with a camera that recalls the future endeavors of Sacha Vierny, and although a bit obvious in what is intended by it, as a prologue of what was then to come, it's a great watch.

Celebrated documentary short by soon-to-be “New Wave” film-maker Resnais about the mausoleum that is the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris: whether consciously or not, it’s photographed in a way as to seem like an alien building from some sci-fi piece (a genre with which the director’s ensuing cerebral, maze-like work would be inextricably linked); indeed, it’s the stunning direction and indelible strains of Maurice Jarre’s music which elevate this one above being a mere documentary about a public library.This fascinating film makes a case for both the intrinsic value of literature of any kind – back in a time when books (rather than the Internet) were the main source/store of information – and the often painstaking conservation of same for future reference, even by generations to come (the inference here being that an analogous consideration should be applied to film as well, involving a relatively similar process with respect to its maintenance).Incidentally, ALL THE WORLD’S MEMORY is available on the R2 DVDs of both Resnais’ own LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD (1961; released by Optimum) and Jacques Rivette’s playful but no less didactic CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING (1974; a 2-Disc Set from the BFI)!

Alain Resnais is a damn wizard! You have to see Toute la mémoire du monde, than Nuits et Brouillards, than Hiroshima mon amour to understand the power of the message being sent there.With Toute la mémoire du monde, Resnais is setting the basis of his cinematographic project about places of memory. Within 20 minutes, Resnais is surgically, methodically analyzing the national library of France. With an hyperactive camera, he's sneaking, he's smelling, he's feeling this huge building. Very fast paced and organized movie that sets up more than ever, the cut between him and the other directors of the french new wave. In my humble cinephile opinion, Resnais is in a league of his own.