Toute la M¨¦moire du Monde (All the World's Memory) is a short documentary by director Alain Resnais about the Biblioth¨¨que Nationale in Paris. With its long tracking shots through cavernous library hallways, it imagines the Biblioth¨¨que Nationale as a forbiddingly inhuman landscape in which man attempts to imprison "knowledge" in an effort to counter the limits of his own memory. Only in the act of individual selection -- a single patron choosing a specific text -- is there hope that this undifferentiated mass of knowledge can be redeemed, as the reader makes discriminating use of the collective national memory for the fulfillment of a constructive individual purpose.


Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bempt5PP4rE&feature=PlayList&p=EAC4704D92EBF9DE&index=0&playnext=1
Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkrmpS6szvU&feature=PlayList&p=EAC4704D92EBF9DE&index=1