About

Screens with Man with a Movie Camera 1929.

'A lyrical documentary about the Bibliothèque Nationale made for the French Foreign Ministry, All the World's Memories reveals the behind-the-scenes activities of the library, following a book from its arrival in the vast institution to its placement on the shelf – a "prisoner" until it is checked out. Resnais investigates the idea of libraries as collective memory aids, a hedge against universal forgetting, with the books and librarians acting as agents in the "slow battle against death."' Harvard Film Archive