Toute le mémoire du monde
(Alles Gedächtnis der Welt)

FR 1956, 16mm, 21 min, OV with German voice-over

Every pamphlet and paper and book published in France finds its way into the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and has done since the dawn of the printing press. In this short documentary from 1956, Alain Resnais follows a single volume into this ancient and swollen repository as it joins the multiple millions pouring up and out, overflowing through the wrought iron grills and shelves, swelling up into the attics and further up into the parapets, and squeezing down like treacle into the basements. The tension is palpable as small men in white coats, more termites with trolleys, glean space for yet another slim volume in a shelf already laden to its limits by the burden of a nation's memory.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0720297