Toute La Memoire Du Monde

Short documentary on the Biblioteque Nationale, directed by Alain Resnais - 1956
We have our Resnais tracks, vertical, horizontal, keening, smooth, insistent, urgent (different paces, in fact). The avoids the images turning into gawping as, though one could argue it is a 'trick', it is as though the camera is on some kind of search, always analysing, almost literally looking for a way in. We also have tracks around busts, very close to the faces, emphasizing monumentality.
I'm not sure I would describe Resnais though as montumental, despite his straight lines (or tubes) being limitless, infinite, terrifying sources of intelligence and memory to the inquisitve thing, the human kind. Unlike classical Hollywood, perhaps, Resnias depth (a very deep and sharp field) converges in on itself, meeting, though it is infinite. A strange contradiction.
The humans are shot, or tracked, from above, busy worker ants, the books from below, again monumental. This is except for a few low shots where we work up the side of a face.
Resnais' voiceover (not him) is deeply intelligent, not over-serious all the time. It doesn't tell what the image makes obvious. We move from philosophy, to practical matters, and back to an almost eschatological conclusion, grounded in the activities of a library. Surely inspired by Borges, Resnais seems to have immediately tapped into the crucial 'secret' of the place.