UMBERTO ECO: A LIBRARY OF THE WORLD (UMBERTO ECO: LA BIBLIOTECA DEL MONDO)

This stimulating documentary presents the biography of a man, the books he inhabited, and the books that inhabited him. Author, semiologist, lover of language, literature, and lying, Umberto Eco was a bibliophile in the truest sense of the word, and David Ferrario’s film does justice to those dangerously dated passions. The camera pores over yellowed pages, cracked spines, walls and walls of books from libraries the world over, giving substance to the labyrinthine connections of Eco’s mind. In addition to being the story of a man and his erudition, Ferrario’s documentary is a cautionary tale about the loss of history and truth in an endlessly prolific digital library. All demagoguery starts with a lie. What happens when truth becomes incommunicable? ~TW