Libraries on Film

Contributors: Elena Brearley, Charlotte Edwards, Lindsey Evans, Ash Lammers, James Lawson, Jess Pascal

As Christmas approaches, we can soon hang up our Bodleian cards for a few days. But why escape the library completely? Maybe you, like us, will be hoping to relax in front of a film or two during the holidays. If so, then enjoy this selection of our favourite depictions of libraries and librarians in cinema.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)

This is the true story of struggling writer Lee Israel. Desperate, and having alienated her publisher due to her ‘difficult’ personality, Lee decides on a new way to monetise her writing: by forging private letters of literary greats, such as Dorothy Parker and Noël Coward. She becomes such a successful imitator that traders in memorabilia start snapping up her pieces, though suspicions are soon raised. Lee’s deception begins with stealing an original author’s letter, when she stumbles across an opportunity in the Special Collections department of the New York Public Library. Later, she lifts material from Yale University, outwitting security and taking advantage of the trusting library staff who just want to support her ‘research’. Word from the wise: don’t do this, it will end badly. 

Ghostbusters (1984)

More suspicious goings-on in the world of New York libraries, as the Ghostbusters are called to investigate supernatural activity in the stacks, including an eccentric method of piling books into a neat column. ‘You’re right – no human being would stack books like this,’ remarks Venkman. An alarming amount of ectoplasm is soon found on the card catalogue, before an entire shelf inexplicably falls to the ground, covering our heroes in dust (which is plausible). A mysterious ghostly librarian appears, reminding them to keep the noise down. It’s slightly disappointing that this scene reflects several clichés about libraries, such as: 1) female librarians are matronly figures with their hair in a bun; 2) you are likely to be sternly shushed by one; and 3) staff – undead or otherwise – have time to float around reading all the books themselves. Never mind, we weren’t necessarily expecting subtlety.

Wicked (2024)

This backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz covers her time at the magical Shiz University, where some classes are taught by talking animals and students have the chance to major in sorcery… so not quite like Oxford! During the song ‘Dancing Through Life’, we catch a glimpse of Shiz University Library – its impressive architecture had me wavering between envy and profound relief that I’ve never had to reshelve books on gravity-defying bookcases that rotate 360 degrees. Warning: library lovers may find the treatment of books in this dance sequence distressing.

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002)

The Jedi Archives (also known as the Jedi Temple Library) plays a rather small yet significant role in Episode II of Star Wars. In a quest to uncover the roots of an assassination attempt, Obi-Wan Kenobi consults the library for information about the planet Kamino. Unfortunately, however, he is unable to locate any evidence of the planet ever existing – despite the fact that the library is rumoured to contain all galactic knowledge. This bold claim is further underpinned by the librarian, Jocasta Nu, who asserts that ‘if an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist!’ Not only is this concerning because clearly information being missing is an anomaly, but it also implies that the Jedi have developed a perfect acquisition and cataloguing system. Who’s jealous?

In this case, however, Nu’s blind (and reasonable, given this gap in information seems to be a decidedly unusual occurrence) faith in the Jedi cataloguing and acquisitions system means that she is inadvertently helping those seeking to undermine Jedi authority. Instead of being willing to consider that something is amiss in the archives and library, Nu works off the assumption that any existence of anything in the real world must be mirrored by knowledge of it existing in the archives, and therefore, concludes that Kenobi must be wrong. Because Kenobi knows to check his sources, he does go and find Kamino by himself and confirms that someone had indeed been messing with the library. Naturally this is just a tiny piece in the slow unravelling of the future Emperor’s plotting, but it is important nonetheless – the dangerous thing about a perfect system is the assumption that it cannot be flawed.

After the fall of the Jedi, the archives were first confiscated and studied, and later deliberately wiped by Jocasta Nu in order to avoid abuse of the knowledge held by the Jedi. Any remaining holocrons were destroyed after the Emperor converted the Temple into his palace; eventually restored to an archive and library by Luke Skywalker.

Wings of Desire (1987)

Wings of Desire, or Himmel Über Berlin (Heaven Above Berlin), directed by Wim Wenders, is a 20th century art-house classic, a romantic fantasy, which was filmed in West Berlin just a few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Two trenchcoated angels, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander), unseen and unheard, walk the streets of Berlin, ride the U-Bahn, and visit the apartments and dwellings of the residents, guarding over the city from atop the grand statues and building rooftops. They watch and listen, bearing empathetic witness to the inner thoughts, fears, and hopes of the city’s human inhabitants. These ‘city symphony’ style sequences encapsulate the feeling of ‘sonder’, the realisation that others’ lives are as real and complex as our own.

In one of the most beautiful scenes, the two angels visit the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – the Berlin State Library. The angels of the city seem to congregate here amongst the readers and shelves of books, providing solace and comfort to those engaged in the noble pursuit of knowledge.

Intrigued by the mortal world and having fallen in love with the lonely circus trapeze artist Marion (Solveig Dommartin), Damiel gives up his wings, falling to earth to feel for himself at last the joys and pains of the human experience. The film also features Peter Falk (Columbo) as himself, and music and performances from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Party Girl (1995)

Free-spirited New York party girl Mary (Parker Posey) lands in jail after organising an illegal party. She calls her librarian godmother, Judy (Sasha von Scherler), to bail her out. After being firmly reprimanded, Mary ends up taking a job as a clerk in the public library where Judy works, in order to repay her debt and prove she can handle grown-up responsibilities.  Unexpectedly, she takes to the work, and her life moves from a world of chaos and disarray into a new library-inspired era of order and balance.

Watching this film from a librarian’s perspective, a highlight is a scene in which Mary’s roommate Leo, a DJ, comes home just before an important gig to find Mary has reorganised his records according to the Dewey Decimal System. He’s exasperated, wondering how he will ever find the records he needs, but Mary reassures him that the system works! Vaguely reminiscent of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, this film is a treat; funny and touching, featuring fabulous fashion, and a dreamy romance. Set against the backdrop of the 1990’s queer New York party scene (catch a glimpse of Lady Bunny within the first few minutes). You can watch it for free on YouTube.

Beauty and the Beast (1991) (and maybe a dash of the Emma Watson one)

I love Beauty and the Beast so I’m very excited to talk about this one!

In many ways, libraries are incredibly central to the themes and story of Beauty and the Beast. In fact, there are actually two libraries in the film. The first appears during the first song of the film when Belle goes to the, confusingly named, ‘Bookseller’ from which she has been borrowing books relentlessly. The second appears during a different song later in the film (‘Something There’), where the Beast gives Belle an entire library which, if the animation is to be believed, is approximately a billion storeys tall.

I very briefly want to talk about the gorgeous design of the Beast’s library. I’m not an artist (or art historian), but Google tells me that the library follows a Baroque design. Even if it doesn’t, I think it just looks so absolutely stunning. When we first see the library, it’s accompanied by grand sweeping shots up towards the ceiling which really emphasise just how massive the library is supposed to be and, especially, how impressive it is to Belle, who has never seen anything like this before.

The first full view of the library and its books (at 1:35 in the clip above) leaves you with the question: ‘Just how many books are there?’ (You know, maybe Lumiere and Cogsworth were right, maybe they do have every book ever written.) It’s not entirely clear which library (or libraries) this may have been based on, but one possibility (and I would like to direct attention to ThatBookBroad whose blog drew my attention to this) is the Admont Abbey Library in Austria, completed in 1776 and, to this day, the largest monastic library in the world.

Admont Abbey library. Image by Elsemargriet from Pixabay.

For the live action film’s library, a commonly-cited inspiration is the Biblioteca Joanina in Coimbra, Portugal, another incredible Baroque library built between 1717 and 1728.

Also, I cannot write this without encouraging you to check out this fantastic recreation of the Beast’s library in LEGO®, made by Sarah Innerebner.

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Although no librarian is ever seen, this 80s teen classic takes place almost entirely in a library. John Hughes takes us through the experiences of five high schoolers stuck in an all-day Saturday detention in their school’s library. Beginning as each character’s prison, the students eventually take control of the space as the film develops (although this does involve some unfortunate vandalism of said library); one very apt proposed title of this film was thus Library Revolution [1]. Much of the chaos revolves around Bender, a detention regular, who falls through the ceiling into the library, rips up a book of Molière’s work, and sets his shoe on fire. The things students can get up to in the absence of a librarian… Anyone familiar with the Bodleian Oath will know that users must swear ‘not to bring into the Library or kindle therein any fire or flame,’ so hopefully nothing of the same will happen here!

In the film, the library is only viewed negatively when an authority figure is hovering over it; it later becomes a sanctuary for the students when they reclaim control. In their confessional, ‘they create a safe space for sharing vulnerabilities, and redefine the function of the library and the school under their own terms’ [2]. The students can open up and find neutral ground in the library. The characters being in the school library for the whole Saturday allows for a suspended reality in which each of them, except Brian, are removed from the setting that stereotypes them. For Brian, the brainy one, the library is arguably the setting to which his stereotype belongs, but with the other students present, it becomes a neutral ground. Therefore, this ground allows for each of them to become an individual beyond their stereotypes, with the prison-like setting ultimately turning into a fun place where they let loose and dance – their punishment turns into play.

Filmed in Maine North High School, this set was constructed in the school gymnasium, based on the real school library. Hughes even gave each actor a piece of the library’s banister as a memento of the film. Being filmed in the 80s, some of its dialogue is indeed dated, but, in 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being ‘culturally, historically or aesthetically significant’. This film’s essence comes under what Penelope Spheeris describes as, ‘the youth-in-revolt genre’ that ‘has an enduring appeal, since adolescence and early adulthood are when we are forming our identities’ [3]. And so, The Breakfast Club remains a classic nearly 40 years later.

Honourable mentions

• Harry Potter (2001-2011)
• Inception (2010) – Some of the film was filmed at University College London library (Nolan studied here!).
• Inside Out (2015) – Riley’s mind functions like a library of emotions and experiences.
• Kill Your Darlings (2013) – Nightly break-in at Columbia University Library.
• Matilda (1996) and Matilda the Musical (2022) – The library is a safe space for Matilda to escape to and the librarian, Mrs Phelps, supports and encourages her extraordinary gift for reading.
• Seven (1995)
• The Day After Tomorrow (2004) – Attempting to stay warm, people stuck in the New York Public Library after an environmental disaster decide to burn books to generate heat.
• The Librarian (2004)
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
• Wonka (2023) – A love letter to reading as well as to chocolate. Oxford’s Radcliffe Camera has a starring role as the archetypical fantasy library.

References

[1] Crovitz, D. (2005) ‘Who You Think You Are: The Breakfast Club in the Writing Classroom’, Teaching English in the two-year college, 32(4), pp. 424–432

[2] The Vogue Team (2021) 15 iconic movies that almost had different names, available at https://www.vogue.com.au/culture/features/working-title-23-alternative-titles-of-your-favourite-movies/image-gallery/dcb3f3e2a5e5063481577c4c87808227

[3] O’Sullivan, M. (2016) ‘National Film Registry Honors “Breakfast Club,” “Rushmore” and Other Teen Angst Movies’, The Washington Post (Online), available at https://web.archive.org/web/20180106064753/https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/national-film-registry-honors-breakfast-club-rushmore-and-other-teen-angst-movies/2016/12/13/824a7fbe-be58-11e6-ac85-094a21c44abc_story.html?utm_term=.3b070ff602e3