DVD | Color 103 min | Full Screen. Directed by Torben Skjodt Jensen
ISBN 978-0-8026-0501-6
Price:$31.95*Home Video includes Public Library Circulation rights.
ISBN 978-0-8026-0502-3
Price:$249.95**Academic and Institutional price including Public Performance rights for non-paying audiences.
Consumers Reviews
SummaryAsta Nielsen (1881-1972) was a Danish actress who reached stardom in German silents. From 1910 to 1932 she appeared in more than seventy films, and later returned to a successful stage career. Frede Schmidt, an antiquarian bookseller, enjoyed a profound and long lasting friendship with the actress. Indeed, it was his shoulder Asta cried on during the period of grief following her daughter’s suicide in 1964.
Several years after Frede Schmidt’s death, his extensive possessions revealed a sensational discovery: an enormous amount of telephone conversations with Nielsen that Schmidt had secretly recorded. Hidden well for posterity, the tapes contain recordings of more than 80 hours of conversations between Asta and Frede from 1957 to 1959, as well as a number of conversations that Frede had with Nielsen’s daughter, Jesta.
Asta Nielsen: The Talking Muse is a revealing, intimate and utterly candid portrait of the great silent film actress reflecting on her life and career. The film also features an extensive private archive and personal effects that Asta Nielsen entrusted to Frede Schmidt, as well as extensive private footage from Germany and Denmark.
