Bain News Service, publisher. Asta Nielsen. Between ca. 1915 and ca. 1920. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
The National Audio-Visual Conservation Center and the Moving Image Research Center hold in their collections Nordisk Film silent movies from the 1910s, which are some of the earliest commercial films produced in Denmark. Nordisk dominated the film industry of the day, with its productions distributed all over the world.
Danish-American actor Karl Dane performed in at least 49 films between 1918 and 1933. Most of these were silent films. One of the most successful was The Big Parade (1925), which the Library of Congress named to the National Film Registry in 1992. The Library of Congress established the National Film Preservation Board in 1988 in order to preserve film deemed "culturally, historically, or esthetically important." Each year, the board selects 25 films to add to the National Film Registry.
The only film by the auteur Carl Th. Dreyer available is his early Vampyr, but the general collections contain books about or by Dreyer, such as his screenplays. Some of the films of contemporary Danish directors, such as Lars von Trier and Susanne Bier, can also be watched at the Moving Image Research Center. There are many more Danish films to be seen there.
The Recorded Sound Research Center holds the master recordings to the performances of Danish chamber music held in Coolidge Auditorium, which was established by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge in 1935. Friedrich Kuhlau and Niels Gade of the 19th century, and Carl Nielsen and Vagn Holmboe of the 20th, each had their music performed in this venue. Separate recordings of the Danish poets Charlotte Strandgaard and Klaus Rifbjerg reading their respective poems are also to be found in the Recorded Sound Research Center. Fans of fairy tales will delight in hearing the Danish American actor Jean Hersholt, founder of the Jean Hersholt Collection of Hans Christian Andersen, read his own translations and discuss Andersen’s immortal work. Beyond the Library of Congress online catalog, the Recorded Sound Research Center also offers the Sound Online Inventory and Catalog (SONIC). Some of the recordings found with a keyword search of "Danish" or "Denmark" are as follows:
The Library of Congress began collecting motion pictures in 1893 when Thomas Edison and his brilliant assistant W.K.L. Dickson deposited the Edison Kinetoscopic Records for copyright. However, because of the difficulty of safely storing the flammable nitrate film used at the time, the Library retained only the descriptive material relating to motion pictures. In 1942, recognizing the importance of motion pictures and the need to preserve them as a historical record, the Library began the collection of the films themselves; from 1949 on these included films made for television. Today the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) is responsible for the acquisition, cataloging and preservation of the Library's motion picture and television collections.
The Recorded Sound Research Center provides access to the commercial and archival audio holdings of the Library of Congress. The collection dates from 1926 when Victor Records donated over 400 discs to the Library's Music Division to supplement its print and manuscript holdings. In the custody of the Motion Picture Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division since 1978, the collection has grown to include over 2 million items encompassing audio formats from cylinders to CDs.
