Filmmaker Allison Anders Bought Greta Garbo’s Record Collection & is Reviewing It Online

We missed this story a few years ago – in 2013 filmmaker Allison Anders (BORDER RADIO, GAS FOOD LODGING), who is also the impresario behind the long-running Don’t Knock The Rock film festival bought a parcel at auction of 50 records formerly owned by Greta Garbo. Of course Garbo is a mysterious figure whose personal life was shrouded in self-generated obscurity, so such a collection is worthy of contemplation. Anders contemplates more than just the life and mystery of Garbo in her Tumblr Greta’s Records. She uses the collection as a starting point to discuss the popular history of the times, her own observations and to speculate on what may have been going on in Garbo’s inner life and what she may have thought about these records and the music on them.

It’s interesting stuff, and the Garbo angle provides a tremendous handle for Anders to range widely over the fields of popular culture, memory and the transcendent appeal that stars- and particularly Garbo – exert over us.