National Museums of Kenya - Karen Blixen Karen Blixen Location and Historical Background Karen Blixen Museum Karen Blixen Museum was once the centre piece of a farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills owned by Danish Author Karen and her Swedish Husband, Baron Bror von Blixen Fincke. Located 10km from the city centre, the Museum belongs to a different time period in the history of Kenya. The farm house gained international fame with the release of the movie ‘Out of Africa’ an Oscar winning film based on Karen’s an autobiography by the same title. The Museum is open to the Public every day (9.30 am to 6pm) including weekends and public holidays. Visitors are encouraged to be at the Museum by 5.30. Guided tours are offered continuously. A museum shop offers handicrafts, posters and postcards, the Movie ‘Out of Africa’, books and other Kenyan souvenirs. The grounds may be rented for wedding receptions, corporate functions and other events. Baroness Karen Blixen The Museum was built in 1912 by Swedish Engineer Ake Sjogren.

Karen and her husband bought the Museum house in 1917 and it become the farm house for their 4500 acre farm, of which 600 acres was used for coffee farming. Their marriage failed after eight years and in 1921 the Baron moved on and left the running of the farm to Karen. Karen lived at the house until her return to Denmark in 1931. The house farm was bought by Remy Marin, who broke the land into 20 acre parcels for development. Subsequent development created the present suburb of Karen. Records indicate that a Lt. Col.G. Lloyd, an officer of the British Army bought the house in 1935 and lived there until his death in 1954, when it passed to his daughters, Mrs. G. Robersts and Lavender Llyod. A transfer of title to Mrs. J.P Robson and Mrs L.B. Hyde is in City Hall records in 1956. The house was sporadically occupied until purchased in 1964 by the Danish government and given to the Kenyan government as an independence gift.

The government set up a college of nutrition and the Museum was initially used as the principal’s house. In 1985 the shooting of a movie based on Karen’s autobiography began and the National Museums of Kenya expressed acquired the house for the purpose of establishing a Museum. The Museum was opened in 1986. Distant View of Karen Blixen Karen also known by her pen name Isak Dinesen was born at Rungstedlund in Denmark on 17th of April 1885 as the second child of Wilhelm and Ingeborg Dinesen’s five children. She came to Africa in 1914 to marry her half cousin and carry out dairy farming in the then British Colony of Kenya. Her husband had however changed his mind and wanted to farm coffee. Her uncle Aage Westenholz financed the farm and members of both families were share holders. The coffee farm did not do well, suffering various tragedies including factory fire and continuous bad harvest. After her divorce, Karen was left to run the financially troubled farm on her own, a daunting task for a woman of that generation.

She fell in love with an English man, Denis Finch Hatton, and his death in Tsavo in 1930 coupled with the failed farming left Karen little choice but to return to Denmark. She turned to writing as a career following her departure from Africa and published to increasing acclaim such works as Seven Gothic Tales(1934) Out of Africa(1937) and Babette Feat (1950). She died on her family estate, Rungsted, in 1962 at the age of 77. Karen Blixen Museum The Karen Blixen house meets three of the customary criteria for historical significance. First, it is associated with the broad historical pattern of European settlement andcultivation of East Africa. Second, it is associated with the life of aperson significant to our past as the home of Baroness Karen Blixen from 1917 -1931. As such, it served as the setting and basis of herwell known book Out of Africa, written under the pseudonym Isak Dinesenand as a gathering place for other well known personalities of the period. Third, the building embodies the distinctive characteristicsof its type, period and method of construction.

The house's architecture is typical of late 19th century bungalow architecture,including the spacious rooms, horizontal layout verandas, tile roof and stone construction typical of scores of residences built throughout European suburbs of Nairobi in early decades. The chronology of the house begins with its construction in 1912 by the wealthy Swedish civil engineer, later honorary Swedish consul to Kenya, Ake Sjogren. It served as the main residence on his Swedo-African coffee company , an estate of over 6,000 acres. The house was soon visited while on safari by the Danish count Mojen Frijs, who upon his return to Denmark persuaded his cousin to seek their fortune in Kenya.Baron Blixen acquired part of the estate in 1913 and the remainder in 1916. Karen Blixen called the house "Bogani" or "Mbogani" meaning a house in the woods, and occupied it until 1931. By1985, with renewed interest in Karen Blixen occasioned by the film production of Out of Africa, an agreement was reach with the collage for the house to become part of the National Museums of Kenya.

Many pieces of furniture that Karen Blixen sold to Lady McMillan on her departure were acquired back and constitute part of the exhibition in the Museum. The Museum house remains a serene environment that seems to belong to the past, surrounded by a tranquil garden and indigenous forest, with a splendid view of Karen’s beloved Ngong Hills. She honours the hills with the phrase ‘I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills’. For further information contact. Isak Dinesen - The New York Times The New York Times WHEN Karen Blixen died in Denmark in 1962 at the age of 77, messages and tributes came from every part of the world from those who had known her both as a person and a writer. Nov. 19, 1967 Karen Blixen (Author of Out of Africa) edit data Karen Christence Dinesen, Baroness Blixen-Finecke - wrote as Isak Dinesen, Pierre Andrézel, other pseudonyms: Tania Blixen, Osceola, etc.

A Danish writer, who mixed in her work supernatural elements, aestheticism, and erotic undertones with an aristocratic view of life, Blixen always emphasized that she was a storyteller in the traditional, oral sense of the word. She drew her inspiration from the Bible, the Arabian Nights, the works of Homer, the Icelandic Sagas, and the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, who was her great fellow countryman. She wrote in English and in Danish. Baroness Karen Blixen was born in Rungsted, Denmark, into a well-to-do patrician family. She was the daughter of Ingeborg Westenholz Dinesen, and the writer and a Karen Christence Dinesen, Baroness Blixen-Finecke - wrote as Isak Dinesen, Pierre Andrézel, other pseudonyms: Tania Blixen, Osceola, etc. A Danish writer, who mixed in her work supernatural elements, aestheticism, and erotic undertones with an aristocratic view of life, Blixen always emphasized that she was a storyteller in the traditional, oral sense of the word.

She drew her inspiration from the Bible, the Arabian Nights, the works of Homer, the Icelandic Sagas, and the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, who was her great fellow countryman. She wrote in English and in Danish. Baroness Karen Blixen was born in Rungsted, Denmark, into a well-to-do patrician family. She was the daughter of Ingeborg Westenholz Dinesen, and the writer and army officer Wilhelm Dinesen, whose adventuresome spirit and storytelling talents influenced deeply Blixen's imagination. She spent her childhood on the family estate in Rungsted. Throughout her life Blixen's outlook and manner were unabashedly aristocratic. ...more 'Reverse provincialism' denied Karen Blixen Nobel prize | Books | The Guardian Nobel prize in literature 'Reverse provincialism' denied Karen Blixen Nobel prize The Danish author had committee's majority support in 1959, but lost out amid anxiety that too many Scandinanvians had already won Karen Blixen in 1959, showing off a coat made from the skin of a leopard she killed during a visit to Africa.

Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis Close This article is 6 years old Out of Africa author Karen Blixen missed out on a Nobel prize for literature because judges were concerned about showing favouritism to Scandinavian writers, according to Danish reports. Danish author Blixen was favourite to win the 1959 Nobel prize against candidates including Graham Greene and John Steinbeck, but recently declassified documents shown to Politiken newspaper show that despite having the committee's majority support her nationality was counted against her. The documents were classified by the Nobel archive in Stockholm until the end of 2009. Committee member Anders Österling nominated Blixen as his first choice in 1959, writing that "if the prize should go to the now 74-year-old author, it should happen without delay", according to the documents. Two other committee members agreed with his choice, but the final member, Swedish author Eyvind Johnson, said that Italian poet Salvatore Quasimodo should win, pointing out that Scandinavian authors had won the prize four times more than other nationalities.

Quasimodo was eventually named winner, for "his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times". Blixen never won a Nobel, and died aged 77 in 1962. Johnson himself later won the prize jointly, in 1974, for "a narrative art, far-seeing in lands and ages, in the service of freedom". "The [Nobel] academy was probably afraid to appear provincial," Johannes Riis, literary director at Gyldendals publishing house told Politiken. "And so a mistake was made, because obviously Karen Blixen ought to have received the Nobel prize. Instead, it was a kind of reverse provincialism." Blixen is best known for her bestselling memoir Out of Africa, an account of her life in Kenya which opens "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills", and which was made into an Oscar-winning film starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.

Also known for Seven Gothic Tales, written in English under her penname Isak Dinesen, Blixen was admired by authors including Ernest Hemingway, who is reported to have said on winning his own Nobel prize in 1954 that "I would have been happy – happier – today if the prize had been given to that beautiful writer Isak Dinesen". Out Of Africa by Dinesen, Isak Out of Africa DINESEN, Isak [Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke], 1885-1962 New York: Random House, 1938. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine+/Fine+. A superlative First Edition (so stated) of the author's most renowned book. 8vo: x,389,[1]pp. Publisher's three-quarter orange cloth, flamingo stamped in gilt to upper board, glossy black cloth spine lettered and decorated in gilt, top edge stained moss-green, fore-edge untrimmed, title page in moss-green and black; pictorial dust jacket priced $2.75.

Very Fine (apparently unread), tight and square, crisp, clean pages throughout, with barely a hint of the usual toning to gutters; Very Fine, truly superb example of the jacket, completely fresh and bright without a trace of fading. Time 100. Modern Library 100. Dinesens second book, part novel, mostly memoir of her 19 years in AfricaI had a farm, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. "In 1937, the notion of a Danish woman who would serve as head of a vast African coffee plantation seemed only slightly less exotic than the notion of one who might spend her life in the Ngong hills of Kenya among the Kikuyu and Maasai. 'Here at long last one was in a position not to give a damn for all conventions, here was a new kind of freedom,' wrote the divorced, fiercely independent Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke. Her memoir depicts the close relationships she fostered among the men who worked for her, giving African characters a complexity and dignity not found in other colonial texts.

The occasional brutality and profound loss that characterize colonial life do not overshadow the serenity with which Blixen-Finecke writes, fostering wanderlust in anyone who reads her book." (Time 100) The Oscar-winning film (1985), starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, was based more on Judith Thurmans biography of Dinesen than on the book, in which Dinesen's romance with Denys Finch-Hatton is mentioned only obliquely. Note: With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. Out of Africa. Dinesen, Isak [Karen Blixen] New York: Random House, 1938. First American edition. Octavo, original half cloth. Fine in a near fine price-clipped dust jacket with a small tear and light shelfwear. A superior example. From 1914 to 1931, Danish aristocrat Baroness Karen Blixen owned and operated a coffee plantation in Kenya.

After the plantation failed, she returned to Europe and began to write under the pen name Isak Dinesen. Out of Africa reads like a collection of stories in which she adheres to no strict chronology, gives no explanation of the facts of her life, and apologizes for nothing. Basis for the film bearing the same name, directed by Sydney Pollack, starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, which went on to win seven Academy Awards. Out of Africa DINESEN, Isak (BLIXEN, Karen) New York: Random House, 1938. First American edition. Hardcover. Hardcover. First American edition. This is a beautiful and bright copy of Dinesen's classic tale of her years living in Kenya. Some offsetting to the endpapers caused by binders glue. Jacket is clipped at four corners but the price of $2.75 is present. A bit of wear to the extremities. A remarkable fine, fresh copy of a book that does not wear or travel well. The book became even more well known after the release of Sydney Pollack's 1985 Oscar-winning movie that starred Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Out Of Africa.

Dinesen, Isak [Karen Blixen] New York: Random House, 1938. First American edition of the author's masterpiece. Octavo, original half cloth. Fine in bright near fine dust jacket. An exceptional example. From 1914 to 1931, Danish aristocrat Baroness Karen Blixen owned and operated a coffee plantation in Kenya. After the plantation failed, she returned to Europe and began to write under the pen name Isak Dinesen. Out of Africa reads like a collection of stories in which she adheres to no strict chronology, gives no explanation of the facts of her life, and apologizes for nothing. Basis for the film bearing the same name, directed by Sydney Pollack, starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, which went on to win seven Academy Awards. Named by Modern Library as one of the 100 best non-fiction books of the twentieth century.

Out Of Africa Dinesen, Isak 1938, 1st edition, near fine condition, the first few pages have for want of a better word a minor diamond shaped shaped pin prick, with a very good dust jacket, minor chip to head and toe of dust jacket spine, minor soil mark lower edge of dust jacket cover and small soil mark on rear of dust jacket, with a priced unclipped dust jacket flap, published by Random House, New York, 389 pages. The authors [Karen Blixen] true account of her life on her plantation in Kenya. The movie "Out Of Africa" starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford was based on this book. Scarce! . Out of Africa Reviews & Ratings - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 8:34 AM, PST NEWS 119 out of 138 people found the following review useful: Hits all the right notes, at multiple levels. from Garden City, NY 30 June 2003 This is one of those rare movies that has something for everybody and is nearly perfect in many respects.

Many of the negative comments about the film here are one dimensional and fail to see the multiple levels on which the movie operates. First, there's the political level: Colonial Africa before, during, and after World War II populated by all of Europe (and America), and Karen Blixen caught in the middle between Germany and England. Interestingly, the settlers are willing to die for their countries eventhough they have little idea why they are going to war, and communication between Kenya and Europe lags by months, not weeks. There's the sociological level: White Europeans attempting to civilize and Westernize an essentially foreign land and people. I think the movie does a great job of intimating how the Kikuyus, the Somali, and Masai saw European settlers in their land - comical, enigmatic, and out of their element. Instead of fading into the background, the movie would fail without the simple wisdom of Farah who knows more than any of the white settlers in his land. ("This water must go to Mombasa". "God is great, Saboo").

Interestingly, Sikh Indians are brought to the English Gentlemen's club to act as servants and when Karen dares to enter the men's only den, it's the Sikh who is responsible for escorting her out; none of the English "gentlemen" have the balls or nerve to do it. An interesting observation on the English White man's view of the world before World War I. Historically, the film portrays real people with some fidelity since all of the characters, even Farah and Kumante, were based on actual people; Kumante was even alive and consulted during the filming in 1982/3. The character of Felicity is based on Beryl Markham, a truly magnificent woman who wrote "West with the Night" which might even portray colonial Africa better than Isak Dineson did. As a travel log, the movie works as well as any National Geographic since we see, (vicariously through Karen) as she watches a platoon of Masai warriers running through salt flats in full battle dress, as she learns about lions in wild, and how a herd of Elephants looks and sounds from a biplane.

Narratively, "Out of Africa" is not just a "chic flic" as someone posted, unless the poster thinks that all romances are essentially chic flics. I generally can't stand romances, but this operates not just as a romance between people (Karen and Blix, Karen and Dennis) but between people and place. The passion they felt for each other was matched or exceeded by their passion for Africa. When the movie was over, I too had fallen in love with Africa. The movie can be watched simply for its Cinematography, editing, sound, and set design alone. What other movie integrates poetry by Coleridge and Houseman, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, and the writing of Isak Dineson so easily that you barely notice it? Many scenes translate into still works of art: A bottle of wine and peaches on the hunting table, a Victrola playing Mozart in the African bush, a rainbow over raging falls, lions surveying the land from the Ngong hills. Such a great and beautiful movie. One that I will watch over and over again until an opportunity to see Victoria falls comes my way. By the way.

I agree that the weakest link in the movie is Robert Redford as Dennis Finch Hadden since his accent is non-existent, but then again I thought that as an American in colonial England (as Hemingway was at this same time), it plays much better. Was the above review useful to you? 72 out of 94 people found the following review useful: One of the Best Movies I have ever seen from Miami, FL 15 March 2000 OUT OF AFRICA is based on the memoirs of Danish writer Karen Blixen (pen name, Isak Dinesen) in a coffee plantation in present day Kenya. It explains how this brave woman overcomes the stereotype of a dainty, colonial British lady by running the coffee farm while her husband Bror Blixen (Brandauer) led a life of hunting and infidelities. Meryl Streep is great as Karen Blixen. She manages to maintain the realistic Danish accent through the whole film. Redford is great as Denys Finch-Hatton, the Etonian hunter who keeps companion in her loneliest and hardest.

But the real attraction of the film is he outstanding photography of the African landscape together with the sweeping John Barry soundtrack that is probably the most beautiful movie soundtrack of the 1980s. OUT OF AFRICA will be regarded as Sydney Pollack's asterpiece and a Classic of our times. Was the above review useful to you? 54 out of 61 people found the following review useful: A Dream of Africa from United States 18 October 2006 My favorite movie of all time, hands down. I watched it for the first time in the theatre. As it ended, the audience sat motionless and quiet for several beats, then burst into loud applause as the ending credits rolled. I'm not always so prophetic, but I was incredibly moved. I said to my husband, "We've just seen the Academy Award winner." If I had no other basis for recommendation, I would say the breathtaking cinematography and transporting musical score would make a viewing worthwhile (case in point: the main theme playing as Denys Finch Hatton gives Karen Blixen her first airplane ride, and we what she sees, as God must have seen it). But these are merely the window dressings.

There are two movie cuts floating around, which I tried to pursue through Universal, and then Disney. Forget it. Suffice to say there is a theatrical version and a Disney TV version, with little consequential difference to the plot except that the latter edits out a little of Karen's physical lovemaking with Denys and slightly expands her intellectual relationship with Farah; which to some degree helped buttress the development of his absolute devotion to her. The screenplay resembles Isaak Dinesen's semi-autobiographical book very little; even so, she did not tell the whole truth in her book. You'll have to get over it, except that I think the character development suffered the loss of Blixen's deep involvement with the displaced Kikuyu tribe working her coffee plantation. Also, without an understanding of the historical times, it would be too easy to say simplistically that this is a woman trying to live within the terms of a marriage of convenience and then compensating with pursuit of a doomed passion. What was crafted out of a mishmash of a more-or-less factual account and director Sydney Pollack's vision is still a beautiful love and adventure story in the midst of British colonial rule and an earlier, more racially and sexually biased era.

Klaus Maria Brandauer as Baron Bror von Blixen (whew! - who called Karen "Tannen," adding to my initial confusion) perfectly portrays that fun man you like immensely but could never really trust with anything important like your feelings. He along with several of the key male figures and symbols in this movie will eventually bow in respect to the "man" Karen Blixen becomes despite his often shabby treatment and other travails, because she rises above it all and perseveres. Redford plays mostly Redford. His Finch Hatton's sense of independence is fragile and illusory and will ultimately cost him dearly. There are a couple of continuity problems that bother me to this day, including the disappearing-reappearing champagne and the continually retracking parade marchers, but for the most part few expenses or attentions to detail were spared, especially in the lavish costuming. "Bare-breasted native women" will unfortunately also make their National Geographic appearance. Even so, Out of Africa is a treasure with a half dozen or more perfect and unforgettable scenes; a movie as long as this review, but I hope you'll agree, worth your patience. Was the above review useful to you?

51 out of 69 people found the following review useful: I had a farm in Africa Author: James Huddleson (huddleson@worldnet.att.net) 8 March 1999 What a memorable gem of a movie!! I thought this film deserved every one of its seven Academy Awards it got. After viewing this film again I'm just stupefied why didn't Meryl Streep win Best Actress in this movie. The role of Karen Blixen was very complex and she performed it beautifully. This is probably right up there with "Sophie's Choice" and "Kramer vs. Kramer" both Award winning performances for her and this is right there with "Bridges of Madison County" and "A Cry in the Dark". Syndey Pollock hit the nail right on the head with this classic beautiful cinematography. The acting is excellent by Streep, Redford, and Klaus Maria Brandeur. I liked the scene when Karen (Streep) wants her servant to address her by her name and he said "You are Karen, Sabu". I also loved the owl that she had in her room - it was a small one, but it was so cute and I loved it.

If you have a chance to rent this movie, please do - it is a classic. I love the beginning line "I had a farm in Africa" it was so moving!! Was the above review useful to you? 50 out of 68 people found the following review useful: Beautiful from London, Engalnd 3 January 2000 I had heard of this film quite alot but had never seen it. Today I did and was amazed. It is based on the life of a danish female author who moves to Africa. Meryl Streep is exellent as the lead role and keeps a believable danish accent all the way through the film. Robert Redford is also excellent as. But of course the best feature of this film is the beautiful African scnery. It captivates the viewer and I think even if the acting was poor the scenery would still make you like the film. I cannot think of any other film I have seen that has matched this one. I recommened it to anyone. This truly is a touching, marvellous film Was the above review useful to you?

39 out of 52 people found the following review useful: Stunning from Rhode Island 31 August 2001 This film is a masterpiece in all aspects. Of course, it's not for those looking for action or a fast-paced plot -- this film allows you to meet and get to know the characters with their virtues and foibles. The cinematography is incredible and John Barry's score is matchless; one of the very few scores which would diminish a film if absent. Meryl Streep was robbed of the Oscar; her meticulous German/Danish accent was first-rate. If I had to name the weakest attribute of the film, it's the casting of Robert Redford as Denys. He did a fine job, and it was understandable that he was cast in that role, due to his bankability, but in reality, Denys was not American. Redford is a bit too all-American for this role, but it's a minor detraction. This film is my next purchase on DVD -- I've seen it dozens of times and I never tire of it. Was the above review useful to you?

25 out of 31 people found the following review useful: Excellently made, Streep wonderful, Redford miscast from Australia 22 October 2006 Fifty years ago I was living in the Kenya highlands, only a few miles from the old Blixen farm. Not a great deal had changed since the 1920s, the period of the movie, which manages a reasonable re-creation. However, the background is unlikely to mean much to Americans, only confirming unreal stereotypes of the colonial British. Meryl Steep, as we have come to expect, is superb in the part; and in 2003 she co-narrated a wonderful documentary on the remarkable Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), to whom in fact she bears some physical resemblance. Robert Redford is badly miscast, and why the producers didn't get one of many superb English actors for the part I can't imagine. As a love story well told in what to most people will be an exotic setting, beautifully photographed, it should be highly rated, justifying its many awards. Was the above review useful to you?

33 out of 51 people found the following review useful: Africa as it was from Portugal 18 May 2003 Out Of Africa is a poetical rendition of an Africa that is slowly losing its exotic appeal to the Western World. Sydney Pollack directs this brilliant movie with skill, helped no doubt by a well-written script. The performances are above average, although Robert Redford might have lost his opportunity at an Oscar for refusing to play an Englishman. Sometimes slow, and perhaps even boring, the sets nonetheless capture the viewer for their sheer beauty, and the score is just great to listen. A small classic that hasn't lost its strenght over the years, and still entertains me after multiple viewings. Was the above review useful to you? 42 out of 71 people found the following review useful: A Good Woman In Africa from brighton, ma 30 August 2002 This is an overlong film derived from Isak Dinesen's memoirs of running a coffee plantation in Kenya in the early years of the twentieth century. The book is a different kettle of fish altogether, but I won't go into that.

Sydney Pollock does a fine job of directing here, but in a way the movie is almost overproduced. There was, it seems, so much time and money to play with that the film drags an awful lot. Kurt Luedtke's script is laconic in the Hemingway manner, and very smart, though some of the ultra-sophisticated one-liners began to irritate me after a while. Pollock has a fine dramatic instinct and I wish that there was more drama in this film for him to lavish his talent on. The location shooting is superb, and the depiction of home and village life in colonial Africa is nicely done. I find the romance between Dinesen (called by her real name, Baroness Karen Blixen) and aviator-adventurer Denis Finch-Hatton, less than compelling, partly because, as the latter, Robert Redford refuses to use a British accent, which gives the movie a Hollywood feel, not a bad thing in itself, but the film was made in Africa, with a mostly British cast, and Meryl Streep as Blixen uses an impeccable Danish accent, which makes Redford seem like a fish out of water.

This is bothersome because in many ways Redford is well cast in the role, thus his American diction seems like sheer willfulness on his part, which it probably was. Streep is fine in her role, and is especially good in her grand dame moments, as lady of the manor. There are some worthwhile incidental pleasures in this film. John Barry's fine score is perfect for the material, and really soars near the end, appropriately I imagine since one of the two main characters is an aviator. In supporting roles, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Michael Kitchen, Suzanna Hamilton and Michael Gough work small wonders. The use of Mozart, while true to life, makes this post-Amadeus film seem already like a period piece; the period being the 1980's. Mozart was all the rage in those days. His great music is, however, non- if not anti-emotional, and it's odd that it was used so often in the movie.

The effect of the music is somewhat intimidating in the context of the romance at the center of the film, as it doesn't suit at all what's happening on screen, which can't help but make the viewer think that perhaps he's missing something; or maybe the film is just too smart for him. This is, again, a very eighties sort of feeling, of the sort of one gets from watching Chariots Of Fire, or listening to the music David Byrne and Laurie Anderson. Was the above review useful to you? 15 out of 19 people found the following review useful: Deserved praise? from United Kingdom 22 September 2006 What makes a good film? It's funny I lent my DVD of this to a mate recently and although she didn't hate it she didn't get it either. Which surprised me because, to me, there has never been any doubt in my mind about the beauty and quality of this film. Anyway I was surfing IMDb and decided to look at this page. There is (or was) a thread on the discussion board about whether this was a good or bad film, I clicked on it. I have never (in my modest surfing of this site) seen such a big thread.

Surely a film that evokes that much passion (the majority of which was positive and defencive) has achieved something. I'm not saying that Out of Africa is the best film I've ever seen (I've yet to see that one!) but I think I can safely say that it has secured a place for itself both in cinematic history and the future of entertainment. You see at it heart it is a well made, timeless epic. Yes there will always be the people who take exception to the accents, dislike the ending or believes it drags on for too long, but that's their lost, I can't help thinking they haven't been patient enough (and this annoys me). You see the thing is in many ways the endless beauty of this film lies in its subtleties. Yes you have Meryl Streep and Redford flanked by the scenery and music, but for me it's the things like Pollock's direction, Michael Kitchen's performance and Karen's interaction with member's of the tribe that make the film. Part of me wants to tie my mate to a chair and make her sit and watch this until she gets it.

The other half is slightly relieved, because I feel that with her rejection this film is ever so slightly more exclusively mine, and I know that although I'm still only young I will always have time a space for it! Was the above review useful to you? Page 1 of 20: Isak Dinesen (Author of Out of Africa) edit data Pseudonym used by the Danish author Karen Blixen . Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke (Danish: [kʰɑːɑn ˈbleɡsn]; 17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962), née Karen Christenze Dinesen, was a Danish author, also known by the pen name Isak Dinesen, who wrote works in Danish, French and English. She also at times used the pen names Tania Blixen, Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel. Blixen is best known for Out of Africa, an account of her life while living in Kenya, and for one of her stories, Babette's Feast, both of which have been adapted into Academy Award-winning motion pictures. She is also noted for her Seven Gothic Tales, particularly in Denmark.

( wikipedia ) Pseudonym used by the Danish author Karen Blixen . Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke (Danish: [kʰɑːɑn ˈb̥leɡ̊sn̩]; 17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962), née Karen Christenze Dinesen, was a Danish author, also known by the pen name Isak Dinesen, who wrote works in Danish, French and English. She also at times used the pen names Tania Blixen, Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel. Blixen is best known for Out of Africa, an account of her life while living in Kenya, and for one of her stories, Babette's Feast, both of which have been adapted into Academy Award-winning motion pictures. She is also noted for her Seven Gothic Tales, particularly in Denmark.

Isak Dinesen | Danish author | Britannica.com Danish author Alternative Titles: Karen Christence Dinesen, Baroness Blixen-Finecke, Pierre Andrézel Isak Dinesen Karen Christence Dinesen, Baroness Blixen-Finecke born Sir Salman Rushdie Isak Dinesen, pseudonym of Karen Christence Dinesen, Baroness Blixen-Finecke (born April 17, 1885, Rungsted, Denmark —died September 7, 1962, Rungsted), Danish writer whose finely crafted stories, set in the past and pervaded with an aura of supernaturalism, incorporate the themes of eros and dreams. Isak Dinesen, 1959 AP Educated privately and at the Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen , Dinesen married her cousin, Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, in 1914 and went with him to Africa. There they owned and directed a coffee plantation in Kenya and became big-game hunters.

After her divorce in 1921 she continued to operate the plantation for 10 years until mismanagement, drought, and the falling price of coffee forced her return to Denmark. Her years in Kenya are recorded in a nonfiction book, Out of Africa (1937; Den afrikanske farm). These highly regarded memoirs of her years in Kenya reveal an almost mystical love of Africa and its people. The book is a poetic reminiscence of her triumphs and her sorrows on the loss of her farm, the death of her companion, the English hunter Denys Finch Hatton, and the disappearance of the simple African way of life she admired. In 1944 she produced her only novel Gengældelsens veje ( The Angelic Avengers) under the pseudonym Pierre Andrézel. It is a melodramatic tale of innocents who defeat their apparently benevolent but actually evil captor, but Danish readers saw in it a clever satire of Nazi-occupied Denmark. She initially wrote first in English and then rewrote her books in Danish, but her later books usually appeared simultaneously in both languages. Dinesen’s characteristic writings were in the form of tales—highly polished narratives in the Romantic tradition.

Collections include Seven Gothic Tales (1934; Syv fantastiske fortællinger), Winter’s Tales (1942; Vinter-eventyr), and Last Tales (1957; Sidste fortællinger). Carnival: Entertainments and Posthumous Tales (1977) includes uncollected or hitherto unpublished stories. Her other posthumously published works include Daguerreotypes, and Other Essays (1979) and Letters from Africa, 1914–31 (1981). Learn More in these related articles:

Question: Who was the Danish author of Out of Africa?
Answer: Karen Blixen