Pandora's Box

Pandora's Box (German: Die Büchse der Pandora) is a 1929 German silent melodrama film based on Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (1904). Directed by Austrian filmmaker Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the film stars Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner and Francis Lederer. Brooks' portrayal of a seductive, thoughtless young woman whose raw sexuality and uninhibited nature bring ruin to herself and those who love her, although initially unappreciated, eventually made the actress a star.

Pandora's Box had previously been adapted for the screen by Arzén von Cserépy in 1921 in Germany under the same title, with Asta Nielsen in the role of Lulu. As there was a musical, plays and other cinema adaptations at the time, the story of Pandora's Box was well known. This allowed Pabst to take liberties with the story.

Director G. W. Pabst searched for months for an actress to play Lulu. On seeing Brooks as a circus performer in the 1928 Howard Hawks' film A Girl in Every Port, Pabst tried to get her on loan from Paramount Pictures. His offer was not even made known to Brooks by the studio until she left Paramount over a salary dispute. Pabst's second choice was Marlene Dietrich (can you imagine Marlene being someone's second choice?); Dietrich was actually in Pabst's office, waiting to sign a contract to do the film, when Pabst got word of Brooks' availability. In an interview many years later, Brooks stated that Pabst was reluctant to hire Dietrich, as he felt she was too old at 27, and not a good fit for the character. Pabst himself later wrote that Dietrich was too knowing, while Brooks had both innocence and the ability to project sexuality, without coyness or premeditation.

In shooting the film, Pabst drew on Brooks' background as a dancer with the pioneering modern dance ensemble Denishawn, "choreographing" the movement in each scene, and limiting her to a single emotion per shot. Pabst was deft in manipulating his actors: he hired tango musicians to inspire Brooks between takes, coached a reluctant Alice Roberts through the lesbian sequences, and appeased Fritz Kortner, who did not hide his dislike for Brooks. During the first week or two of filming, Brooks went out partying every night with her current lover, George Preston Marshall, much to Pabst's displeasure. When Marshall left, a relieved Pabst imposed a stricter lifestyle on his star.

On December 2, 1929, The New York Times called "Pandora's Box...a disconnected melodrama ...[with] a seldom interesting" narrative. The reviewer found Brooks "attractive", but her expressions "often difficult to decide", and concluded it was "filmed far better than the story (deserved)".

The film was re-discovered by critics in the 1950s, to great acclaim. Modern critics now praise Pandora's Box as one of the classics of Weimar Germany's cinema, along with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis, The Last Laugh, and The Blue Angel. Film critic Roger Ebert reviewed the film in 1998 with great praise, and remarked of Brooks' presence that "she regards us from the screen as if the screen were not there; she casts away the artifice of film and invites us to play with her". He included the film on his list of The Great Movies.

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#PandorasBox #Lulu #DieBüchseDerPandora #LouiseBrooks#GeorgWilhelmPabst #SilentFilm #Classics #Hollywood