Film History Corner: GW Pabst's Pandora's Box (1929)

The ingredients of GW Pabst's Pandora's Box are the kind that could be made into such insane melodrama that it might make Josef von Sternberg uneasy (or, if not, the average director of German cinema of the period). It's about a girl who hasn't a real home or family, except for those she gets closest to as an attractor of men. One of those is a Dr. Ludwig Schon, who is already betrothed to another- more respectable- woman, but still dotes on his Lulu, with short black hair and a charming but seductive face and eyes. She even lures in his son, Alwa, who finds the relationship-cum-engagement rather crude but can't keep his eyes off of her, even as he tries. But soon word gets out about the doctor and Lulu, and his reputation is tarnished, and at the night of their wedding as a giant, crazy celebration takes place, Dr. Schon can't take it anymore (how she acts around others, such as, well, men), and reaches a dramatic high point with her... that is, for this act.

From then on we see Lulu trying to escape trouble and capture from the authorities for a crime she actually didn't commit (it's one of those scenes that sounds far more simple than it looks), and either getting by fine like at a gambling joint with her fellow travelers, Rodrigo the theater promoter and Alwa, or not as it turns out at Christmas-time. Pabst doesn't ever paint much of a happy time for Lulu, and it's just the way it should be in such waters: Lulu is a free spirit, at least in theory, and she loves (or thrives on) drawing in men into her grasp, except for those few that she actually doesn't really want at all, and ultimately she becomes a prostitute in spite of her aim early on to be a dancer and performer on stage.

The story itself, while strong and potent with the kind of depth and misery that reminds one of other German expressionist films of the time, isn't even the best thing about the movie. On the contrary, Pabst could have made the same elements in this script, full of romantic twists and double-turns and harrowing grasps for life and just crazy bits of crime business, into a ludicrous thriller, something out of ten cent paperback books. But it's Pabst as a director of movement in cinema, how he portrays his actors on screen and gets body language and movement in a frame, the lighting and the smoke and fog, the sets expressing place and class, and how he casts it that makes it so great a film. It's a signal of what makes a movie amazing when one can see a filmmaker elevating a torrid drama into real depth, pain and anguish and lust, not to mention the dangerous exuberance of the period, and that it works even today.

There is Gunther Krampf's cinematography as one piece of what makes it work, and how the rhythm of the shots in the editing is done in classical structure of scenes (sometimes a scene will pick up the intensity, such as the Jack the Ripper scene near the very end, and it becomes exciting much like, or more-so, a modern melodrama today), and, depending on which music you listen to with the film on the Criterion DVD (I picked improv piano, which turned out well) it provides a perfect kick with the material. There is all of that, but it's Louise Brooks in her most notable and wonderful performance, that makes Pandora's Box stick with you. She has a quality like any star should have, but not having to speak she can rely precisely on her looks, her allure and her smile, her perfect moments of hysteria (i.e. the backstage theater scene with Dr. Scholl is perfect), and how she projects some real sorrow like in the courtroom scene.

Brooks taps into a wild soul who is caught in her own game of playing men in society, and Pabst taps into her star to make something you can't take your eyes off of. Another star or actress would have made it interesting, but Brooks, who would only go on to star in a few other movies worth mentioning (also directed by Pabst), is fearless with the character, and makes her as recognizable in the history of German film as Dietrich in The Blue Angel. It's artful film-making and a sumptuous actress in a once-controversial film (banned/censored in eight countries!)