Opening Pandora’s Box
By November 27, 2006
As a filmmaker, G. W. Pabst was attracted to issues and partial to naturalism. Starting with his 1923 fable The Treasure, this most cosmopolitan and protean of Weimar filmmakers Read more »
- Germany
- 1929
- 133 minutes
- Black and White
- 1.33:1
- German
SYNOPSIS: One of the masters of early German cinema, G. W. Pabst had an innate talent for discovering actresses (including Greta Garbo). And perhaps none of his female stars shone brighter than Kansas native and onetime Ziegfeld girl Louise Brooks, whose legendary persona was defined by Pabst’s lurid, controversial melodrama Pandora’s Box. Sensationally modern, the film follows the downward spiral of the fiery, brash, yet innocent showgirl Lulu, whose sexual vivacity has a devastating effect on everyone she comes in contact with. Daring and stylish, Pandora’s Box is one of silent cinema’s great masterworks and a testament to Brooks’s dazzling individuality.
Cast & CreditsOpen
Cast
| Lulu | Louise Brooks |
| Dr. Schön | Fritz Kortner |
| Alwa Schön | Francis Lederer |
| Schigolch | Carl Goetz |
| Rodrigo Quast | Krafft-Raschig |
| Countess Geschwitz | Alice Roberts |
| Dr. Schön's fiancee | Daisy d'Ora |
| Jack | Gustav Diessl |
Credits
| Director | Georg Wilhelm Pabst |
| Based on a play by | Frank Wedekind |
| Screenplay | Ladislaus Vajda |
| Cinematography | Gunther Krampf |
| Producer | Heinz Landsmann |
| Editing | Joseph Fleisler |
| Art direction | Andrej Andrejew and Gottlieb Hesch |
Disc Features
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the definitive Munich Film Museum restoration
- Four musical scores, each offering its own interpretation of the film
- Audio commentary by film scholars Thomas Elsaesser and Mary Ann Doane
- Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu (1998), a 60-minute documentary by Hugh Munro Neeley
- Lulu in Berlin (1971), a rare, 48-minute interview with Louise Brooks by vérité documentarian Richard Leacock and Susan Steinberg Woll
- New video interviews with Leacock, about Brooks, and Michael Pabstm the director’s son
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- Stills gallery
- PLUS: A book featuring Kenneth Tynan’s 1979 essay “The Girl in the Black Helmet,” an article by Louise Brooks on her relationship with Pabst, and a new essay by critic J. Hoberman
