PANDORA’S BOX: THE CRITERION COLLECTION Reviewed by Matt Conroy Directed by G.W. Pabst    Generally regarded as one of the top 10 films of the silent era, German director G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box is also the work most closely associated with screen legend – and legendary beauty – Louise Brooks. Brooks, the very epitome of the 1920s “flapper,” with her lithe dancer's figure, graceful neck, hugely expressive eyes and trademark black Dutch bob hairstyle, had turned her back on a budding Hollywood career in 1929, famously quitting Paramount in a contract dispute and traveling to Germany in response to a telegram from Pabst. The director, who came perilously close to casting Marlene Dietrich in place of Brooks, envisioned the 22-year old Kansas native and former Ziegfeld girl as the ideal embodiment of Lulu, a prostitute whose devastating sexual aura destroys all around her. The film's unforgiving look at the power of human sexual impulses is shockingly frank, considering the era in which it was produced. Pabst and screenwriter Ladislaus Vajda adopted Pandora's Box and the character of Lulu from German playwright Frank Wedekind's Erdgeist and Die Büchse Der Pandora (Austrian composer Alban Berg would later write an opera based on the same material, incomplete at his death). As the film begins, Lulu is about to receive a visit from Dr. Schön (Fritz Körtner), a newspaper editor who, despite his engagement to another woman, understandably can't keep away from the magnetic Lulu. Pabst skillfully draws us in from the very start, his frequent use of close-ups allowing Brooks' dazzling beauty, incredible eyes and nuanced expressions to do their work. Lulu, who, for her part, can't bear the thought of Schön marrying anyone but her, conspires to destroy his marriage plans in a backstage scene (Act 3) that is masterfully paced and orchestrated, with the aid of very few titles. Realizing that he has been inextricably drawn in by Lulu, Schön agrees to wed her, even as she begins to flirt with and circle around Alwa (Franz Lederer), Schön's son. The film turns dramatically at the end of Act 4, which takes place on Schön and Lulu's wedding day, setting off a chain of events that see Lulu fleeing from the elegance of Berlin, first to France and finally on to dingy, foggy London, where she meets her fate. Lulu is abetted along the way not only by Alwa, who has managed to develop a nasty gambling habit, but also by her scheming disheveled pimp Schigolch (played by the magnificently devilish Carl Goetz), and Countess Geschwitz (Alice Roberts), whose sexual attraction for Lulu leads her down the path of ruin as well. Brooks' performance throughout is supremely riveting. You can see why Pabst cast her in the role of Lulu. If there were ever a woman for whom one would be willing to throw away everything in a cataclysm of self-destruction, Louise Brooks would be that woman. As the excellent documentary Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu , which is included on a second disc, makes clear, Brooks' career never again reached the height she achieved in Pandora's Box . Though she would go on to appear in another of Pabst's films – the highly regarded Diary of a Lost Girl – Brooks' film career fizzled out in spectacular fashion once she returned to talkie-era Hollywood and she was soon forgotten. After years spent in obscurity struggling with alcoholism, Brooks would later be celebrated as a film icon and pen a memoir, Lulu in Hollywood, which was published in 1982. A New Yorker appreciation by Kenneth Tynan, “The Girl With the Black Helmet,” which also went a long way toward resurrecting interest in Brooks, is part of Reflections on Pandora's Box , a lovely book of essays and criticism that is included here, alongside a 1965 article on Pabst and Pandora's Box that the articulate Brooks wrote for Sight & Sound. This is, without a doubt, one of the most lovingly assembled and indispensable sets that Criterion has ever issued. Chock full of extras (did I mention that there are four newly-recorded scores to choose from?), overflowing with insight and boasting an amazingly clear and clean transfer, Pandora's Box is a treasure that has been well worth waiting for. Devotees of silent cinema – or, for that matter, great filmmaking – owe it to themselves to run out and buy a copy of this landmark set. |
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