Pandora’s Box

Pabst’s immortal film version of the Frank Wedekind play gave us one of the most enduring presences in cinema. “Is the movie’s resident Pandora, Louise Brooks, inside the character of Lulu or is Lulu inside her?” wrote J. Hoberman in The Village Voice. As Brooks herself put it to Kenneth Tynan, “It was clever of Pabst to know even before he met me that I possessed the tramp essence of Lulu.” Lulu, in Hoberman’s words, was a “new kind of femme fatale—generous, manipulative, heedless, blank, democratic in her affections, ambiguous in her sexuality.” She has inspired countless helmet-haired imitators, but she still reigns supreme. Featuring the world premiere of a new orchestral score composed and conducted by Jonathan Ragonese performed live. A Janus Films release.

DCP courtesy of the Deutsche Kinemathek from the restoration based on elements contributed by the Cinémathèque Française, Gosfilmofond and the Národní Filmový Archiv in Prague undertaken at Cineteca di Bologna. The work was helmed by the George Eastman House and Big Sound with funding provided by Hugh M. Hefner.

This evening is generously supported by Ira Resnick