FULL Pandora’s Box or Die Büchse der Pandora Silent Movie 1919
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Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Pandora's Box or Die Büchse der Pandora
- Composer: N/A
- Libretto: Frank Wedekind
- Venue & Opera Company: Germany
- Recorded: 1919
- Type: Movie
- Singers: N/A
- Conductor:
- Orchestra:
- Stage Director: G. W. Pabst
- Stage Designer: Günther Krampf
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Criterion Collection
- Date Published: 2024
- Format: DVD & BD
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, desubs
- Video Recording from: AMAZON
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Alban Berg’s opera LULU is based on the play Die Büchse der Pandora by Frank Wedekind.
Pandora’s Box (German: Die Büchse der Pandora) is a 1929 German silent drama film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, and starring Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, and Francis Lederer. The film follows Lulu, a seductive young woman whose uninhibited nature brings ruin to herself and those who love her. It is based on Frank Wedekind’s plays Erdgeist (“Earth Spirit”, 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (“Pandora’s Box”, 1904).
Dismissed by critics on its initial release, Pandora’s Box was later rediscovered by film scholars as a classic of Weimar German cinema.
Plot
Lulu is the mistress of a respected, middle-aged newspaper publisher, Dr. Ludwig Schön. One day, she is delighted when an old man, her “first patron”, Schigolch, shows up at the door to her highly contemporary apartment. However, when Schön also arrives, she makes Schigolch hide on the balcony. Schön breaks the news to Lulu that he is going to marry Charlotte von Zarnikow, the daughter of the Minister of the Interior. Lulu tries to get him to change his mind, but when he discovers the disreputable-looking Schigolch, he leaves. Schigolch then introduces Lulu to Rodrigo Quast. Quast wants her to join his new variety act.
The next day, Lulu goes to see her best friend Alwa, who happens to be Schön’s son. Schön is greatly displeased to see her, but comes up with the idea to have her star in his son’s musical production to get her off his hands. However, Schön makes the mistake of bringing Charlotte to see the revue. When Lulu refuses to perform in front of her rival, Schön takes her into a storage room to try to persuade her otherwise, but she seduces him instead. Charlotte finds them embracing.
A defeated Schön resigns himself to marrying Lulu. While the wedding reception is underway, he is disgusted to find Lulu playfully cavorting with Schigolch and Quast in the bedchamber. He gets his pistol and threatens to shoot the interlopers, but Lulu cries out not to, that Schigolch is her father. Schigolch and Quast thus escape. Once they are alone, Schön insists his new wife take the gun and shoot herself. When Lulu refuses, the gun goes off in the ensuing struggle, and Schön is killed.
At her murder trial, Lulu is sentenced to five years for manslaughter. However, Schigolch and Quast trigger a fire alarm and spirit her away in the confusion. When Alwa finds her back in the Schön home, he confesses his feelings for her and they decide to flee the country. Countess Augusta Geschwitz, herself infatuated with Lulu, lets the fugitive use her passport. On the train, Lulu is recognized by another passenger, Marquis Casti-Piani. He offers to keep silent in return for money. He also suggests a hiding place, a ship used as an illegal gambling den.
Casti-Piani sells Lulu to an Egyptian for his brothel. Lulu, Geschwitz, Alwa, Schigolch, and Quast are now passengers on the gambling ship. Quast blackmails Lulu for financing for his new act. Desperate for money to pay the Egyptian off, Alwa cheats at cards and is caught. Having turned to Geschwitz for help, Lulu now asks Schigolch. He persuades a reluctant Geschwitz to lure Quast to a stateroom, where she kills him. Lulu, Schigolch, and Alwa flee in a rowboat as the police swarm the ship.
They end up in squalor, in a drafty London garret. On Christmas Eve, driven to prostitution, Lulu has the misfortune of picking a remorseful Jack the Ripper. Though he protests he has no money, she likes him and invites him to her lodging anyway. Jack is touched and secretly throws away his knife. Schigolch drags Alwa away before they are seen. Although he genuinely likes her, Jack spots a knife on a table as they embrace and cannot resist his urge to kill. Unaware of Lulu’s fate, Schigolch celebrates with a group of revelers and fulfills his lifelong wish to eat Christmas pudding while a broken Alwa (who sees Jack leave) follows a passing Salvation Army parade.
Quoted from Wikipedia
Cast
Louise Brooks as Lulu
Fritz Kortner as Dr. Ludwig Schön
Francis Lederer as Alwa Schön
Carl Goetz as Schigolch
Krafft-Raschig as Rodrigo Quast
Alice Roberts as Countess Augusta Geschwitz
Daisy D’ora as Charlotte Marie Adelaide von Zarnikow
Gustav Diessl as Jack the Ripper
Michael von Newlinsky as Marquis Casti-Piani
Sigfried Arno as The Stage Manager