Pandora’s Box

The Myth

In Greek mythology, Pandora was given a mysterious box by the god Zeus. Zeus told Pandora never to open it. Like Eve in Genesis, Pandora’s curiosity caused her to do the one thing she was explicitly ordered not to do. She opened the box and released evil and misery into the world. Because of Pandora, mankind would now suffer illness, sorrow, and death. For the ancient Greek patriarchal society, Pandora represented the ultimate female archetype: weak-willed, immoral, and therefore dangerous to men.

The Plays

German playwright Frank Wedekind wrote two dramas, Earth Spirit (1895) and Pandora’s Box (1905), both tragedies based on the Pandora myth. The plays were usually performed together or edited into one drama. Wedekind’s Lulu, like Pandora, has a thoughtless need for immediate gratification, which brings ruin to the men she encounters. The message of Wedekind’s plays is that female recklessness in search of power, sexual pleasure, or both, causes the destruction of not only individual men but also the German masculine patriarchal world. The popular plays were adapted into an opera and silent films.

The Silent Film

“The Greek Gods created a woman: Pandora. She was beautiful and charming, and versed in the art of flattery. But the gods also gave her a box containing all the evils of the world. The heedless woman opened the box, and all evil was loosed upon us.”

– inter title from the 1929 movie Pandora’s Box.

German filmmaker G.W. Pabst combined and loosely adapted Wedekind’s plays into the silent film, ‘Pandora’s Box’. The film premiered in Berlin in 1929, with the charming American actress Louise Brooks starring as the thoughtless ingénue, Lulu. Brooks’ Lulu is an innocent but uninhibited young showgirl. Lulu’s vivacious nature makes her a seducing siren who unintentionally leads those men who fall for her into decadence and tragedy. Lulu’s carelessness brings about the break-up of a marriage, manslaughter, and financial ruin to the men in her life. Finally, her carelessness results in her own murder. (In addition to Pabst portraying Lulu as the archetype of the reckless wanton woman, it is chilling today to see that during this film— made during the Weimar Republic era in Germany— that there is a menorah on Lulu’s mantle. Today we know what horrors followed just a few years later.) Lulu’s many destructive liaisons are too numerous and complicated to relate here. The link to the film is below.

Misogyny Today

Some fans of silent films today believe that we should not give current political meaning to films from a century ago. For those fans, the ghosts of Pabst, Lang, Chaplin, and Eisenstein would like a word. Fear of women, negative female archetypes, and fragile masculinity drive many of the current policies and proposals aimed at controlling women. Today there are reactionary attempts to restrict or outlaw abortion, birth control, and no fault divorce. Incels blame women for their self inflicted problems. There are even those who do not want women to vote. The Greek myth of Pandora, the dramas of Wedekind, and Pabst’s silent film all contributed to the perpetuation of an archetype that continues to animate the misogyny of today’s authoritarian right.

Sources

https://brightlightsfilm.com/an-innocent-lulu-how-pabst-rewrote-wedekind-in-pandoras-box/
https://www.psykickgirl.com/lulu/pandl.html
https://cinenthusiast.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/lulu-in-pandoras-box/
https://eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/pandoras-box/
https://silentfilm.org/pandoras-box-2/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/30/pandoras-box-review-gw-pabst-louise-brooks
https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/856e9118-c9db-56c4-8da6-3c4a8ba66aed/pandoras-box
https://reverseshot.org/archive/entry/2129/pandoras_box
https://meetmeatthesodafountain.home.blog/2019/03/25/silent-film-review-pandoras-box-1929/
https://www.greekmyths-greekmythology.com/pandoras-box-myth/
https://campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/lulu/
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/covenant_marriage
Thanks and a tip of the hat to the Louise Brooks Society for the image.