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23/06/2017 08:56 par tellurikwaves

That face is one of the most versatile (not to mention the most beautiful) in the history of cinema. At the conclusion of the film's best scene-- as Dr. Schoen's fiancee catches him red handed in Lulu's dressing room-- her competitor slowly dismounts him with a momentary smirk full of hurt and disdain, yet somehow ballsy and triumphant.

Such precious and sophisticated details make "Pandora's Box" a masterpiece. The title itself is mentioned in an inevitable courtroom scene midway through the story, by a prosecutor who crudely accuses the girl of being the root of all evil. This is where the film's sociological implications make it stand out from many of its contempories. Louise does not portray a conniving temptress.
 

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23/06/2017 03:44 par tellurikwaves

Greatest Silent Film    
14 April 1999 | by Vlad B.  (United States) – (3)

The girl's circumstances become even more bizarre as the action progresses. Obviously, given such a juicy storyline, the audience could well have been treated with a dose of laughable high camp. But Pabst, through brilliant cinematography (and, incidentally, silence), manages to retain dignity and generate powerful emotions as opposed to sarcasm and mild amusement.

Precisely because the characters do not speak, we have an opportunity to witness their expressions and gestures. The camera spends much time on Brooks' face, showing the wide range of her emotions: from playfulness to rebellion to despair and back again.

à suivre....j'ai à faire

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23/06/2017 03:42 par tellurikwaves

She is the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's Mia Wallace in both personality and sheer appearance. For the source of that chic haircut, look no further than Lulu,the proto-"femme fatale" played by Brooks. In a plot that could have come right out of a modern daytime talk show, she manages to destroy the lives of virtually everyone who loves her.

Lulu (an aspiring actress), is simultaneously involved with Dr. Schoen (a prominent, high-society man) and his son, while being pursued by a lesbian admirer. To make matters worse, she is "supervised" by a rather disgusting, shady, pimp-like creature impersonating her father. And that's only the beginning.

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23/06/2017 03:38 par tellurikwaves

IMDB
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Greatest Silent Film    
14 April 1999 | by Vlad B.  (United States) – (1)

Of all the silent dramas of the '20s, perhaps none is as compelling and inherently watchable as "Pandora's Box" of 1928. Amazingly, despite its age and completely different cinematic conventions, this G.W. Pabst picture continues to influence filmmakers worldwide. Made in Weimar Germany, it stars Louise Brooks, an American actress now considered the quintessential symbol of the flapper era. If not for her presence, the film would probably never have its incredible durability and cult status.

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23/06/2017 03:35 par tellurikwaves

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23/06/2017 03:31 par tellurikwaves

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23/06/2017 03:23 par tellurikwaves

Pandora’s Box has been screened numerous times in the years since its rediscovery, and perhaps nowhere more often than in the San Francisco Bay Area.One of those screenings was witnessed by a local music producer, David Ferguson, another by a silent film enthusiast, Angela Holm. And although the prints they saw were in need of considerable work, both were mesmerized by Brooks’s performance. Together, their efforts led to the exquisite restoration screening at this year’s festival.

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23/06/2017 03:21 par tellurikwaves

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23/06/2017 03:19 par tellurikwaves

Those screenings helped stir interest in the actress and her surviving films. Over the years, Card’s championing of Pandora’s Box was joined by other film historians, curators, and critics, including Henri Langlois, Kevin Brownlow, and Kenneth Tynan. Eventually, the film’s reputation, intertwined with Brooks’s, began to grow.

In his acclaimed 1989 biography of Brooks, Barry Paris put it this way: “A case can be made that Pandora’s Box was the last of the silent films—not literally, but aesthetically. On the threshold of its premature death, the medium in Pandora achieved near perfection in form and content.”

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23/06/2017 03:16 par tellurikwaves

Essay by Thomas Gladysz (8)
 
Things began to change in the mid-1950s. James Card, a passionate devotee of silent movies and the founder and first curator of the Department of Film at the George Eastman House of Photography in Rochester, New York, saw Pandora’s Box at the Cinémathèque Française, which then held one of the few known copies of the film. Card was bowled over.

He acquired a print from the Danish Film Museum, another holder, and returned home. Though the print was incomplete and in need of considerable work, Card showed Pandora’s Box along with Pabst’s Diary of a Lost Girl (also with Brooks) to audiences slowly catching up with—as renowned German critic Lotte Eisner put it in the 1950s—Brooks’s “miraculous” performance.