Pandora's Box

One of the masters of early German cinema, G. W. Pabst seemed to have an innate talent for discovering actresses. And perhaps none of his female stars shone brighter than Kansas native and onetime Ziegfeld girl Louise Brooks, whose legendary persona was defined by Pabst’s lurid, controversial melodrama Pandora’s Box. Sensationally modern, the film follows the downward spiral of the fiery, brash, yet innocent showgirl Lulu, whose sexual vivacity has a devastating effect on everyone around her. Daring and stylish, Pandora’s Box is one of silent cinema’s great masterworks and a testament to Brooks’s dazzling individuality.

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration
• Four musical scores, by Gillian Anderson, Dimitar Pentchev, Peer Raben, and Stéphan Oliva
• Audio commentary by film scholars Thomas Elsaesser and Mary Ann Doane
• Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu (1998), a documentary by Hugh Munro Neely
• Lulu in Berlin (1971), a rare interview with actor Louise Brooks, by Richard Leacock and Susan Steinberg Woll
• Interviews with Leacock and Michael Pabst, director G. W. Pabst’s son
• PLUS: An essay by critic J. Hoberman, notes on the scores, Kenneth Tynan’s 1979 “The Girl in the Black Helmet,” and an article by Brooks on her relationship with Pabst