In Frank Wedekind’s plays and the 1929 film Pandora’s Box, the central character’s name is Lulu.
Lulu is the central figure in Wedekind’s plays Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. The character is portrayed as alluring, socially disruptive, and difficult to fit into conventional moral categories. Her relationships and the reactions they provoke shape the drama’s escalating tragedy.
G. W. Pabst adapted the plays for the 1929 silent film, with Louise Brooks in the role. Brooks’s distinctive bobbed haircut, expressive acting, and screen presence made the performance especially influential. The film helped turn Lulu into one of the best-known female characters of European silent cinema.
Lulu is not Pandora from Greek mythology. The title uses the older myth’s image of a container whose opening unleashes destructive consequences, but Wedekind’s story is a modern theatrical and cinematic work. Confusing the two figures can obscure the film’s literary source and its focus on sexuality, power, class, and social hypocrisy.