The 1929 film Pandora’s Box is adapted from plays by which German dramatist?

The 1929 film Pandora’s Box is adapted from plays by German dramatist Frank Wedekind. Director G. W. Pabst combined material from Wedekind’s Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box to create the film centered on Lulu.

Wedekind introduced Lulu in his late-nineteenth-century dramatic works as a provocative figure whose relationships expose social hypocrisy, sexual double standards, and destructive desire. The character had already attracted controversy before Pabst translated the material to the screen.

The film is not an adaptation of Hesiod’s Greek myth in a literal sense. Its title and themes echo the mythological idea of a beautiful figure associated with catastrophe, but Lulu is a modern theatrical character. The movie also changes and condenses Wedekind’s stage material for silent cinema.

Frank Wedekind’s work influenced later European theater and cinema. His Lulu plays were subsequently adapted in other forms, including Alban Berg’s opera Lulu. That later opera and Pabst’s film share a source but are separate adaptations.