Who wrote the plays that inspired Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s 1929 film Pandora’s Box?

Frank Wedekind wrote the plays that inspired Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s 1929 film Pandora’s Box.

The film draws on Wedekind’s dramas Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box, which center on the character Lulu. Wedekind’s Lulu plays were written in the late nineteenth century and explore sexuality, power, social hypocrisy, and the destructive treatment of women within a rigid society.

Pabst’s film is an adaptation rather than a screen version of the ancient Greek Pandora story. It retains the name Pandora’s Box because the title evokes the release of dangerous consequences, but its plot and characters come from Wedekind’s modern European drama. Louise Brooks’s portrayal of Lulu became the film’s most famous element.

Wedekind was a German playwright whose work often challenged conventional moral attitudes. His Lulu material later influenced other artistic adaptations, including Alban Berg’s opera Lulu, although that opera is separate from Pabst’s film.