But in Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl we have the miracle of Louise Brooks. Her gifts of profound intuition may seem purely passive to an inexperienced audience, yet she succeeded in stimulating an otherwise unequal director's talent to the extreme. Pabst's remarkable evolution must thus be seen as an encounter with an actress who needed no directing, but could move across the screen causing the work of art to be born by her mere presence. Louise Brooks, always enigmatically impassive, overwhelmingly exists throughout these two films. We know now that Louise Brooks is a remarkable actress endowed with uncommon intelligence, and not merely a dazzlingly beautiful woman.
Pandora's Box is a silent film. As such it does very well without the words which Wedekind - the author of the two plays Erdgeist and Die Buchse der Pandora, which Pabst condensed into one film - deemed indispensable to bring out the erotic power of this singular 'earthly being' endowed with animal beauty, but lacking all moral sense, and doing evil unconsciously.
The editing of Pandora's Box is more fluid [than some of his other films], perhaps because Pabst's weakness for fluctuating atmosphere or violently-contrasted chiaroscuro (the lighted boat at night) comes to the fore. Despite this stylistic fluidity the fusion of two stage-plays leads to certain passages in the film standing out from the whole, as was noted by one of the Close Up critics. Each composes a drama in its own right, with its own peripetias, rhythm and style distinct from the rest. Such self-contained sequences are the Impressionistic glitter of the revue scenes, the Expressionistically lit gambling-hell on the boat, and the foggy images of London low-life.
Nobody has ever equalled Pabst's portrayal of the back-stage fever on the opening night of a big show, the hurrying and scurrying during the scene changes, the stage seen from the wings as the performers go on and off and bound forward to acknowledge their applause at the end of their act, the rivalry, complacency, and humour, the bewildering bustle of stage-hands and electricians, stupendous whirl of artistic aspirations, colourful detail, and a facile eroticism. Even the famous 42nd Street does not get across this dazzle and warmth, this sensuality swamped in the light shimmering on the lame curtains and the helmets and suits of armour, and silvering the bodies of the all-but-naked women. Pabst directs all this turmoil with remarkable dexterity; everything has been worked out in advance; at precisely calculated intervals a few figures cross in front of or behind a main group, giving an impression of effervescence and dynamism. Lulu appears like some pagan idol, tempting, glittering with spangles, feathers, and frills, against a wavering, out-of-focus background.
She is the centre of attraction, and Pabst succeeds in devising an infinite variety of seduction scenes to show her to advantage, as when Dr. Schoen comes into the flat wondering how to tell his mistress that he is getting married. The camera catches his nervousness as he paces up and down the room; the ash from his cigarette burns a table-runner, and he fiddles with a bibelot, as Jannings had fidgeted with a liqueur glass in Variety. Then a skilful shot-and reverse shot shows us Lulu observing him. She sinks back into the cushions, moves, lies on her front half-reared like a sphinx, while Schoen goes up to her and sits down. The camera dives and scrutinizes Lulu's impassive features, lingering over the perfect sweep of her face, the pearl-like quality of her skin, the fringe of her lacquered hair, the sharp arch of her eyebrows, and the trembling shadow of her lashes.
Another passage offers a subtle variant: in the prop-room Lulu throws herself on to the divan, and the camera moves up to the white nape of her neck and slips along her legs as they kick with impatience. The two lovers wrestle and sink into a long embrace. These scenes are extremely erotic, but quite free from vulgarity.
Many times Pabst films Lulu's features on a slant. Her face is so voluptuously animal that it seems almost deprived of individuality. In the scene with Jack the Ripper, this face, a smooth mirror-like disc slanting across the screen, is so shaded out and toned down that the camera seems to be looking down at some lunar landscape. (Is this still a human being a woman at all? Is it not rather the flower of some poisonous plant ?) Or again Pabst just shows, at the edge of the screen, the chin and a fragment of cheek belonging to the man next to her, with whom the audience automatically identifies.
In the final episode, in the London slum, she uses the reflection of the lamp as a mirror with which to apply her lipstick. Jack the Ripper gets the idea of using the bread-knife from seeing it glint in the light of this same lamp. His face stands out from the half-light in full relief, a tragic counterpoise to the smooth features of the beloved Lulu. For a brief moment the haunted man smiles and the veil of despair seems to lift from his suddenly appeased features. Then the camera, immediately reveals again each bump in the skin; each pore is visible, and the sweat over the contracted muscles.
It is the close-ups which determine the character of the film; the flamboyant or phosphorescent atmosphere and the luminous mists of London remain throughout merely a kind of accompaniment to these close-ups, heightening their significance.
Pabst introduces a character with a single shot: scrutinizing the acrobat Rodrigo waiting in the street, the camera lingers over his square shoulders and barrel chest; in this shot his head has become a mere accessory, and we immediately realize that the man is brainless, nothing but physical strength. As soon as Lulu's adoptive father make his appearance on the landing Pabst shows us his hunched silhouette from behind, and this stresses the sordid aspect of the debauched old artiste's way of life.
Sometimes Pabst can indicate all the drama, in a single shot: Lulu, wearing the wedding-dress, looks at herself in the mirror and then leans forward to put down her pearl necklace; while she does so, and her image leaves the mirror, the threatening figure of Dr. Schoen is framed in the glass. Lulu straightness up, and her image meets that of Dr. Schoen, who has decided to kill her. Pabst then cuts very briefly to the struggle for the revolver; Lulu is seen from behind, we perceive a puff of smoke and realize that the gun has gone off. Then we have all the details of Schoen's death throes shown from dramatic angles.
To sum up the elements of Pabst's technique: he seeks the 'psychological or dramatic angles' which reveal at a single glance character, psychical relationships, situations, tension, or the tragic moment. Most of the time he prefers this method of shooting to Murnau's technique of following a scene at length with a moving camera. So, for Pabst, the action is ultimately built up by the montage.
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