ABSTRACT
WHEN G.W.PABST’S film adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s Pandora’s Box opened in Berlin in 1929, the censors rushed in to condemn “its open treatment of lasciviousness and prostitution-Lulu’s sexuality, Geschwitz’s lesbianism, Schigolch’s pimping.”1 Following the judicial ban of the play in 1906, Wedekind appended a foreword that contested its characterization as “an incompetent piece of work devoid of any moral or artistic merits”2
largely on the grounds that the censors had misunderstood the moving force behind his work:
The tragic central figure of the play is not Lulu, as the justices mistakenly assumed, but Countess Geschwitz. Apart from an intrigue here and there, Lulu plays an entirely passive role in all three acts; Countess Geschwitz on the other hand in the first act furnishes an example of what one can justifiably describe as super-human selfsacrifice. In the second act the progress of the plot forces her to summon all her spiritual resources in the attempt to conquer the terrible destiny of abnormality with which she is burdened; after which, in the third act, having borne the most fearful torments of soul with stoical composure, she sacrifices her life in defence of her friend.3
