ABSTRACT
At Lulu’s trial for the murder of Dr. Schön in G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box (Die Büchse der Pandora, 1929), 1 the ostensible question seems at first to be the usual legal one of guilt versus innocence. 2 Yet the arguments produced by both the prosecutor and the defense lawyer displace the ordinary terms of legalistic discourse—evidence, motivation, alibi, eyewitness, etc.—and instead, have recourse to a language which evokes the register of fiction, drama, myth. Immediately after the scene of Schön’s death, there is an abrupt cut to Lulu’s lawyer who proclaims, “Honored Court: in a rapid series of pictures I have shown you a fearful destiny.” 3 The phrase, “a rapid series of pictures” invokes, of course, the cinematic mechanism and, in a self-reflexive gesture, refers back to the film’s own narration of events. That narration, in turn, is highly inconclusive insofar as the decisive moment is presented as a blockage of vision—Schön’s broad back nearly covers the field of the frame and the only indication that a shot has been fired is the puff of smoke rising between Lulu and Schön. The prosecutor’s recourse to “evidence” is even more problematic—the sole support of his argument for Lulu’s guilt is a reference to the Greek myth of “Pandora’s Box” and the disaster unleashed by the woman in this tale. It is symbolic evidence which proclaims her guilt. The trial indeed becomes a travesty after a false fire alarm, and in the ensuing pandemonium Lulu escapes the court’s jurisdiction altogether as she is surrounded by her friends, mostly representatives of the lumpenproletariat, and whisked out of the courtroom. The dilemma is whether, in Pandora’s Box, the question of Lulu’s guilt or innocence is ever really posed in a way which makes it legally resolvable.
