Inglourious Basterds, Part X

10. Die Büchse der Pandora (1929), aka Pandora's Box, is the most highly regarded of the films of G.W. Pabst and exemplary of the influence of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) on German cinema from the mid-20s to the fall of the Weimar Republic. What I've gleaned is that Pabst moved away from the subjective, wildly distorted realities of Expressionism (which were well suited to the polarized ideology of the Nazi Party and its manipulative ends) toward frank and realistic depiction of social concerns and sexual taboos — roll call: drugs, prostitution, abortion, homosexuality — that prevailing conservative rhetoric preferred to demonize and blame on the Israelite. Pabst later decamped from such "decadent" material to weather the Third Reich making Nazi-approved films.

Prickly American actress Louise Brooks stormed out of the Hollywood social scene in a huff in 1928, expatriating to Germany where, in a two-year span, she made the three greatest films of her career in collaboration with Pabst. In Pandora's Box she delivers a remarkably naturalistic performance for the time period, makes a compelling case for the erotic potential of the close-up, suggests lesbianism, an arguable first in movie history, and of course wears the Dutch Boy bob-haircut popularized by Colleen Moore and herself (later revived by Mrs Mia Wallace).