Lulu (1996)

Initially commissioned to accompany a Danish production of Alban Berg’s LULU, Lewis Klahr’s cut-out animation refigures the opera’s themes in a torrent of images. With an ever-inventive approach to color and symbol, Klahr distills the title character’s moral predicament, along with a great many of German Expressionism’s characteristic motifs, in the span of a pop song.

With the title as a reference to Pabst's heroine in "Pandora's Box," this short is a kaleidoscope of swirling images. Lulu is a party girl, at the center of a spinning roulette wheel; chips fall where they may. She gives seductive looks; she travels by train, taking lovers; mushrooms sprout, giving phallic counterpoint to the wheels. Then, like Pabst's Lulu, she faces extreme danger. Are these the wages of sin?