PABST, G(EORG) W(ILHELM)

born Aug. 27, 1885, Raudnice, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary died May 29, 1967, Vienna German motion-picture director whose films were among the most artistically successful of those produced in the 1920s. Pabst's films are marked by his deep insight into the human personality and his ability to create moving and original characters, particularly female ones; by his constant concern with social and political issues, as well as with the impact that societal problems have on individual human beings; and by powerful editing that gave meaning to each shot while creating smooth transitions between scenes. Pabst was educated in Vienna and at 20 began a career as a stage actor in Zrich. He performed in Salzburg, Austria, Berlin, and New York City before turning to the cinema. Pabst's first film was Der Schatz (1923; The Treasure), about the passions aroused while its characters search for hidden treasure. His first successful film as a director was Die freudlose Gasse (1925; The Joyless Street), which became internationally famous as a grimly realistic portrayal of life in inflation-ridden postwar Vienna. His second successful film was Geheimnisse einer Seele (1926; Secrets of a Soul), a realistic consideration of psychoanalysis that harked back to Expressionist themes in its detailed examination of a disturbed consciousness. Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney (1927; The Love of Jeanne Ney) was a love story that incorporated documentary shots to heighten the realism of its postwar setting. The picture is most highly praised, though, for its photography and its smooth cuts of one scene into another. With these three films Pabst became an internationally prominent director. His films of the late 1920s and '30s contained a stronger emphasis on the interrelationship between social conditions and the individual. Outstanding motion pictures of this type were Abwege (1928; Crisis), Die Bchse der Pandora (1929; Pandora's Box), and Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (1929; Diary of a Lost Girl). The latter two films are particularly notable for the performances in them of the actress Louise Brooks, who epitomized Pabst's ideal of feminine eroticism. In the early 1930s Pabst took up a left-wing viewpoint in such films as Westfront 1918 (1930), a realistic portrayal of the trench warfare of World War I, Die Dreigroschenoper (1931; The Threepenny Opera), and Kameradschaft (1931; Comradeship), in which a mine disaster is met by the combined rescue efforts of French and German workers in an example of international cooperation. By the mid-1930s the overall quality of Pabst's films was declining. He moved to Paris and attempted a ponderous three-language version of Don Quixote (1933) as well as several melodramas. Returning to Germany at the outbreak of World War II, he reluctantly directed films such as Komdianten (1941; Comedians) and Paracelsus (1943). His most outstanding postwar film was Der letzte Akt (1955; The Last Act, or The Last Ten Days), a re-creation of the final days of the Hitler regime.