#239: KUROSAWA, Akira: The Lower Depths (1957)

KUROSAWA, Akira (Japan)

The Lower Depths [1957]

Spine #239
DVD

Jean Renoir and Akira Kurosawa, two of cinema's greatest directors, transform Maxim Gorky's classic proletariat play The Lower Depths in their own ways for their own times. Renoir, working amidst the rise of Hitler and the Popular Front in France, had need to take license with the dark nature of Gorky's source material, softening its bleak outlook. Kurosawa, firmly situated in the postwar world, found little reason for hope. He remained faithful to the original with its focus on the conflict between illusion and reality — a theme he would return to over and over again. Working with their most celebrated actors (Gabin with Renoir; Mifune with Kurosawa), each film offers a unique look at cinematic adaptation — where social conditions and filmmaking styles converge to create unique masterpieces.

125 minutes
Black & White

Monaural

in Japanese

1:33:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2004

Director/Writers

Based on Maxim Gorky’s play Na dne.

Screenplay by Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Oguni.

Kurosawa was 47 when he directed The Lower Depths.

Other Kurosawa films in the Collection:

Eclipse Series 23: Sanshiro Sugata (1943)
Eclipse Series 23: The Most Beautiful (1944)
Eclipse Series 23: Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two (1945)
Eclipse Series 23: The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail (1945)
Eclipse Series 7: No Regrets For Our Youth (1946)

Eclipse Series 7: One Wonderful Sunday (1947)
#413: Drunken Angel (1948)

#233: Stray Dog (1949)
#138: Rashomon (1950)

Eclipse Series 7: Scandal (1950)
Eclipse Series 7: The Idiot (1951)
#221: Ikiru (1952)
#2: Seven Samurai (1954)
Eclipse Series 7: I Live In Fear (1955)

#190: Throne Of Blood (1957)
#116: The Hidden Fortress (1958)

#319: The Bad Sleep Well (1960)
#52: Yojimbo (1961)
#53: Sanjuro (1962)

#24: High And Low (1963)
#159: Red Beard (1965)
#465: Dodes'ka-den (1970)
#267: Kagemusha (1980)
#316: Ran (1985)

#842: Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990)

The Film

A shorter synopsis:

A bunch of really really really poor people live in a shitty little hellhole together and bitch and fight with one another until they sing and dance and die. The End.

Kurosawa:

"I would argue that this film isn't all gloomy. It is very funny and I remember laughing over it. That is because we are shown people who really want to live and we are shown them -- I think -- humorously. People are just supposed to relax and enjoy this picture as they would any programmer."

The initial shot is a 360° slow pan around the "upper region" (as opposed to the "lower depths" where our characters live) of our location. We see a temple, a warehouse, and finally -- at the completion of the pan -- a pair of men dumping dead leaves down into the "lower depths."

The temple gong sounds and we descend to the threadbare living area.

(Kurosawa's famous multiple-camera technique is less obvious than ever here. Hidden cameras face each other, but you'll never see them. This ensemble masterpiece is nearly plotless. Nothing much happens, but yet it is a thrilling film!

An example of Kurosawa's respect for the original material is apparent in the opening scene:

GORKY:

THE BARON: And then?
KVASHNYA: No, my dear, said I, keep away from me with such proposals. I've been through it all, you see -- and not for a hundred baked lobsters would I marry again.
BUBNOFF [to Satine]: What are you grunting about? [Satine keeps on grunting.]
KVASHNYA: Why should, said I, a free woman, my own mistress, enter my name into somebody else's passport and sell myself into slavery -- no! Why -- I wouldn't marry a man even if he were an American prince!
KLESHTCH: You lie!
KVASHNYA: Wha-at?
KLESHTCH: You lie! You're going to marry Abramka. .  . .

KUROSAWA:

THE EX-SAMURAI: Yeah, and so?
OTAKI: Like I said, I've had it with the housewife business.
TATSU [to Yoshisaburo]: What are you moaning about? [Yoshisaburo keeps moaning.]
OTAKI: It's ridiculous. Even if his family was stinking rich, I'd never . . .
TOMEKICHI: You're a liar!
OTAKI: What?
TOMEKICHI: I said you're a liar. Aren't you getting hitched to Deputy Shimazo? . . .

The Japanese role/(actor)/films with AK/Russian role:

1. The ex-samurai/Minoru Chiaki/10/The Baron
2. Otaki, the candy-seller/Nijiko Kiyokawa/1/Kvashnya -- a vendor of meat-pies
3. Tatsu/Haruo Tanaka/3/Bubnoff -- a cap-maker
4. Yoshisaburo, the gambler/Kōji Mitsui/7/Satine
5. Tomekichi, the tinker/Eijirō Tōno/7/Mitritch Kleshtch -- a locksmith
6. Osen, the prostitute/Akemi Negishi/4/Nastya -- a street-walker
7. Asa, Tomekichi's wife/Eiko Miyoshi/8/Anna -- Kleshtch's wife
8. The actor, Danjuro/Kamatari Fujiwara/12/The actor
9. The thief/Toshiro Mifune/16/Vaska Pepel
10. Osugi, the landlady/Isuzu Yamada/3/Vassilisa Karpovna, Kostilyoff's wife
11. Okayo, Osugi's sister/Kyōko Kagawa/5/Natasha, Vassilisa Karpovna's sister
12. Rokuben, the landlord/Nakamura Ganjirō II/1/Mikhail Ivanoff Kostilyoff
13. Kahei, the priest/Bokuzen Hidari/7/Luka -- a pilgrim
14. Kuna/Atsushi Watanabe/8/Krivoy Zob
15. Shimazo, the police agent/Kichijiro Ueda/7/Miedviedeiff -- Natasha's uncle, a policeman
16. Unokichi/Yū Fujiki/3/Alyoshka -- a shoemaker
17. Tsugaru/Fujitayama/1/The Tartar

Never before or since did Kurosawa direct such an ensemble play and never did he so successfully make his source material so cinematic!

• He rehearsed his cast for several months before shooting a single frame.
• An inside joke: Fujiwara was famous for being unable to memorize his lines -- so here, his character mirrors the actual actor!
• The "scat singing" is called bakabayashi -- literally "fools' orchestra," a Shinto shrine festivity. The singers occasionally throw in lyrics about the "avarice and hypocrisy of the Buddhist monks, in sarcastic praise of all the salvation money can buy."
• 1:17:02: Watch Chiaki as Osen chases him around the tree. His sandal breaks and he casually repairs it without missing a beat.
• Hidari — usually a clownish type in his six other Kurosawa roles — is exceptional here as the mysterious pilgrim.

Film Rating (0-60):

57

The Extras

The Booklet

Twenty-two page booklet featuring an essay by Keiko McDonald and Thomas Rimer.

“Kurosawa found the work to be an exceptional example of probing social critique with relevance to Japanese history. To make the play accessible to his audiences, however, he had to find an appropriate corollary to the seamy side of life in late-nineteenth-century Imperial Russia, where Gorky’s poor folk lived worlds away from the wealthy aristocrats of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Kurosawa and his scriptwriter, Oguni, solved this problem by shifting the scene to a half-ruined tenement in Edo in the middle of the nineteenth century, a period known for its prosperity, and added texture to this milieu by making brilliant use of theatrical and musical conventions rooted in the Japanese commoner’s culture of the day. The play otherwise is not much changed. Action, characters, and dialogue translated easily into the social fabric of the Edo period, when masses of urban poor lived in appalling misery.”

Commentary

Featuring Japanese-film expert Donald Richie, author of A Hundred Years of Japanese Film.

Richie — one of the great Kurosawa experts — gently accompanies the viewer on a tour of Kurosawa’s art, from the unique transference of play to film to the astonishing technical accomplishments with camera and shot timing. An exquisitely cogent commentary.

Documentary

Thirty-three minutes on The Lower Depths from the series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create, including interviews with Kurosawa, actress Kagawa, art director Yoshirō Muraki, and others. Archival footage of comic storyteller, Shinsho Kokontei.

Cast biographies

By Stephen Prince, author of The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa.

Extras Rating (0-40):

36

57 + 36 =

93

By Director
By Spine #