The Lower Depths (Kurosawa 195 dvd movie.|
The Lower Depths (Kurosawa 1957) / The Lower Depths (Renoir 1936) - Criterion Collection buy bestselling dvd movies, videos find reviews, ratings, prices |
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List Price: $39.95 Our Price: $35.99 You Save: $3.96 Features • Black & White • DVD-Video • Special Edition • Subtitled • NTSC In Theaters : 10 September, 1937 DVD Release : 22 June, 2004 |
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The Lower Depths (Kurosawa 1957) / The Lower Depths (Renoir 1936) - Criterion Collection description Criterion's two-disc double bill of The Lower Depths provides a scintillating lesson in comparative cinema. When Jean Renoir adapted Maxim Gorky's acclaimed 1902 play in 1936, he changed the setting from Czarist Russia to an unspecified French slum, casting the great Jean Gabin as a thief struggling to rise from his misery, and Louis Jouvet as the benevolent Baron, a flat-broke gambler on a downward social spiral. Renoir altered the play considerably, retaining its serious tone while infusing it with his trademark warmth and humanity. Two decades later, Kurosawa remained faithful to Gorky while daring to craft The Lower Depths as a comedy, in which Edo-period peasants (including Toshiro Mifune, in Gabin's role) concoct lavish illusions to ease the burden of their impoverished reality. While both films remained relatively overlooked during the careers of their creators, Criterion's DVD restores them to the prominence they deserve. Both films have been meticulously restored and remastered to Criterion's high standards; Renoir's film still shows its age, but it will never look or sound better than it does here, and Renoir provides an informative introduction culled from the same archival materials featured on Criterion's The Rules of the Game DVD. Better yet, Kurosawa's film is accompanied by a superb commentary by peerless Japanese film scholar Donald Richie, who provides a feature-length treasury of anecdotes (he had actually visited Kurosawa's set in 1957), thematic analysis, production history, and scholarly insight. A 33-minute excerpt from the Japanese TV series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create offers rare interview clips with Kurosawa and surviving members of his cast, along with script, art design, and storyboard details to illustrate Kurosawa's creative process. Kurosawa expert Stephen Prince profiles the esteemed cast of the 1957 film, and exclusive essays about both films are included in the accompanying booklet. As a kind of Rorschach test for each director's approach to style and theme, The Lower Depths offers a back-to-back master class in the art of adaptation. --Jeff Shannon |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | "Money buys your fate in hell" |
| Criterion has done something different here. They have released two adaptations on Gorky's play "The Lower Depths" from two famous film makers: Akira Kurosawa and Jean Renoir. It is interesting to watch both to see two interpretations of a play, one which works marvelously and one which could have been better, had the story been better delivered.
I agree with Donald Richie in his commentary that this film is perhaps one of Akira Kurosawa's most underappreciated films. Fairly faithful to Gorky's play, Kurosawa presents a movie with impressive sets, fine acting, and as always great filmmaking. Kurosawa moves the location to 19th century Japan. The run-down inn that the characters stay in is a crammed, dying entity made up of fierce diagonals, decaying wood, and working shadows. Kurosawa continues his practice of directing his actors to enhance the mood of a scene, and the use of camerawork as well as lighting works well throughout. The script, like the play, has something of a plot with a game of control over the landlady's little sister and the thief, but really it is all about these people and the way they deal with their own position. Everyone seems to have dreams, or some kind of beautiful past they used to know. Is it really true? In the case of Osen the prostitute it seems not to be, but then with cases like the ex-samurai you really never know. Like Kurosawa explored in "Rashomon," the boundary between realities and personal fantasies, but it is this wish for a better life and the starch defense of all characters against the laughter of their peers that makes one feel for these characters. Like Gorky's play, Kurosawa presents us with seventeen characters (!) but you get to know and feel for every one. They all have their own unique personality, their own unique problems, and they never once break out of character. The acting for this film simply could not have been better. If you've watched Kurosawa films before (or you watch a lot of old Japanese films) then you'll recognize a lot of faces here. Minoru Chiaki ("Hidden Fortress," "Ikiru," "Throne of Blood," "Seven Samurai") is an ex-samurai, Kamatari Fujiwara ("Ikiru," "Seven Samurai," "High and Low") is great as the drunken actor, Toshiro Mifune (who needs no film reference) is even present as the thief, but Bokuzen Hidari (Yohei in "Seven Samurai") tops everyone with the most memorable performance as the Buddhist priest who arrives and tries to mediate the conflict and anguish present in the slums. He perfectly sums up the feeling of the movie when asked if Buddha exists and he replies, "I'm sure he does to those who wish him to." With reviewing Jean Renoir's adaptation, I feel somewhat guilty...because all in all, I was not very impressed. Other reviewers called it a "forgettable version" and I wanted to go into it with a neutral mind and not as some bitter Kurosawa fan stuck with an extra movie. (let's not forget Kurosawa himself was a fan of Renoir) Yet as I watched, I couldn't help but feel that something was terribly lacking - things had gone wrong. For example, Gorky's play never seems to be center stage. The first forty minutes are almost entirely dedicated to an added sequence where we see the background of the Baron character. Admittingly I enjoyed it at first (Louis Jouvet did a fine job as the Baron) but when you hit forty minutes and it actually goes into Gorky's play I realized how ridiculous it was to have that plot. Once the Baron joins the slums he just becomes a member of the ensemble cast, and (except for that overrated moment with the snail) never stands out again. Why was it necessary to know about the Baron? Why was it necessary to hear about his problems with the ministry? I've heard that people enjoy it because it shows how one falls to the lower depths, but it hurts Gorky's original concept by detracting from the rest of cast and eating up film time on information we really have no reason to know. What hurts it even more is after the forty minute mark the story forgets about the relationship between the Baron and thief Papel and focuses on the romance between Papel and Natasha. What I am getting at here is this: you aren't in the lower depths, and therefore lose all empathy with the cast. Gorky's play and Kurosawa's adaptation existed solely in the slums, so you are constantly in the lower depths, so that the more you stay there the deeper you get into it's world. Renoir has it fly around the place, from the high class neighborhoods to the open fields and even a fancy restaurant. I laughed during the introduction with Jean Renoir because he claimed he wanted to take Gorky's play and bring it to the shores of the Marne, yet the Marne River must be in here for about five minutes. Likewise, he claims the actor character is there to offer sense and poetic language, but that's all the actor does - offer poetic language and kill himself. Characters such as the old man Luka and the cobbler are totally wasted, and are only there to simply exist around the main actors. When the old woman dies I didn't feel sad, and so little time is spent on it's effect that you doubt the writers cared either. This is precisely what is so dangerous about Gorky's play and why several stage adaptations have failed: Gorky's play showed to the high class that the lower class were individuals with their own problems - if done wrong, all it will be is a bunch of poor people. Renoir has done that: all I know about these people is they're poor and they think it's bad. Otherwise, I could care less. Ultimately, I wish Renoir's adaptation had been left out so that the DVD box could have been thinner. (and therefore could have fit in my DVD tower) I had read reviews by Renoir fans who admit it is not his best, and even Renoir himself admitted after seeing Kurosawa's version that it was far more important than his. If you are a Kurosawa fan then I would highly suggest this, or if you are a Renoir fan and you need to finish your collection than buy it as well. |
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