is a 1957 Japanese film directed by

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dyna ...

, the screenplay by

Hideo Oguni was a Japanese writer who wrote over 100 screenplays. He is best known for co-writing screenplays for a number of films directed by Akira Kurosawa, including '' Ikiru'', ''The Seven Samurai'', ''Throne of Blood'' and '' The Hidden Fortress''. ...

and Akira Kurosawa was based on the 1902 play ''

The Lower Depths ''The Lower Depths'' (russian: На дне, translit=Na dne, literally: ''At the bottom'') is a play by Russian dramatist Maxim Gorky written in 1902 and produced by the Moscow Arts Theatre on December 18, 1902 under the direction of Konstantin ...

'' by

Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...

. The setting was changed for the film from late 19th-century Russia to

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

Japan.

Plot

In a run-down Edo tenement, an elderly man and his bitter wife rent out rooms and beds to the poor. The tenants are gamblers, prostitutes, petty thieves and drunk layabouts, all struggling to survive. The landlady’s younger sister who helps the landlords with maintenance, brings in an old man and rents him a bed. Kahei, who dresses as a Buddhist pilgrim, quickly assumes the role of a mediator and grandfatherly figure, though there is an air of mystery about him, and some of the tenants suspect his past is not unblemished. Sutekichi, thief and self-appointed tenement leader, is having an affair with Osugi the landlady, though he is gradually shifting his attention to her sweet-tempered sister. Okayo thinks little of him, however, which frustrates Sutekichi and sours his relationship with Osugi. Jealous and vengeful, Osugi seeks to persuade Sutekichi to murder her husband so she can turn him over to the authorities. Sutekichi sees through her plot and refuses to take any part in the murder. The husband discovers the affair, gets into a fight with Sutekichi, and is saved only through Kahei’s intervention. Slowly, Okayo begins to see the good in Sutekichi and warms to his advances. Rokubei and Osugi beat Okayo, prompting the tenants to break into their house to save her. Sutekichi is enraged to learn how Okayo was treated and, in the ensuing chaos, accidentally kills Rokubei, and is then blamed by Osugi for her husband's death. Rather than defend himself, the enraged Sutekichi claims that she had goaded him into doing it. Okayo now believes that they have used her to provide an excuse for the killing. She will now have nothing to do with Sutekichi. Kahei, whose testimony could potentially have cleared him, runs away to avoid having to testify, adding substance to the suspicions that he had something to hide. Sutekichi and Osugi are arrested. Other

subplot In fiction, a subplot is a secondary strand of the plot that is a supporting side story for any story or for the main plot. Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time and place or thematic significance. Subplots often involve supporting cha ...

s, some of a comic nature, involve the occupants of the tenement: a nihilistic gambler who rejects the pilgrim's hopeful entreaties to the other denizens; an aging actor who has lost his ability to memorize lines; a craftsman who appears indifferent to the impending death of his ailing wife, yet becomes a broken man when she finally dies; a destitute who claims to be descended from a samurai family, only to have this claim refuted; and a group of partying drunks who seem to rejoice in the face of misfortune.

Cast

Production

Kurosawa assembled his cast from among the top performers in Japanese cinema, dress-rehearsing them on-

set Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...

for 60 days and shooting extended takes with multiple cameras to create a theatrical effect. Although the set was purposefully filthy, Kurosawa walked on it only in his indoor shoes, to the surprise of cast and crew; he explained that dirty though it was, it was still "home" to his characters.

Themes

The film explores the

Nietzschean Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) developed his philosophy during the late 19th century. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Arthur Schopenhauer's ''Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung'' (''The World as Will and Repres ...

theme that

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

(and religiousness in general) verges on

nihilism Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...

by presenting two archetypal characters, the pilgrim and the gambler, who share a contentment that contrasts with the self-conscious

existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...

of the other characters. The pilgrim’s grace derives from believing that nothing on Earth matters because rewards are found in the afterlife; the gambler also believes nothing matters, but rather because he rejects religion and morality, seeking pleasure from life rather than purpose. Because both belief systems reject earthly matters and result in contentment, philosophers sometimes link Buddhism with nihilism; in Kurosawa’s plot arc, the nihilistic gambler succeeds in outlasting the pilgrim, whose promises are unfulfilled and result in a character’s suicide, which the gambler mocks. This fatalistic tone contrasts with Kurosawa’s more humanistic approach in other films, and is regarded as a reason for the film's mixed response upon its release in Japan. In addition, such overt representation of downtrodden, hopeless characters (albeit from a different era) was rare in early

post-occupation Japan Post-occupation Japan is the period in postwar Japanese history which started when the Allied occupation of Japan ended in 1952 and lasted to the end of the Showa era in 1989. Despite the massive devastation it suffered in the Second World War, ...

's popular media, which attempted to downplay allusions to an underclass struggling with societal changes wrought by the war and its aftermath.

Release

''The Lower Depths'' received a

roadshow theatrical release A roadshow theatrical release or reserved seat engagement is the practice of opening a film in a limited number of theaters in major cities for a specific period of time before the wide release of the film. Roadshows would generally mimic a live ...

on September 17, 1957 by

Toho is a Japanese film, theatre production and distribution company. It has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Osaka-based Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. Outside of Japan, it is best known as the producer an ...

. It received general release in Japan on 1 October 1957. The film was released by

Brandon Films Thomas J. Brandon (1908–1982) was a founding member of the New York Workers Film and Photo League. He later worked as a film distributor for Garrison Films before founding his own company, Brandon Films in November 1940. During the 1950s, Bra ...

with English subtitles in the United States on 9 February 1962.

Awards

Isuzu Yamada was a Japanese stage and screen actress whose career spanned seven decades. Biography Yamada was born in Osaka as Mitsu Yamada, the daughter of Kusudu Yamada, a shinpa actor specialising in onnagata roles, and Ritsu, a geisha. Under her mother ...

won ''

Kinema Junpo , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ha ...

s award for Best Actress of the Year (for this film, ''Downtown'', and ''

Throne of Blood is a 1957 Japanese ''jidaigeki'' film co-written, produced, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film transposes the plot of William Shakespeare's play ''Macbeth'' from Medieval Scotland to feudal Ja ...

'').

Toshiro Mifune was a Japanese actor who appeared in over 150 feature films. He is best known for his 16-film collaboration (1948–1965) with Akira Kurosawa in such works as ''Rashomon'', ''Seven Samurai'', ''The Hidden Fortress'', ''Throne of Blood'', and '' ...

won the

Mainichi Film Concours The are a series of annual film awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan, since 1946. It is the first film festival in Japan. History The origins of the contest date back to 1935, ...

Best Actor award (also for ''Downtown'').

Kōji Mitsui was a Japanese movie, TV, and stage actor. He appeared in more than 150 films from 1925 to 1975, including 29 of ''Kinema Junpo''’s annual Top-10 winners and three of its 10 best Japanese films of all time. In 2000 the magazine named him one ...

won both the Blue Ribbon Award and

awards for Best Supporting Actor (also for ''The Unbalanced Wheel'').

Reception

In 2009 the film was voted at No. 36 on the list of ''The Greatest Japanese Films of All Time'' by Japanese film magazine

. ''The Lower Depths'' has an 83% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on six critics' opinions.

References

External links

* * *
''Akira Kurosawa’s The Lower Depths''
an essay by Keiko McDonald & Thomas Rimer at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lower Depths, The 1957 films 1957 drama films Films based on works by Maxim Gorky Films directed by Akira Kurosawa Films scored by Masaru Sato Films set in the Edo period Films with screenplays by Akira Kurosawa Films with screenplays by Hideo Oguni Japanese black-and-white films 1950s Japanese-language films Toho films