{"id":8856,"date":"2013-11-16T22:00:55","date_gmt":"2013-11-17T03:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=8856"},"modified":"2013-11-16T20:48:00","modified_gmt":"2013-11-17T01:48:00","slug":"the-lower-depths-1959-akira-kurosawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/8856","title":{"rendered":"The Lower Depths (1959, Akira Kurosawa)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I bought Criterion&#8217;s <em>Lower Depths<\/em> double-feature, watched <a href=\"\/journal\/archives\/147\">the Renoir version<\/a> then only took seven years to watch the Kurosawa version.  This one by comparison lacks snails, a fancy baron&#8217;s house, and a finale where the happy couple walks off into the sunset.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/journal\/image13\/lowerdepths1.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Toshiro Mifune is the big named star, but this is completely an ensemble drama &#8211; he&#8217;s less the lead than Jean Gabin was in the Renoir. It seems like a play, mostly confined to the interior of a single room, ending in the courtyard just outside. Shot mostly in long takes which, thinking back on vague recollections of <em>Ran<\/em>, <em>Dreams<\/em> and <em>Ikiru<\/em>, might be a Kurosawa trademark.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/journal\/image13\/lowerdepths2.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Mifune lives with a bunch of others in a shitty tenement &#8211; there&#8217;s the tinker with his deathly ill wife, a gambler, a drunken actor (Kamatari Fujiwara of <em>The Hidden Fortress<\/em> and <em>Mickey One<\/em>), an ex-samurai, a candy-seller, and prostitute Akemi Negishi (the only woman on <em><a href=\"\/journal\/archives\/7632\">Anatahan<\/a><\/em>).  Mifune used to be hot for the landlady (Isuzu Yamada, Lady Macbeth of the same year&#8217;s <em>Throne of Blood<\/em>) but lately has taken up with her younger sister Okayo (Kyoko Kagawa of <em><a href=\"\/journal\/archives\/222\">Mothra<\/a><\/em>, lead guy&#8217;s miserable suicide sister in <em><a href=\"\/journal\/archives\/2802\">Sansho the Bailiff<\/a><\/em>), incurring the older sister&#8217;s wrath.  Landlord Ganjiro Nakamura (star of Ozu&#8217;s <em>Floating Weeds<\/em> and <em>The End of Summer<\/em>) hangs out with the gambler, tries to stay out of the romantic drama but gets killed for his trouble.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/journal\/image13\/lowerdepths3.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Also in the mix: randomly-appearing high-energy Unokichi, and a traveling magical grandpa who shows up to dispense wisdom then vanishes during the murder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I bought Criterion&#8217;s Lower Depths double-feature, watched the Renoir version then only took seven years to watch the Kurosawa version. This one by comparison lacks snails, a fancy baron&#8217;s house, and a finale where the happy couple walks off into the sunset. Toshiro Mifune is the big named star, but this is completely an ensemble [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[342,576,296,13,36],"class_list":["post-8856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-1950s","tag-akira-kurosawa","tag-book-adaptation","tag-criterion","tag-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8856"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8915,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8856\/revisions\/8915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}