Les bas-fonds

Now that Criterion has released not one but two 'Lower Depth' features, one by Renoir, the other by Kurosawa, you have a double bill of masterpieces to look forward to. Renoir's contribution to this menage is a surprisingly buoyant one. Gabin and Jouvet dominate the film with their mano-a-mano discussions on life and freedom. Suzy Prim is properly bitchy as the woman scorned, although Junie Astor as her oppressed sister doesn't have it in her to elevate the scenes that she's in. The plot is almost completely different from Gorky's, yet the playwright read and publicly approved of the project. In Renoir's world there is always a way out for those who are kind and strive. There are doomed souls too, but their fates are laid out in a gentle, loving manner. This isn't the best Renoir film, but it reflects his lifelong humanism and warmth (and many depth-of-field shots for those mise-en-scene fanatics). Needless to day, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Strictly speaking there are two alternate ways of making an adaption. One is to adapt the original text to the screen as it was written, the other is to modernize the text completely, thus giving it a new interpretation. These extremes locate to the opposite ends of the axle loyal-disloyal. Jean Renoir's "The Lower Depths" (1936) is far from the former, though it isn't particularly radical nor a modernization. One who is interested in the loyal fashion might wish to take a look at Kurosawa's 1957 version of the same material. The original material in question is Maxim Gorky's famous play of the same name which premiered in the early 1900's.

Gorky's play is often regarded as a hallmark of socialist realism, but it lacks the unambiguous moral message which we usually associate with the style. It's a play without a formal plot, paying more attention to characters and their relationships. Renoir has changed a lot and added new milieus, scenes, and minor characters. For example, Renoir gives more space for the friendship between the bankrupt baron and the thief, probably in order to highlight his view of humanity above social borders. Overall, Renoir has taken the most interesting characters of Gorky's play and chosen to focus on their drama rather than creating a film about a cave-like milieu and its relation to its various inhabitants. It is the spectator's choice whether this is for the better or worse, but Renoir's motives seem clear: he most likely wanted to give coherence to the story and thus enhance its ethical nature.

Due to these choices Renoir's "The Lower Depths" grows into a story about a thief (Jean Gabin) who falls in love with a girl. They live in the same slum -- a typical courtyard-ish milieu for Renoir's 30's films -- with the girl's sister, the thief's former partner, who is married to the owner of the slum apartments but wants to escape her marriage. Meanwhile the thief befriends a baron who has lost his social status and is now creating a new life in the lower depths.

Gorky's story is really ideal to the French Poetic Realism, but the film has replaced Gorky's pessimism with warm romance and an optimistic spirit. To me, whether this makes "The Lower Depths" better or worse is not an interesting question. What is interesting, on the other hand, is that it makes it different. Renoir once again manages to approach themes of friendship and solidarity with an authentic yet non-sentimental perspective. The final shot, which has righteously been compared to the famous finale of Chaplin's "Modern Times" (1936), expresses faith and hope, but not in excess, precisely because Renoir's image is indeterminate enough. Or, as Luka puts it, "If you believe in it, it is real."

Watch this movie if only to see the soul of Jean Gabin as it plays across his face. Louis Jouvet as the Baron is a marvel of understatement, of course. Beautifully filmed, the world of black and white film is a pleasure, in this movie, to watch. The scenes and the plot remind us of life not so long ago, a life that was harsh and brutal and filled with class divisions, you were wealthy or you were wretched. It made me want to read the original play by Maxim Gorky. Apparently Yvgeny Zamyatin, a long forgotten but brilliant Russian writer, contributed to the screenplay as well. Jean Gabin is a great actor, few people recognize his marvelous talents.

Seeing Maxim Gorky's play about the lowest level of society is an ultra- depressing depressing experience. Everyone is miserable and wretched and the entire production is filled with people who are complete messes. However, in this movie version, director Jean Renoir manages to make the film watchable and quite watchable! How does he do this? Well, he did a great job directed, got some wonderful performances AND used a script that changed the original play--giving it a hopeful and relatively happy ending!! While I usually would never want to see this (such as how they gave happy endings in "The Hairy Ape" and the recent version of "The Scarlet Letter"), in this it was a good thing! Giving the audience something to hope for makes this well worth seeing--not an exercise in masochism! All in all, extremely well made and the best version of the Gorky story I have seen.

Jean Renoir's version of Gorky's Lower Depths is less faithful to the original than Kurosawa's film, but has its own charm. The film centers on Jean Gabin's character, the thief, and Louis Jouvet's character of the gambling baron, recently reduced to poverty through his embezzling and gambling losses. The scenes with Gabin and Jouvet together are tremendous, including their first meeting where Gabin is robbing Jouvet's mansion, later on lying in the summer grass recalling their past lives and their final parting. The other inhabitants of the flophouse, with a few exceptions, are not as delineated as in the Kurosawa version. This is not an ensemble acting piece like Kurosawa's, but very much a Gabin star vehicle. He and Jouvet really carry the film and make it one of Renoir's best. It's not in the same league as Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game, but very good. Four of 5 stars.