''The Lower Depths'' (french: Les Bas-fonds) is a 1936 French
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
film directed by
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir (; 15 September 1894 – 12 February 1979) was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent film, silent era to the end of the 1960s. ...
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 ...
. Its scenes contrast the life of the upper and lower classes to comedic effect.
The film is an example of the
poetic realism
Poetic realism was a film movement in France of the 1930s. More a tendency than a movement, poetic realism is not strongly unified like Soviet montage or French Impressionism but were individuals who created this lyrical style. Its leading filmm ...
. It received the first
Louis Delluc Prize The Louis Delluc Prize (french: Prix Louis-Delluc ) is a French film award presented annually since 1937. The award is bestowed to the Best Film and Best First Film of the year on the second week of each December. The jury is composed of 20 members, ...
in 1937. The National Board of Review in the United States considered it a Top Ten Foreign Film for 1937.
Plot
A wealthy baron (Jouvet) becomes bankrupt through gambling. Contemplating suicide, he finds his gun missing and confronts the thief Pépel (Gabin) who plans to rob him. Instead they share "a drink between colleagues" in a scene played as light comedy and become friends. The baron allows Pépel to leave with a bronze sculpture. Creditors seize the baron's household furnishings. The Baron tells his servant Félix that he hopes all that Félix has stolen from him will cover his unpaid wages, to which Félix agrees. Pépel is arrested for stealing the bronze. Pépel jokes with the police until the baron arrives to identify him as a "dear friend". The story shifts to life in the slums, where men argue at cards. They mock a woman who reads romantic tales, and many individuals have brief character portraits. The baron arrives to become a lodger in the slums and Pépel sets him up with a bed. The baron joins the card game.
The police inspector meets with the
slum landlord
A slumlord (or slum landlord) is a slang term for a landlord, generally an absentee landlord with more than one property, who attempts to maximize profit by minimizing spending on property maintenance, often in deteriorating neighborhoods, and t ...
Kostylev and eyes his wife's sister Natasha. Pépel speaks with Vassilissa, regretting he never loved her but remembering their good times. She wants him to kill her husband, the landlord, who is old and mean. A scene of mourning for a woman who has died follows, with fatalistic comments from the neighbors. Pépel tells Natasha she should leave with him, but she says she'll leave for a man with a job, not a thief like him. Vassilissa finds them speaking and is jealous. The woman who reads romances recounts them to the baron and Natasha as if they were her own adventures. The police inspector tells the landlord an inspection has been ordered. Trying to devise a way to bribe him, the landlord and his wife suggest her sister Natasha. Vassilissa persuades Natasha to serve the inspector tea, though Natasha has declared he disgusts her. The inspector invites Natasha on a date and she cries, but he promises her a better life.
Pépel and the baron discuss life along the river bank. Pépel believes only leaving with Natasha could save him from going to prison one day like his father before him. The inspector and Natasha dine alone indoors while other couples dine outdoors as a band plays. She resists his advances. Those partying outside include Pépel, pursued by Vassilissa. She tells him Natasha is not the innocent dreamer he imagines. Pépel find Natasha drunkenly enjoying the inspector's company. The men fight and Pépel leads Natasha away as the inspector cries for help. Pépel and Natasha confess their love.
Kostylev and Vassilissa insist Natasha make up with the inspector. They beat her and the whole neighborhood listens. Pépel intervenes and soon all the lodgers join him in attacking their hated landlord. The fight ends with Kostylev dead, though no one appears responsible. Vassilissa denounces Pépel to the police as a murderer. The baron tells them it was a brawl and everyone is guilty. Others say how they participated and that "the lower depths killed him". The police find Pépel comforting Natasha and lead him away.
In an epilogue, Vassilissa leaves the slum, Natasha brings Pépel home from prison, and the slum's strangest resident, a combination madman and drunkard called "the actor", commits suicide. Natasha and Pépel take to the road with just a few possessions.
Cast
*
Jean Gabin
Jean Gabin (; 17 May 190415 November 1976) was a French actor and singer. Considered a key figure in French cinema, he starred in several classic films including ''Pépé le Moko'' (1937), ''La grande illusion'' (1937), ''Le Quai des brumes'' ( ...
as Wasska Pépel
*
Suzy Prim
Suzy Prim (11 October 1896 – 7 July 1991) was a French actress.
She was born Suzanne Mariette Arduini in Paris and died in 1991 in Boulogne-Billancourt. She began her screen career as a child actress during the silent era.
Selected fil ...
as Vassilissa Kostyleva
*
Louis Jouvet
Jules Eugène Louis Jouvet (24 December 1887 – 16 August 1951) was a French actor, theatre director and filmmaker.
Early life
Jouvet was born in Crozon. He had a stutter as a young man and originally trained as a pharmacist. He receive ...
as The Baron
*
Jany Holt
Jany Holt (born Ruxandra Ecaterina Vladescu Olt, 13 May 1909 – 26 October 2005) was a Romanian-born actress, who worked principally in the French cinema.
Holt married French actor Marcel Dalio in 1936, divorcing in 1939. In 1940, Holt married ...
as Nastia
*
Vladimir Sokoloff
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Sokoloff (russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Соколо́в; December 26, 1889 – February 15, 1962) was a Russian-American character actor of stage and screen. After studying theatre in Moscow, ...
as Kostylev
*
Robert Le Vigan
Robert Le Vigan (born Robert Coquillaud, January 7, 1900 – October 12, 1972), was a French actor.
He appeared in more than 60 films between 1931 and 1943 almost exclusively in small or supporting roles. He was, according to film academic ...
as The Alcoholic Actor
*
Camille Bert
Camille Bert (1880–1970) was a French actor.
Born Camille Léon Louis Bertrand in Orléans, he died in Paris in 1970.
Selected filmography
* ''Le secret de Rosette Lambert'' (1920)
* ''The Thruster'' (1924)
* ''The Lady of Lebanon (1926 film), ...
as The Count
*
René Génin
René Génin (25 January 1890 – 24 October 1967) was a French stage and film actor. He appeared in more than 130 films between 1931 and 1965.
Selected filmography
* ''The Brighton Twins'' (1936)
* ''27 Rue de la Paix'' (1936)
* ''Nights ...
Robert Ozanne
Robert Ozanne (February 13, 1898 – September 14, 1941) was a French film actor.Youngkin p.466
Selected filmography
* ''The Three Musketeers'' (1932)
* ''The Oil Sharks'' (1933)
* '' Miquette'' (1934)
* '' The House on the Dune'' (1934)
* ''The ...
Junie Astor
Rolande Jeanne Risterucci (1911–1967), better known as Junie Astor, was a French actress.
Selected filmography
* ''Stradivarius'' (1935)
* ''The Lower Depths'' (1936)
* ''Women's Club'' (1936)
* ''Excursion Train'' (1936)
* ''27 Rue de la Paix ...
as Natascha
*
Maurice Baquet
Maurice Louis Baquet (26 May 1911 – 8 July 2005) was a French actor and cellist.
He was born in Villefranche-sur-Saône and died in Noisy-le-Grand.Night and Day'' in 1937,
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
gave the film a mild mixed review. Describing the film as "a slow agreeable undistinguished picture", Green finds the production "oddly stagy and unconvincing" in its depiction of poverty. (reprinted in: )
See also
*
The Lower Depths (1957 film)
is a 1957 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, the screenplay by Hideo Oguni and Akira Kurosawa was based on the 1902 play ''The Lower Depths'' by Maxim Gorky. The setting was changed for the film from late 19th-century Russia to Edo perio ...
*
Cinema of France
French cinema consists of the film industry and its film productions, whether made within the nation of France or by French film production companies abroad. It is the oldest and largest precursor of national cinemas in Europe; with primary infl ...
*
List of French language films
The following is a list of French-language films, films mostly spoken in the French language.
1900s
1910s
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
See also
* List of French films
* List of Quebe ...
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 ...