[Buddha-l] Eastern Buddhism

[jkirk]

From: Kirkpatrick [jkirk at spro.net] 

On a tangent from the western Buddhism thread, I just want to say that I
watched Akira Kurosawa's film version last night of Maxim Gorky's _The Lower
Depths_ (_Donzoko_). 
Have to admit I've never seen the Gorky play nor read it. Kurosawa says that
he made a lot of changes in adapting the play to his purposes. Since I've
not seen nor read the play, I can't address the changes. But Kurosawa's
version is a study in both samsara and compassion, and to my mind is a very
Buddhistic film. An old man pilgrim monk arrives amidst the seedy denizens
of a lower depths somewhere in Japan, at the bottom of a refuse pit (we're
talking late Edo period here), and asks to stay there for a while.  "Gramps"
as they call him is given a bunk that was empty, and winds up gently
advising various of his shared-quarters neighbors during their wild passions
and disputes with one another. At the end, after he has moved on, someone
recalls his compassion. Mostly they accuse him of talking comfortable lies,
while "they" perceive the truth of reality, and then get drunk. It's a
retooled version of the film and the subtitles are in contemporary US
English slang, a bit grating-- but then I never saw the original with
original subtitles, that may not have been any better. A beautiful filmic
exposition of delusion, hatred, and desire and how the social lowest of the
low are so attached to their existential situation that they cannot imagine
getting out of it, even though some of them dream of it. The pilgrim monk is
the only one who has ever been out of the pit.

Has anyone on the list seen this film, and/or the Gorky play? Jean Renoir
filmed it in France in 1931, and Kurosawa's dates from 1957.

Joanna K.

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