Abstract
The article overviews and analyzes the adaptations of M. Gorky’s drama The Lower Depths in the world cinema. It describes the history of the writer’s attempts to adapt his drama for the cinema in the 1920s, and also analyzes the artistic features of M. Gorky’s cinema script On the Way to the Depths and the use of the motives of this scenario in subsequent cinema experiments. Screen versions of The Lower Depths appeared in Russia and in the Soviet Union, in Germany, France, Hungary, Japan, and China from the beginning of the twentieth century to the 2000s. The article describes films by A.O. Drankov, P.I. Chardynin, A. Deeshi, M. Murata, J. Renoir, H. Zuolin, A. Kurosawa, Y.Y. Karasik, and V.K. Cott. Appeal to films which are different in their artistic task and aesthetic implementation allows us to identify universal components of the drama, and to see how the transformation of the plot, problems, motive structure of the drama in the interpretation of directors from different countries and eras took place. The article traces how the author’s film adaptation can help expand and deepen the meanings of a literary work for readers and spectators of other generations and cultures. The appendix contains the most complete filmography of the adaptations of M. Gorky’s the drama The Lower Depths.
References
1 A.M. Gor’kii i M.I. Budberg: Perepiska (1920–1936) [A.M. Gorky and M.I. Budberg: Correspondence (1920–1936)]. In: Arkhiv A.M. Gor’kogo [Archive A.M. Gorky]. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2001. Vol. 16. 543 p. (In Russ.)
2 Belova L.I. Russkoe slovo na zarubezhnom ekrane [A Russian word on the foreign screen]. Moscow, Znanie Publ., 1980. 56 p. (In Russ.)
3 Bogomolov Iu. “Nostal’giia vpered” uzhe ne vozmozhna [“Nostalgia Ahead” is no longer possible]. Iskusstvo kino, 2014, no 9, pp. 111–116. (In Russ.)
4 Glagoleva N. Iz istorii ekranizatcii Gor’kogo za rubezhom [From the history of Gorky’s adaptations abroad]. Iskusstvo kino, 1968, no 3, pp. 8–9. (In Russ.)
5 Gor’kii M. Po puti na dno [On the way to the bottom]. In: God dvadtsat’ pervyi. Al’manakh trinadcatyi [The Twenty-first Year. Almanac thirteenth]. Moscow, Goslitizdat Publ., 1938, pp. 19–28. (In Russ.)
6 Gor’kii M. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Pis’ma: v 24 t. [Complete works: Letters: in 24 vols.]. Moscow, Nauka Publ., 2006. Vol. 12. 726 p. (In Russ.)
7 Gor’kii M. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Khudozhestvennye proizvedeniia: v 25 t. [Complete works: in 24 vols.]. Moscow, Nauka Publ., 1973. Vol. 19. 560 p. (In Russ.)
8 Zamyatin E. Gor’kii [Gorky]. In: Zamyatin E.I. Sobranie sochinenii: v 5 t. [Collected works: in 5 vols.]. Moscow, Russkaia kniga Publ., 2004, vol. 3, pp. 60–72. (In Russ.)
9 Zaozerskaia A. Vladimir Kott: “Ia ne nastol’ko ekstremal’nyi rezhisser, chtoby iz p’esy Gor’kogo sozdat’ fil’m-zhest’ ili chernukhu” [Vladimir Kott: “I’m not such an extreme film director to make a film-gesture or a porn out of Gorky’s play”]. Vecherniaia Moskva [Evening Moscow], 2014, no 148, August 18. (In Russ.)
10 Letopis’ rossiiskogo kino: 1863–1929 [Chronicle of Russian cinema: 1863–1929], ed. V.I. Fomin. Moscow, Materik Publ., 2004. 698 p. (In Russ.)
11 Neizvestnye pis’ma Yevgeniia Zamyatina iz amerikanskogo arkhiva [Unknown letters of Yevgeni Zamyatin from the American archive], introd., publ., comm. by Dzh. Kurtis. In: Yevgeni Zamyatin i kul’tura XX veka [Yevgeni Zamyatin and the culture of the 20th century]. St. Petersburg, RNB Publ., 2002, pp. 301–351. (In Russ.)
12 Plotnikova A.G. M. Gor’kii i kinematograf [M. Gorky and cinema]. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2018. 336 p. (In Russ.)
13 Pravda, 1918, no 279, December 22. (In Russ.)
14 Proektor, 1917, no 11/12, p. 12. (In Russ.)
15 Chekhov A.P. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii: v 30 t. [Complete works: in 30 vols.]. Moscow, Nauka Publ., 1982. Vol. 11. 791 p. (In Russ.)
16 Durgnat R. Jean Renoir. London, Los-Angeles, 1974. 442 p. (In English)
17 Pickowicz P.G. Sinifying and Popularizing Foreign Culture: From Maxim Gorky’s “The Lower Depths” to Huang Zuolin’s “Ye dian”. Modern Chinese Literature, 1993, vol. 7, no 2, pp. 7–31. (In English)