Director Akira Kurosawa with Takashi Shimura

This was the original of Living, which I found very moving, so nothing in the plot was new to me. Instead I noticed the differences: Shimura’s range of facial expressions, which were more like those of a silent-era actor. The young woman was still full of joie de vivre, but here she was coarser. The camera work during his night on the tiles was dizzying and full of reflections.