Kurosawa created one of his darkest films when he adapted Maxim Gorky's play The Lower Depths. While this film was not the only use of theatrical influence, it does lack certain elements that we see in Ran and Throne of Blood. In those films he synthesized Shakespeare, Noh, and Japanese history. Gorky's play delves into the dirty underbelly of society. Performed ten years before the Russian revolution, the play shocked its mainly middle class audience. Kurosawa held a strong belief that exposing people to art could make them improve as a whole. Dredging through the sewers of society, Kurosawa forces his audience to experience their struggles. The film forces the audience to look at the parts of society they usually find easy to ignore. In this clip we see two monks dumping leaves on a decrepit building. We then are taken down to look underneath the refuse and see people living. The people are bickering and complaining about the hardships in their lives. By having the monks dump garbage on top of these people that go unnoticed, we see how what are commonly thought of as good people turn a blind eye to struggles that affect the most venerable people in a society. From then on in the film, we are forced as an audience to move past our usual disregard and look at the common humanity we share with the unseen. Kurosawa undoubtedly is trying to call attention to accepted indifference of this part of Japan, her "dirty underbelly."