The Merchant of Venice
Columbia/TriStar Home Video VHS & DVD
2 hrs 18 mins
Director: Michael Radford
No matter how nobly director Michael Radford tries to disguise the uneasy racism of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” he still cannot direct our post-Holocaust eyes away from its dubious sentiments. Radford tries to transform the play into a tragedy of circumstance for the moneylender Shylock (Al Pacino), whose only crime is that of fury at the series of insults he suffers. Like Malvolio from “Twelfth Night,” Shylock is meant to be the comic scapegoat and representation of all that is erroneous in human nature. He is us on our worst day. In this case, it means overzealous pride and pedantic belief in the worthiness of things. We feel for Shylock, but unfortunately Shakespeare’s caricature becomes an obstacle to our total sympathies, which feel more like a schizophrenic copout due to Radford’s tinkering.
The play is one of Shakespeare’s “comedies,” which differ in our modern perceptions due to the fact that there is always one strained element in the play. Here, Radford begins the film with a prologue about how in the Venice mercantile system, Christians, who were forbidden by their faith to lend money for profit, were reliant upon the Jewish moneylenders, who had no such religious constraints for their lending practices. Enter Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes, atypically compelling), whose love for the fair Portia (bawdy Lynn Collins) compels him to borrow 3,000 ducats from his merchant friend Antonio (Jeremy Irons) for the wedding dowry. Antonio, in turn, decides to borrow the money from Shylock whose festering grudge against the oppressive Christians takes form in the contract: Forfeit of full payment after three months would result in a pound of flesh being sliced from Antonio’s body (uncomfortably hinted to be his nether regions).
Despite the uneasy tone of the text, there are still moments of overwhelming emotion and wisdom that only Shakespeare could produce, which are delivered with precision by Radford’s screenplay. One of my favorite scenes is Bassanio’s choosing of the right box in a game of chance that Portia’s dead father uses as a type of suitor filter. This is constructed skillfully to make the viewer cringe in tension as if we were watching an “Indiana Jones” film. Another great scene – the crux of the film – is the trial that decides if Shylock should have his legal vengeance. Not to give away too much, but I should mention that this scene works so well because of Al Pacino’s strangely subdued performance. We watch his Shylock slide from obstinacy to painful humility and it is agony for the viewer – we can smell his anguish, and Pacino translates every line of prose with perfection.
One thing I do admire about “The Merchant of Venice” is its perceptive translation of Shakespeare’s nuances to film. I’ve noticed that generally the adaptations of Shakespeare films to the screen are either too wooden, too flashy, or just dull, choosing to embalm the text and dress it for the occasion. In choosing actual locations in Venice, Michael Radford opens up the film not only physically but emotionally: The dank corridors and oppressive oak chambers of the city make a perfect metaphor for the dark core that inhabits the play. Director Radford fails to homogenize, and the play is a fascinating, but not seductive, example of poetic xenophobia run amuck.
– Joe Ramirez
