I think this is a wonderfully done version of The Merchant of Venice that suffers from some inevitable balance problems.
I don’t think the casting, costuming or cinematography could have been better and the soundtrack is a particular triumph.
It’s a difficult and problematic play and this production did much, possibly too much, to address the issues inherent therein.
This is a Pacino vehicle and that’s saying something considering the cast. (Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, Lynn Collins)
He glowers and gnashes and stares forlornly in a way that feels sympathetic and off putting all at once.
He’s taken a role that was meant to as a caricature of a morality play villain and turned it into a fully realized human being. He’s done a better job at it than I’ve seen and kept to the text. The successes and failures of the rest of the play lay mostly at the feet of the choices he’s made to do that.
The Merchant of Venice is a comedy. We must bear in mind that comedy means happy ending in these plays and not as we modernly define it (as funny).
Because Pacino succeeds so well with humanizing Shylock none of the funny stuff lands.
I know this is a directorial/production decision as well and I can’t fault it because I doubt very much the movie would have been made otherwise.
So given that the tone is so grim, how does everything else fit?
It feels like Venice in the late 1500’s.
It does a good job of effective scene setting. It is lush and beautiful.
Just look at these gorgeous shots.
They could each be a painting.
Lynn Colin’s has the least encumbered role of the main cast and plays an interesting and effective Portia.
The Great Courses lecture advises us to view this play as a fairy tale. That is the best and most valid reading in my view as well.
In its romantic plot Bassanio woos Portia and wins her by choosing the right box of 3 while solving a riddle about the nature of love.
Bassanio has spent all his own money and needs to borrow some from an older friend (lover?) Antonio.
Antonio is out of ready cash but he has 3 ships out, any of which is worth lots of money. Antonio therefore an agrees to co-sign on a giant loan so that young Bassanio can go woo in style.
They get the loan from Shylock. Shylock is a money lending Jew who hates Antonio and will only give the loan with a pound of Antonio’s flesh as collateral.
In Venice of the 1500s a money lender (Usurer) was pretty much guaranteed to be a Jew as that was the only group of people allowed to lend money.
It’s important when watching this play to pay attention to how it’s been viewed in the past.
By the time the movie gets to the pivotal courtroom scene all the characters have been fully established and they get to be their best or at least most authentic selves.
Bassanio is a slimy bastard, Antonio is a pitiable victim, Shylock is a stubborn and vindictive fool, and only Portia comes out well as the (Shakespeare typical) cross dressing young lawyer.
The argument that Shylock is Shakespeare's first tragic hero is strong here. He paints himself into the corner of merciless inflexibility and suffers for it.
After this scene the movie falls apart. The “happy ending” feels jarring nasty.
I think Mariam will write more about that as it bothered her more.
Things that potentially could have worked in a slapstick/vaudeville style are uncomfortable in a serious drama setting.
The couples (Bassanio and Portia) and their servants (including Shylock’s now Christian daughter Jessica) all pair of happily in prosperity and joy.
The movie knows that this ending doesn’t work and follow it up with a no play scene of Shylocks daughter Jessica looking forlornly into the Venice lagoon.
I don’t love this play but am impressed by the movie.
None of the characters are speaking to me and I don’t like the dehumanizing of Shylock.
I think the fairytale reading is right but it’s not a fairytale I like either.
It’s weird that I’m giving the 4 star rating given all that but it’s just so well done.
Mariam said that it’s one of the most contemporarily relevant plays we’ve watched so far. That probably has something to do with it.
I think it was the music that took me from my expected 3.5 up to a 4.
It’s just transporting.
The Merchant of Venice - 4 stars for production
Mom score - 0 stars
This play really could have used some moms. I feel like a mom or even better some wives and moms would have injected a modicum of sense and restraint and maybe even compassion into the heads of these stories.
This is probably only due to my mom-ness.
They after moms did nothing of the sort for Romeo and Juliet.
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