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.
Come unto these yellow sandsAnd then take handsCurtsied when you have, and kiss'dThe wild waves whist Foot it featly here and thereAnd, sweet sprites, the burthen bearHark, hark!The watch-dogs bark
Full fathom five thy father liesOf his bones are coral madeThose are pearls that were his eyesNothing of him that doth fadeBut doth suffer a sea-changeInto something rich and strange, rich and strangeSea-nymphs hourly ring his knellHark, now I hear them...
All of which is to say there is a lot of variety with Shakespearean music, even for the music for which we have good records.
I went to a concert yesterday. It was a lovely concert and free.
A friend told me they were doing lute music and I was excited and blocked in my calendar with great anticipation.
Not exceptionally surprisingly there was some Shakespearean music performed.
They did The Willow Song from Othello and Full Fathom Five (the song at the top here) from The Tempest.
They talked about how they were using the Robert Johnson music because he was a Shakespeare contemporary so they knew what the songs sounded like for lute.
I had no idea this was the case. I thought all Shakespeare music was speculative.
Robert Johnson was a court composer in the court of James I and later of his son Charles I.
He worked with the Kings Men (The name of Shakespeares company at that time) and is closely associated with Shakespeare. He set songs from The Tempest and Cymbeline and The Winters Tale to music.
It is not recorded that his music was played during the plays, to his tunes and accompaniment, but there is a fair shot.
It’s not actually recorded what any of the music in the plays sounded like and lots of people have tried lots of things to make feasible examples. Lots more people have just taken the lyrics and themes and treated Shakespeare as a librettists of sorts.
I only recorded small snippets of the concert to keep in fair use but here is what I heard.
Full Fathom Five
The Willow Song
Here is a very pretty and complete version of that song.
Shakespeare swaps the He in the song for a She and uses only the first few verses.
For me, this moment in the play always makes me tear up. A good soundtrack will do that.
The audience would have gotten it instantly.
I’m so happy to have gotten to hear live music and especially this type of live music.
I quite liked Ayreheart and bring your attention to this piece with a different lead singer.
Beyond that, it’s clear that Shakespeare had music in his bones.
According to google Shakespeare included approximately 100 vocal songs in his work and made over 400 references to music or things musical.
I will leave you here with a few of my favorite Shakespeare music tunes but bear in mind they may or may not be Shakespeare. Like most else with the Bard it’s all speculation. So here are some songs I like that are Shakespeare adjacent.
And this one because I sang it most recently.
Hopefully someday I will have permission to post our version.
