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	William Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice Al Pacino, Joseph Fiennes Columbia/Tri-Star, 2005 average customer review:based on 98 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Merchant of Venice is famous as a "problem play"--the gritty matters of moneylending and anti-Semitism sit uncomfortably beside the fairy tale elements of Portia and Bassanio's romance, and some twists of the plot can seem arbitrary or even cruel. The strength of Radford's intelligent and passionate interpretation is that he and the excellent cast invest the play's opposing facets with full emotional weight, thus making every question the play raises acute and inescapable. Irons is particularly compelling; kindness and blind prejudice sit side by side in his breast, rendering the clashes in his character as vivid as those in the play itself. --Bret Fetzer

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Amazing!

Al's performance was outstanding.. Shylock who was portrayed by Shakeapeare and perceived by Readers throughout ages as Villain is now seen as a human! You sympathize with him, you refuse his deeds but you do not hate him.

A movie that has to be present in your DVD library!


Shakespeare tells us to doubt

This play by Shakespeare is worth a pound of gold, at least. It reveals with crudity one side of Shakespeare and Shakespeare's time most people would like to ignore: his supposed anti-Semitism. Everyone wants to ignore it because no one can see the double talk Shakespeare is a great master of. In his days Jews were seen as vultures, tolerated vultures but vultures all the same. Of course Shakespeare could have avoided dealing with the subject. He did deal with it several times. The Saracen in Titus Andronicus is another heroic case. He also had to deal with it because of what was happening around him. Shakespeare was a conscious and socially oriented mirror of his time. His theatre was committed to the real world. He managed to survive longer than his friend and competitor Marlowe because he probably was more prudent and careful. He might have avoided the dangerous spots, nocturnal or diurnal. But even so, he had an art that Marlowe never had. He knew how to speak with a forked tongue, he knew double entendre, he knew double talk and he had many tongues in his many cheeks; This is the case with this particular play and the film, I must say, does not totally show this duplicity. Apart from the famous tirade on the Jew who bleeds when you prick him with a needle, the rest is not seen or shown, and yet it is said. It is not clearly exploited how the ruthlessness and the pitilessness of Skylock is totally and even with a multiplied force inverted and applied to Shylock by the good Christians who do not show the slightness pity or forgiveness or mercy towards the Jew once he is defeated. And the double language is quite obvious in the fact that the learned doctor is an impersonation (note in Shakespeare's time the two women would have been played by two men and then the two women, who would have been men, or rather boys, would have disguised as men) and this does not work today at all the same way since the two women are real women. A false doctor and false man, who is a false woman under that first skin, and who is a real boy under that second skin is speaking the law, justice, truth. What a lie! The only one who is true to his word is Shylock, even if his word is ruthless, but where is the mercy these good Christians were preaching to him, once they have won their case? All that law Shakespeare defends is shown, in the tone of a tragic comedy, as a big lie, as a farce, as a disguise of any truth, and the final episode of the two un-givable rings that were sworn never to be given away and were given to pay the services of two liars and disguised tricksters after the big farce of the use of law to pitilessly fool and victimize a Jew is the most beautiful piece of underground meaning. This is contained in Shakespeare in the balancing act he plays in which any binary element is balance (perfection being four) and any ternary element is disruption. In the "IF" little dialogue of the end Bassanio in four lines tries to build a square that never comes and the four "I" are the only real balanced element surrounded by three "gave" , five "the ring", etc. And Portia can answer with a perfect ternary structure revealing how false his reasoning is, but she is the liar, she is the serpent who forced Bassanio into giving the ring, she is the one who was who she was not and who is who she was not either. The accuser once again is a false Daniel. Daniel saved Suzanne from a lie. Portia saved Antonio with the unjust law of Venice enforced by a lying tongue, hers that was his disguising hers. That's how Shakespeare was being witty with anti-Semitism and thus distancing himself from it. Imagine the wit of the man Bassanio telling the boy playing Portia she/he will be his bedfellow and he will let Her/him lie with Her/him when he is absent. Most of the time Shakespeare uses disguises to reveal some good things like love. Here he uses disguises to reveal the forked tongues with which all these Christians are speaking. The film does not show it and prefers adding some images that exonerate the director from the accusation whereas he should exonerate Shakespeare from it, because Shakespeare does not deserve it.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

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Romance and suspense; prejudice and revenge

It must be remembered when viewing this film that it is a contemporary re-interpretation of the original play by William Shakespeare. It is a reinvention. Therefore some reviewers selected to review it by comparison to the original Shakespeare. In summary, this is not the original. It has been edited and emphasis has been shifted. It appears that considerable editing of a relatively long play was done, some of which modified the full impact of the characters of Shylock, Antonio and Portia. In addition to the editing for modern audience's attention span, a shift in emphasis was made to address concerns that the play was anti-Semitic and that a more favorable light needed to be cast upon Shylock.

Therefore, I am here reviewing this particular film, a reinterpretation of Shakespeare's play, as an independent product divorced from the original play. When cut lose from the original script, we begin to see that the play has the difficult balance of covering a suspenseful story of revenge which runs parallel to a comedy of romance, yet using the same actors in both parallel storylines. How does it resolve this parallel structure? It does it by giving both storylines incredible rich attention to exquisite detail, rich costume, elegant lighting, and superb acting. Pacino, Irons, and Lynn Collins are all in top form.

I found the film to be a feast for the eye and ear. As always I found Pacino to be a powerful force on the screen. However Lynn Collins is a new star in the firmament. In the current interpretation, Shylock is both victim and perpetrator and yet his downfall is keenly felt and his final stare into the camera is accusatorial, conveying to the viewer the message that justice has not been done.

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A good version of one of Shakespeare's lesser plays

Even setting aside the issue of anti-Semitism, "Merchant Of Venice" is not one of Shakespeare's better plays -- it is inherently a bit flat and lacks internal drama. Also, it is billed s a comedy, but there isn't much funny about it. Wisely, director Michael Radford hones in on the tragic aspects of the play, heightening the twin tragedies of Shylock and Antonio. Al Pacino plays Shylock to the hilt, avoiding an interpretation that has him appear either sinister or victimized: this Shylock is a powerful man, greatly angered, and in the famous "Does he not bleed?" speech, there is not a hint of self-pity. I agree that there is a flatness to this production, but I'm not sure i entirely the fault of Radford or his cast. (Axton)

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Merchant of Venice

This is a good version of the play, but since I am a school teacher - let me give you a big heads up - there are a lot of bare-chested women in this that does nothing to further the plot. It's my husband's opinion that they are there so that men will watch the movie. The other problem is that this version is trying so hard to be politically correct that it bends Shakespeare's meaning to suit a twenty-first century audience. I feel this is done in such a way as to cause problems with the basic plot.


reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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