ljplicease | The Merchant of Venice

Sassy Portia

I went to see The Merchant of Venice tonight up in Rhinebeck. It is a play which you rarely see because of the political volatility contained within, so it is a treat for those of us who like Shakespeare to get to see a modern production, much less a movie with the likes of Al Pacino. I saw the trailers to this movie back over the winter break when I saw A Very Long Engagement and I decided I just had to see it. The question is, does it live up to the expectation?

The adaptation is superb. Michael Radford, who was both the director and did the screenplay, deserves a lot of credit for this. The performances were great, especially Al Pacino as Shlock. Casting was therefore very good; the chemistry of the actors was adequate. The scene where the two unsuccessful suitors "choose unwisely" was hilarious, although much of the humor of the play was under utilized overall. This is justifiable given the dark nature of the adaptation.

What I did not find acceptable was the lighting. Many of the scenes exhibited way too much contrast. One in particular bothered me had Portia and Bassanio in the foreground in complete darkness, with the characters in the background perfectly lit with natural light. The color temperature in many of the scenes was not quite right either. There was a slight blue cast to many of the scenes, and if it had been intentional it did nothing to improve the movie in my opinion.

The play has (probably fairly) been accused of anti-Semitism. Modern productions, the few that have been made, have usually attempted to compensate by making Shylock a more sympathetic character. In this version, following in that tradition, you really do feel sorry for Shylock in the end, and it is hard to see Portia's indictment and the punitive measures applied to Shylock as being "merciful". The Christians in the play seem to have done a good job of ganging up against him, and succeed in the end in taking everything away from him. This is likely to feed the cycle of hate. I think this is a hard play to do in modern times, and I think the director for the most part did a pretty good job.