In William Shakespear's The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare's most controversial play gets a bit of a face lift from director Michael Radford, who plays a little fast and loose with Big Will's story but remains true to the breadth of his humanist spirit.
Radford's The Merchant of Venice contemporizes Shakespeare's text with small but crucial touches, punching up the homoerotism in the air between best buddies Antonio (Jeremy Irons) and Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes), and, most importantly, providing a historical framework for the demonization of the Jews that the play takes for granted. This goes some way towards offering a partial explanation for the personal monstrousness of Shylock – the titular Jewish merchant who has, not without reason, earned the play a reputation for anti-Semitism – but Merchant is still a problematic play and a problematic movie. Al Pacino is interesting as a shriveled but semi-sympathetic Shylock, bleating and bellowing lines in a weird half-Yiddish, half-Bronx accent, and gratuitously extending syllables like Dylan did on stage for most of the last few decades. Pacino's performance isn't quite as broad as some of his recent work, but neither is it much by way of subtlety, often throwing nuance out with the bathwater until all that's left is sheer movie star charisma. Then again, sometimes that's enough. And the movie is nothing if not a handsome production, shot on location in Venice, and authentic right down to the bared-breasted 16th century harlots hanging out on the Bridge of Sighs. Also stars Lynne Collins.
The Merchant of Venice (NR) Opens Feb. 25 at Tampa Theatre.
This article appears in Feb 23 – Mar 1, 2005.