Death in "Venice"
Radford's gripping "Merchant" reinvents Shakespeare for the screen

Filming Shakespeare is a tricky business. To be demographically correct in today's marketplace, the emphasis is supposed to be on fast action, straightforward plots, and uncluttered dialogue, not flowery language and witty digressions for the sake of wit alone. With all the fretting over Elizabethan verse and poetry perceived as so daunting to modern audiences, filmmakers often lose sight of the aspect of the plays that have endured over the centuries: the timeless human drama and emotional power of the stories.

But English director Michael Radford gets it. His gripping The Merchant of Venice zeroes in on the devastating emotional arc between Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, and Antonio, the merchant. Radford has never directed Shakespeare before, and while he fiddles with the text, paring away some material and adding visual business to provide context, he leaves the poetry of the language intact, trusting the dynamism of Shakespeare's plot and characters to carry the day. He directs the material like a movie, not an artifact, and subtly reinvents the story for the screen.

Radford (who made the Italian-language blockbuster Il Postino), recreates an historically realistic Venice of the Rennaissance era in which the play was written. He opens with a classic Hollywood-style crawl of text setting the scene: 1596, when religious intolerance keeps Jews locked in their "geto" district at night. Forbidden to own property, they resort to usury for their living, and are denounced for it by the hypocritical Christian ruling class (who make up most of their clients). In a visual prologue, we actually see Christian Antonio (Jeremy Irons)—fired up by an angry rabble—spit on his old acquaintance, Shylock (Al Pacino), for no other reason than his faith.

The story begins when Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes), a young blood with no fortune, begs Antonio to finance a trip to woo the wealthy heiress Portia (Lynn Collins). Since most of the scene plays out around an ornate bed, it's implied the two men have been more than friends. For love of his friend, the melancholy, older Antonio swallows his pride and borrows money from Shylock, who makes Antonio sign a bond promising to forfeit the infamous pound of flesh should Bassanio default on the loan.

With a train of splendid young courtiers, Bassanio sails off for Belmont, where Portia pines in her fresco-filled palazzo for a suitor wise enough to win her hand; according to her late father's will, only a man who chooses correctly between a casket of gold, silver, or lead can marry her. While a variety of suitors fail the casket test, Shylock's daughter Jessica (Zuleikha Robinson) elopes with Bassanio's friend, Lorenzo (Charlie Cox), and joins the voyage to Belmont. Meanwhile, Antonio's trading ships are lost at sea, and when he can't pay the bond, Shylock takes him to court to demand his pound of flesh.

Classified as a comedy, the heart of the play is the tragedy of Shylock. Pacino creates a haunting presence of ruined dignity (despite sounding a little like Mel Brooks); his animal keening when he finds his daughter gone is electrifying. Corrupted as he may be by his own flinty response to prejudice, the cruel injustice dealt him at court leaves a resounding bitter taste—as it should. Irons' commandingly quiet performance makes self-righteous Antonio more sympathetic than usual. (Stripped of his robes in court, it's clear he doesn't have a pound of flesh to spare.) Radford presents Shylock and Antonio as doppelgngers; both sad, lonely, aging men who have lost someone dear to them, they ought to be allies in wise old age, not bitter enemies divided by faith.

Radford is slyly ambivalent about the romantic plots. Collins is a smart and spirited Portia, but Fiennes' Bassanio doesn't seem like much of a catch: deeply in debt, fickle in his vows and freighted with his emotional attachment to Antonio. And when Jessica blithely vows to turn Christian for her love, lightning rends the sky. Radford never stinits on the merriment (David Harewood's lusty suitor, the Prince of Morrocco is especially charming), but in choosing to conclude with the mute alienation on the faces of Shylock and Jessica, he brings pulsing new immediacy to a tale we thought we knew.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE With Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, and Lynn Collins. Adapted and directed by Michael Radford. A Sony Classics release. Not rated. 127 minutes. (***1/2)
Review published in Good Times, February 3, 2005