Another Merchant of Venice
Aug. 18th, 2016 09:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferret1973 Directed by John Sichel (after Jonathan Miller), Laurence Olivier as Shylock
Stylistically very old fashioned feeling, which made for something of an adjustment, but it is very well acted in its style and very well directed.
In general, the film chooses to downplay the Judaism of Shylock and the anti-semitism of the text, which kind of surprisingly eases some of my problems with it. Olivier plays Shylock as a cruel, ambitious, but stiff-upper-lip Anglo-Jewish banker who is playing a very dangerous game against Antonio, a cruel, ambitious, stiff-upper-lip, fully Anglo banker. Religion is a subtext for two men who don't wear their faith on their sleeve, or perhaps, whose only faith is money. Religion obviously matters to the text, but Sichel/and/or Miller are not that interested in being faithful to the text, so much as they're interested in being faithful to the play. Lines that invoke Christianity or Judaism tend to get skated over or skipped- the whole "I hate him for he is a Christian" soliloquy is left out, making for a much less sinister-seeming Shylock, but also a much less Jewish-seeming Shylock.
The film's disinterest in Shylock as a Jew is inadvertently (and a little infuriatingly) emphasized in a staging goof where Shylock kisses a mezuzah placed on the left doorpost, rather than the right where it should be. So I should say that while making Merchant of Venice a story about the perils of high capitalism where the faiths of its protagonist and antagonist are irrelevant eases some of my problems with the play, it certainly is not a solution without its own issues.
The trial scene sees a brilliant Portia as a catspaw for the vicious Antonio, who shows none of the agony and fear common in other productions- when he is ordered to lay bare his breast for Shylock's knife, he removes his suit coat, but leaves on a waistcoast and a shirt and looks perfectly calm. When he emerges from the trial victorious he suavely puts his coat back on and strolls out of the courtroom. He is a man used to risking much- and winning. Shylock, too, is a warrior- but his daughter's disappearance throws him off his stride. He does not act meanly in the courtroom. He moves with the confidence of a man with a carefully laid plan, who then sees that plan overturned at the last moment by an unforeseen trick. He is humiliated and wounded, but he takes it as part of the game.
Weirdly, the production ends with Jessica reciting Kaddish for her father, another apparent misunderstanding of how Judaism works. At some level, Merchant is a play about Judaism and its relationship to Christianity, and for all the good things in the Olivier Merchant, it fails to intelligently confront this fundamental element, and the result is disappointing.
Stylistically very old fashioned feeling, which made for something of an adjustment, but it is very well acted in its style and very well directed.
In general, the film chooses to downplay the Judaism of Shylock and the anti-semitism of the text, which kind of surprisingly eases some of my problems with it. Olivier plays Shylock as a cruel, ambitious, but stiff-upper-lip Anglo-Jewish banker who is playing a very dangerous game against Antonio, a cruel, ambitious, stiff-upper-lip, fully Anglo banker. Religion is a subtext for two men who don't wear their faith on their sleeve, or perhaps, whose only faith is money. Religion obviously matters to the text, but Sichel/and/or Miller are not that interested in being faithful to the text, so much as they're interested in being faithful to the play. Lines that invoke Christianity or Judaism tend to get skated over or skipped- the whole "I hate him for he is a Christian" soliloquy is left out, making for a much less sinister-seeming Shylock, but also a much less Jewish-seeming Shylock.
The film's disinterest in Shylock as a Jew is inadvertently (and a little infuriatingly) emphasized in a staging goof where Shylock kisses a mezuzah placed on the left doorpost, rather than the right where it should be. So I should say that while making Merchant of Venice a story about the perils of high capitalism where the faiths of its protagonist and antagonist are irrelevant eases some of my problems with the play, it certainly is not a solution without its own issues.
The trial scene sees a brilliant Portia as a catspaw for the vicious Antonio, who shows none of the agony and fear common in other productions- when he is ordered to lay bare his breast for Shylock's knife, he removes his suit coat, but leaves on a waistcoast and a shirt and looks perfectly calm. When he emerges from the trial victorious he suavely puts his coat back on and strolls out of the courtroom. He is a man used to risking much- and winning. Shylock, too, is a warrior- but his daughter's disappearance throws him off his stride. He does not act meanly in the courtroom. He moves with the confidence of a man with a carefully laid plan, who then sees that plan overturned at the last moment by an unforeseen trick. He is humiliated and wounded, but he takes it as part of the game.
Weirdly, the production ends with Jessica reciting Kaddish for her father, another apparent misunderstanding of how Judaism works. At some level, Merchant is a play about Judaism and its relationship to Christianity, and for all the good things in the Olivier Merchant, it fails to intelligently confront this fundamental element, and the result is disappointing.