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Merchant Of Venice, The
Merchant Of Venice, The
Stars: Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, Lynn CollinsDirector: Michael Radford
Summary: One of the immortal bard's most frequently performed works gets a first-rate cinematic treatment here, via director Michael Radford (IL POSTINO). Al Pacino is virtually unrecognisable as Shylock, bringing an old-world gravitas to the role and clearly inspiring the rest of the cast to match his intensity. They succeed, and the result is riveting, rousing entertainment. Even if one is familiar with the play in advance, this is white-knuckle suspense and swooning romance all the way through. A 16th-century Venetian sea merchant (Jeremy Irons), devoted to a young lord (Joseph Fiennes), owes a debt for 'a pound of flesh' to the anguished Jewish moneylender Shylock. Lovingly filmed in Venice, the film looks great, with settings and costumes all sporting a dusky, lived-in look that matches the subdued, naturalistic interpretation of the dialogue. Lynn Collins is excellent and ethereal as Portia, and her love scenes with Fiennes have an alchemical power that lifts them to dizzyingly mythic romantic heights. Vague homoerotic content and the grim realities of Jewish oppression are not shied away from here, which lends the film further richness and complexity. With the play's rich array of dramatic and comedic elements all perfectly in tune, MERCHANT OF VENICE earns its place as the first truly great Shakespeare film of the 21st century.
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Rarely has The Merchant of Venice, one of Shakespeare's most complex plays, looked as ravishingly sumptuous as in this adaptation, directed by Michael Radford (Il Postino). In a decadent version of renaissance Venice, a young nobleman named Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes, Shakespeare in Love) seeks to woo the lovely Portia (Lynn Collins), but lacks the money to travel to her estate. He seeks support from his friend, the merchant Antonio (Jeremy Irons); Antonio's fortune is tied up in sea ventures, so the merchant offers to borrow money from a Jewish moneylender, Shylock (Al Pacino). But Shylock holds a grudge against Antonio, who has routinely treated the Jew with contempt, and demands that if the debt is not repaid in three months, the price will be a pound of Antonio's flesh. The Merchant of Veniceis 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, Amazon.com
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