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The discussion has been held a thousand times. Is the "Merchant of Venice" antisemitic? (I think it is.) Isn't it unfair to always point out this little bit of antisemitism in an otherwise great piece of art? (I think it isn't.) Does this play stain Shakespeare's reputation as the world's greatest playwright? (I think it does.) Does it play a role if he didn't do it on a particular racist purpose? (I think it doesn't.) Michael Radford knew all this and this is why he added to his movie a prologue about the pitiful situation of the Jews in Renaissance Venice.
In vain; for the play remains what it has always been and the new make-up only gives a first (but futile) hope that someone has dared to set something right that remains a permanent outrage, not because its degree of antisemitism would be particularly shocking but because the play comes under the name of William Shakespeare.
Why spend so much time in portraying the hatred of a man -- Shylock? Why employ a great and serious actor like Al Pacino, if in the end everything is getting ruined in this outrageous (but hey, I'm-not-responsible-Shakespeare-wrote-it) court room scene. And now I'd like to be very precise, just like Shylock himself.
He's demanding his right, according to the contract which the -- not very responsible -- Christian Antonio, who always used to look down on him, signed in full awareness of the consequences. Sure, what Shylock demands is cruel and useless, but that's not the point. What we see (or should see) is a man who has been humiliated for all his life, to the point where all what remains on him is his hatred. I think, it is certainly a bit inappropriate to lecture such a man on things like compassion.
But what the play/the movie (they are one and the same now) does at this point is... become a soap opera! The cruel madman with his knife, the horrified (but rather short-minded) audience, the poor "victim" tied to his chair. True, Antonio accepts his fate but why can't he just say one word, "sorry"? I think we need not lose many words on the ridiculous verdict of the young Dottore from Padua; it's a truly "popular verdict" not much different from what would be seen 400 years later in the show trials of the Nazis. From one minute to the next this Jew is robbed of everything he owned, sentenced to being baptized Christian, and kicked out.
Isn't that outrageous??? Obviously not. The story moves on to the romantic intricacies of the rings and its happy end.
What one can learn in Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin and similar places all over the world is that antisemitism often goes unnoticed by the mass because what's so devastating for a minority or some individuals is embedded in the alleged greater good for the majority. It should be exactly the task of everyone of us to develop a sensitivity to detect and unmask such tendencies.
I don't accept the excuse that this film was made to create empathy with the badly treated Shylock (it just doesn't work out). I don't think that anybody can be forced to be merciful.
I don't recommend this movie; in particular not for an Oscar.


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