Movies: Quiet Venom

Shakespeare didn’t call his play Shylock: The Jew of Venice. The title character is Antonio, who rashly wagered his flesh as collateral for a loan. Shylock was simply Antonio’s banker, whose humiliation–by lovely, quick-witted Portia–is irrelevant to the romantic intriguing that consumes most of the plot. But Shylock’s injured majesty and his rough treatment by the play’s putative hero and heroine have hijacked The Merchant of Venice and made it a showcase for great actors. In a production in which Laurence Olivier, say, or Dustin Hoffman took on Shylock, does anyone remember who played Antonio or Portia?

For the record, Jeremy Irons is the melancholy, homoerotic Antonio, and the American Lynn Collins an efficient Portia, in what we may call the Al Pacino Merchant of Venice. Director Michael Radford, going heavily for brooding atmosphere, has shrouded the canal town in dank mists until the Adriatic could be the river Styx. He has also wrapped the play in historical perspective, noting the sorry plight of Jews in 1596 Venice. This makes Shylock’s demand for a pound of Christian flesh his righteous revenge for all the spittle and slander he has absorbed. Pacino emphasizes Shylock’s gnomish outsider status: the victim as hero. And though he has a few oratorical geysers, he mostly understates his venom. Pacino seems to recall, from his early Michael Corleone days, the power of whispered menace.

At film’s end, Shylock gets one last glowering close-up, as if to say, “It was Portia’s legal victory. But it’s my movie.” The angry little man is right. –By Richard Corliss