The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice (1980) (TV)

Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (1980) (TV) was directed by Jack Gold. It's a straightforward, well-done version of the play, and I enjoyed watching it. (Well, it's not too easy to actually enjoy Merchant of Venice, because the humiliation and destruction of Shylock are hard to watch. However, I enjoyed watching the film because it followed Shakespeare's text, and it starred excellent actors in the leading roles.

Gemma Jones is a highly capable actor. However, because she was 38 years old at the time, it was hard to accept her as Portia, who is certainly meant to be in her late teens or 20's. Still, she carried it off, and you believed that she was the intelligent, ingenious young woman whom Shakespeare created.

Warren Mitchell, who plays Shylock, is a superb actor. He's well known in England, although I don't think I've ever seen him in a major film role before this one. I really liked his portrayal of Shylock—not as a stereotypical Elizabethan Jew, but as someone who has suffered, and now wants to make someone else suffer. He neither overplays nor underplays his role.

For me, the biggest problem in the movie is that Shylock's most important speech is undercut by a decision made by director Gold. This is the famous speech that begins, "Hath not a Jew eyes?" It's that speech that tells us that, although Shakespeare may have been anti-Semitic, he could also see the world through the eyes of a Jew. Without that speech, Merchant of Venice is just a play about an evil Jew, along with some comic subplots thrown in for laughs.

Of course, Mitchell gave the speech. However, behind him Salanio and Salario are pushing each other and laughing like adolescents when the teacher's back is turned. I assume Gold wanted to make the point that no one cares what Shylock says, even when he is extraordinarily eloquent. Still, I think it was a mistake to rob Shylock—and us, the viewers—of the full impact of this incredible speech.

The Merchant of Venice is like most of the BBC Shakespeare productions that I've seen— strong on acting and costumes, but very modest when it comes to sets. We're so accustomed to seeing sailing ships on the ocean when an actor is talking about sailing ships, that it seems strange to us when we don't see them. This was the way plays were performed in Shakespeare's time, because of lack of technology and lack of money. Well, BBC had the technology, but the money was still lacking, so the producers expect us to use our imagination. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

The BBC Shakespeare series was produced for television, so the movies were meant to be seen on the small screen. I've seen some of them on the large screen, and they work just as well.

Note: The Merchant of Venice is classified as a comedy because most of the characters get married, and no one dies. The problem with that definition is that it forces us to call a play a comedy, when it's tragic and not funny. ("Midsummer Night's Dream" is funny. It may have serious undertones, but it's funny. It really is a comedy.)

However, I think we can change the category of the play, and still keep the definition intact. What happens to Shylock is tantamount to death for him. Even though three couples get married, and no bodies are carried off the stage, I think of this play (and the movie made from it) more as tragedy than as comedy. It's absolutely worth seeing, but certainly not for laughs.

Jonathan Miller and Jack Gold have chosen to accentuate the anti-Semitism of the play in this production. In so doing, they have highlighted the sheer vileness of most of the Christian characters without sweetening the character of Shylock. Shylock, excellently portrayed by Warren Mitchell, is intelligent and sharply witty and sometimes poignantly appealing; yet at other times he is ruthlessly vindictive. However, what this production makes powerfully clear is that his ruthless vindictiveness is a product of the shameful ways in which he has been treated by his Christian contemporaries. Their coarse bigotry and outright abuse -- along with their sanctimonious blindness to their own grievous faults -- have brought out the worst in Shylock (whose miserliness as a moneylender, likewise, is due to his being barred from every other profession in medieval Venice).

Gemma Jones is not beautiful, but her acting in the role of Portia is outstanding. Portia is perhaps the most repellent character of all, as she addresses Shylock with her marvelous disquisition on the quality of mercy and then proves to be unremittingly merciless and devious in her treatment of him. In addition to being a foul bigot, she plays a tiresome and cruel trick on her husband which may have seemed funny to audiences in Shakespeare's time but which seems today to be a further confirmation of her grandiose egocentricity. The only discernible aim of that trick is to establish her dominance over Bassanio and Antonio by humiliating them.

Even more tiresome than Portia's silly trick is the character of Launcelot Gobbo -- one of the most grimly unfunny clowns (and the most odiously anti-Semitic clown) in Shakespeare's whole oeuvre. Enn Reitel does a good job of portraying this rebarbative character.

Also repulsive are Salerio and Solanio, two characters who -- like most of the rest of the Christians in the play -- appear to be unacquainted with the activity of productive work. Their vicious hatred of Jews and their general decadence are brought out well in this production by John Rhys-Davies and Alan David.

The characters of Nerissa and Bassanio are less overtly bigoted and distasteful than the other Christians, and they are deftly performed here by Susan Jameson (who is beautiful) and John Nettles.

Most of the other parts in the play are likewise adeptly performed. Every production of "The Merchant of Venice" has to come to grips with the savage prejudices that are so salient in the play. By underscoring the intensity and ugliness of those prejudices, this production helps to reveal the extent to which they deform the society in which they are prevalent.

If you're looking for The Merchant of Venice on video or DVD, it comes down to two versions: Jonathan Miller's National Theatre production with Laurence Olivier, Joan Plowright, and Jeremy Brett, taped in 1973, and this BBC effort, recorded seven years later.

This one can hardly match the star power of that earlier performance.

In particular, Olivier's Shylock was simply *non pareil*. Better than his Henry V, better than his Hamlet, better than his Lear. Unforgettable--but also tendentious. Olivier simply omitted any lines that might have compromised his sympathetic portrayal of the old usurer.

Warren Mitchell's performance for the BBC Shakespeare is both more textually complete and more ambiguous. His Shylock is not just a monster--but neither is he just a victim. He is both sinned against and sinning. This creates a context in which it's easier to sympathize with Antonio, Portia and the other Christians, even when they are played less compellingly than in the rival version.

As always with the BBC Shakespeare series, it's fun to spot actors and actresses you've seen elsewhere. Gemma Jones is too old for Portia, but if you've enjoyed her as Louisa in *The Duchess of Duke Street* or as Mrs. Dashwood in *Sense and Sensibility*, you won't mind seeing her in a more challenging role. And if you liked John Rhys-Davies as Gimli in *The Lord of the Rings, or as Macro in *I, Claudius*, watch for him here in the small role of Salerio.

All in all, this production probably won't convert anyone with doubts to the cause of Shakespeare. But for those who already know and love this particular play, it's more than worthwhile.

I use this version to accompany my British Lit unit. I own all of the versions and while I love Olivier, the modernization of the play makes the themes of the play more difficult to imagine. The most recent one has so many cut lines and frankly nudity that I am not showing in my classroom, that I am left with this version. As an earlier poster stated Gemma Jones is too old for the part and not attractively made up, but maybe that age gives a sense of maturity that makes her knowledge easier to accept. In addition, when Shylock is forced to kiss the cross, I and my class always discuss the uncomfortable feeling of denying someone their heritage. The play is full of conflicts but to a certain degree if it didn't, the play would be somehow condoning the very acts we find repulsive today. The limits of the Jews, women, and social class are all symbolized in the caskets. If one is to see how this can be used in a modern connotation, you only have to ask students who has the newest ipod, car, or house and they see the concept of gold, silver, or lead in a very modern light. I warn them before they see the play that they are watching a filming of a play, the costumes are Elizabethan, not the period it would have been lived and the acting is somewhat the result of BBC trying to pump out all of the Shakespeare plays on a limited budget, but all the lines are there!

This is much, much better than Olivier's version, of which I own a copy and have used to teach high school Shakespeare. Gemma Jones is excellent as Portia (and not too old) and Shylock is performed the way Shakespeare wrote the part. I would argue the issue of anti-semitism in this play: it's not as cut and dried as people seem to think. But it is a product of Shak's time, not ours (which can't do anything controversial unless it is left-wing politically and politically correct). I recently saw Al Pacino play Shylock and his performance and the production was absurd. Unfortunately, because of WWII and the wrong-headed (but good-hearted) people who are afraid to touch any play that shows Jews in a negative way, this play is off limits to a decent production of The Merchant.. except it seems for the BBC production. Also, the viewer who gave this production a "one" rating obviously came to the play predisposed to dislike anything that wasn't modern in look and perspective. He/she simply didn't want to watch the play Shakespeare wrote. The BBC series of all the plays did have a number of clunkers, but this isn't one of them.