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.

Jews had been banned from England in 1290, and Shakespeare and his contemporaries most likely never saw one. The story is that Christopher Marlowe had a big hit with "A Jew of Malta" and Shakespeare's company across town needed a Jewish play quickly to compete. Marlowe's protagonist was a monstrous jumble of medieval stereotypes, while Shakespeare countered with a much more rounded portrait.

Nonetheless, to give the Bard what he asked for in this script strikes modern audiences as barbaric. Videos with Laurence Olivier and Al Pacino have strategically pruned texts, and Orson Welles completely abandoned a planned production on the grounds that there's enough anti-Semitism in the world already.

It's not a question of political correctness, which as we know, is only having to be polite to people we feel entitled to be rude to. It's a question of recognizing the humanity in Shakespeare's characters, which is a major part of his genius. Surely his original audience laughed at the taunting of Shylock, and cheered his forced conversion at the end. But Shakespeare takes this cartoon villain, and gives him a tender moment to remember his late wife Leah, a chance to reproach Antonio for his loutish behavior, and getting back the reply, "I'd do it again in a minute." And the "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech is something that one could not hope to find in a British play for centuries before or after.

Warren Mitchell, his director Jack Gold and his producer Jonathan Miller, have come up with a Shylock who is by far the most interesting character in the play. Despite the inappropriate Yiddish accent (surely Shylock's household spoke Ladino), Mitchell reacts with wide-eyed resignation while receiving insults, and collapses in heated agony at his final defeat.

By comparison, the others are a milky lot, without pulse or passion or dimension, aside of course from their obsessive anti-Semitism. With all the unpalatable verbal abuse presented intact, we leave the play with the impression that Antonio is tired and a bad judge of character, Bassanio is a blank slate, Portia is a smug, doll-like, self-impressed manipulator and a racist. Gratiano and his friends are loudmouthed bullies with nothing more to offer. Lorenzo is vapid, Jessica is nasty and stupid. Gobbo plays coarse tricks on his blind father and is more idiotic and annoying than most Shakespearean clowns.

Shylock may be repellent in parts, but at least he's alive. That's not easy to say about the rest of the people here.

I remember this play very fondly, and, while it is over twenty years since I saw it and I may be more critical of it now, any program that can turn on a cynical youth to Shakespeare can't be all bad.

I have read the comments about Warren Mitchell and would disagree, his is one of the two performances I particularly remember. Yes, it is a very unsympathetic performance, why should it be other? It is also very anti-Semitic, why should it not be? Shakespeare was amongst other things a product of his age and the politics of his age. Why do we feel that we have to tinker with the past to sanitise it and to make it what it wasn't? Surely, A lot can be learnt from looking at things as they actually were and to learn from that.

I only wish it was available to purchase now.

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.

Warren Mitchell's portrayal is amazing. Rather than the over-playing of Olivier Mitchell shows a man who is loathed by all and yet is also obviously a product of this loathing. His shifts between pleasure and pain, glory and defeat, hatred and hurting are superb.

A previous poster comments on Mitchell's accent. fair enough, but why just pick on his. All the others should be speaking Italian. Mitchell's Yiddish accent is fine and, for the most part, resists the urge to go 100% comic.

Another poster wrote of the production failing to 'resolve the antisemitic overtones of the play'. So what? Antisemitism has never been resolved and it certainly wasn't in the play... nor, do I feel, was it meant to be. We feel little sympathy for the 'winners' in this piece. Their own virulent antisemitism has been shown and the creation of it, Shylock's twisted avenger, is also obvious.

What surprised me was how, even though I knew the play, Portia came across as the biggest, self-righteous cow in the piece. I had never thought of how the caskets could refer to her when the matter of outer beauty housing less than beautiful things. This beautiful woman has a heart of stone towards the Jew and the foreigners.