The Merchant of Venice
starring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, Lynn Collins, Zuleikha Robinson, Kris Marshall, Charlie Cox, Heather Goldenhersh, John Sessions and Mackenzie Crook
screenplay and directed by Michael Radford
based on the play by William Shakespeare
I finally got my hands on a DVD of The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, and Joseph Fiennes. My video shop has only two copies of it and I have been waiting for months for one of them to become available. It closely follows Shakespeare’s script and language, and it features handsome costumes and sets - period costumes and sets - plus it is beautifully shot for a very powerful effect. I liked it for its cinematographic artistry more than for its humanistic esthetics.
Just as I did when I first read the play in Grade 9, I still believe that the Jewish moneylender, Shylock, ought to get his pound of flesh from the bankrupt merchant, Antonio, since Antonio was stupid enough to make such a contract with him as collateral for a loan. Does that show that I have not learned the “quality of mercy.” Am I a lesser person because of it?
I suppose that the lesson is that in any humane, civilized society a logically manifest quality of mercy ought to supersede rank human stupidity among all people, as well as their social stations - male or female, slave or free, nobleman or tradesman, Christian or Jew. In other words, the quality of mercy is a democratic uniter of peoples in one social polity - part of our social contract and the mutually binding universal brotherhood of humankind. But I don’t look favorably on tolerating deliberate stupidity by forgiving it. Instead, I prefer to correct stupidity, first by identifying it. Plus, I respect the Word and its power.
The money lending contract with Shylock the Jew was a terrible contract to begin with, but the Christian Venetian, Antonio, made it willingly and with a cocky confidence in his ability to repay. So, he deserves responsibility for himself. It is a great kindness we can do for him. If it is not his fault that his business ventures went bad, rendering him unable to repay the loan within the limits of its term, what of that? He ought to be happy to have a pound of flesh cut off, since he was happy to make such a bargain in the first place, and it is an insult to his character for students of the play and its audiences to deny the Jew his due by shielding Antonio from his own folly. Antonio, not Shylock, is an offensive character.
Shakespeare used The Merchant of Venice as a vehicle for delivering his noble-sounding Quality of Mercy soliloquy, but I have always regarded it as just another vessel for Jew-bashing. The story of the pound of flesh contract is woven in to the play’s love story between Shylock’s daughter, Jessica, and a Christian man in a tricky way to cheat Shylock out of his wealth and bequeath it to his daughter against his will. So, on those grounds I do not like it.