The Merchant of Venice

Written sometime between 1596 and 1598, The Merchant of Venice is classified as both an early Shakespearean comedy (more specifically, as a "Christian comedy") and as one of the Bard's problem plays; it is a work in which good triumphs over evil, but serious themes are examined and some issues remain unresolved.

In Merchant, Shakespeare wove together two ancient folk tales, one involving a vengeful, greedy creditor trying to exact a pound of flesh, the other involving a marriage suitor's choice among three chests and thereby winning his (or her) mate. Shakespeare's treatment of the first standard plot scheme centers around the villain of Merchant, the Jewish money-lender Shylock who seeks a literal pound of flesh from his Christian opposite, the generous, faithful Antonio. Shakespeare's version of the chest-choosing device revolves around the play's Christian heroine, Portia, who steers her lover Bassanio toward the correct humble casket and then successfully defends his bosom friend Antonio from Shylock's horrid legal suit.

In the modern, post-Holocaust, readings of Merchant, the problem of anti-Semitism in the play has loomed large. A close reading of the text must acknowledge that Shylock is a stereotypical caricature of a cruel, money-obsessed, medieval Jew, but it also suggests that Shakespeare's intentions in Merchant were not primarily anti-Semitic. Indeed, the dominant thematic complex in The Merchant of Venice is much more universal than specific religious or racial hatred; it spins around the polarity between the surface attractiveness of gold and the Christian qualities of mercy and compassion that lie beneath the flesh.

Shylock: With the exception of the New Testament character of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus, no name evokes more anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic feeling over the centuries of Western, Christian cultural development than that of Shylock, the villain of Shakespeare's Merchant.

UK article on the film production of The Merchant of Venice.

~~~Hollywood rivals battle to bring The Merchant of Venice to screen
By Chris Hastings and Catherine Milner
8/17/2003

Two rival Hollywood producers are racing to get separate versions of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice onto the big screen, fearing that the one completed second could be a box office disaster.

Stars including Sir Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Joseph Fiennes and Al Pacino are caught up in the race, which began when it was discovered that two film adaptations were under way simultaneously. The producers are convinced that the scenes of unrequited love and racial tension in the play, which was written in 1596, will make a film version enormously popular.

Insiders admit, however, that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to attract big audiences for two films screened close together and fear that the second to appear will struggle even to recover its costs. One of the films is produced by Stewart, who is famed for his roles in the X-Men and Star Trek films. He will also star in the film, which will cost £13 million, giving it a contemporary setting in corporate America.

The rival version by Michael Radford, the award-winning director of White Mischief (1988) and Il Postino (1995), will be a more traditional adaptation set in Venice itself. It is likely to cost almost twice as much as the Stewart version. Radford, who has a cast including McKellen as Antonio, Pacino as Shylock and Fiennes as Bassanio, will begin shooting next month(September). He will film until February in Prague and Venice and is hoping for a release date around Christmas 2004.

***Note to Pacino fans and Shakespeare nuts!!! ~~~Keep updated on this current filming of Al's as well as other happenings....join Pacino Worldwide today! Come in as a guest, leave as a friend! (See link below)

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"But love is blind and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit;
For if they could, Cupid himself would blush
To see me thus transformed to a boy."

~~William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), The Merchant of Venice, Act II Scene 6