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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
His obit said it all--Olivier the Great, August 9, 2001
This review is from: Merchant of Venice: Literary Masterpieces [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Pure and simple, there will never be another Olivier--he stands apart, the marvel of his profession. True, his last years were too full of movies just made for a buck, featuring dubious European accents, but when you see him as he was meant to be seen, in Shakespeare, you begin to understand his depths. Take his Shylock, here in "The Merchant of Venice". I had read this play over and over for my Masters thesis, and thought I knew it pretty well. Then, when I saw this video, it was like hearing the dialogue for the very first time. He brings insight into the most inconsequential lines, and of course power to crucial scenes. So why not 5 stars, then? Well, this is one of those versions where the director felt like time traveling. For some reason, it's 1860, and Shylock is wearing a bowler hat. Why? You lose the point that a Renaissance stage jew would have been dressed very differently than the Christian Venetians, a visible indicator of Shylock's alienation. And important scenes with his daughter Jessica have been cut out, in order to force a certain directorial concept. If it ain't broke.... Notwithstanding all this, Olivier's Shylock is really something to behold. I wouldn't trade it for a wilderness of monkeys.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Olivier, Brett shine in theatre-style production, October 21, 1999
This review is from: Merchant of Venice: Literary Masterpieces [VHS] (VHS Tape)
The highlights of this video are Laurence Olivier as a modern, sympathethic, tortured Shylock, and Jeremy Brett as a smug Bassanio. Joan Plowright also gives a dead-on performance as Portia. Since Portia is ultimately the tool to Shylock's demise, the temptation might be to portray her as the antagonist in a revisionist production. This Portia, however, interprets a righteous law to an unrighteous end. The major interpretive problem I had was that the production seems to come off as a tragedy, not as a comedy, which is how Shakespeare wrote it. It may be that directors interpreting the anti-semitic content of this play in a modern context are afraid to play it for laughs. Despite this, it still works in this production, which might be better titled "the Tragedy of Shylock" (keeping in mind that the title, "Merchant of Venice," refers to Antonio, not to Shylock.)
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Olivier, April 30, 2000
This review is from: Merchant of Venice: Literary Masterpieces [VHS] (VHS Tape)
The Merchant of Venice has always been one of Shakespeare's most troublesome and controversial plays. Technically it is a comedy because it ends with a wedding, but it explores issues of prejudice and anti-semitism, and Shylock's fate (forced conversion and poverty) is hardly cheering. Hal Holbrooke once said that the measure of any Shylock is how he leaves the stage after the climactic courtroom scene. Olivier's exit is pained, proud, and sad. This is a stark play of a stubborn and despised man who is destroyed not because of his obvious personal flaws, but because of the prejudices and unfairness of his persecutors. After all, Shylock abided by the contract, Antonio weasled out and punished Shylock to boot.
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