Customer Reviews

Merchant of Venice: Literary Masterpieces [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.)

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.

I love this play...it is full of comedy, sorrow, and lovely complex characters. However, this version of the play leaves much to be desired. Olivier is wonderful as Shylock but the casting of Portia and Antonio is horrible. Portia is played by Olivier's real life wife and comes across 20 years to old for the part. I have always invisioned Antonio and Bassanio as the same age and this version has a very old Antonio. Many important scenes are missing and make the "movie" somewhat choppy. I wanted to care about the characters but the only thoing this movie forces you to care about is Shylock. (thank God Olivier plays the part so you can enjoy fabulous acting) This version is useful to me ONLY because it is the only version of this play available.

It's one thing to portray Shylock as more sinned against than sinning. It's a very valid reading of the text. But this version makes Shylock a one-dimensional victim/martyr, killing any of the tension in the play. Combine that with the Snidely Whiplash-style portrayls of the Christians and this is over-sanitized, badly acted melodrama. Disappointing for fans of Shakespeare, Olivier, Jeremy Brett, and anyone else involved in this mess.

A great play, played by great actors. I regret that they wear modern costumes, but that was in fashion ... Jeremy Brett good looks are here dashing (to get him awarded a posthumous Bafta, go to facebook:"posthumous BAFTA for Jeremy Brett"), and plays perfectly his part. This VHS is a must for his fans!

How the audience is supposed to interpret Shakespeare's intent at presenting Shylock as either the stereotypical Jewish moneygrubber or an heroic and sinned against ethnic depends largely on the interplay of three factors: his original intent in writing THE MERCHANT OF VENICE; the then prevailing popular caricature of the Jew demon that Elizabethan audiences expected and demanded in their entertainment; and Shakespeare's propensity to delineate a complex character by combining a series of competing and occasionally puzzling motivations. In the 1973 version, Laurence Olivier plays Shylock as one who stands out from everyone else not only by his wildly varying deeds but also by his equally varying manner of dress.

That generations of audiences have chosen to see multiple layers of allegory is simply a testimony to Shakespeare's dramatic skill, but in this version, Olivier's stellar performance places an entrenched anti-Semitism front and center so that a time-warped Bard's contemporary audience would pay money to see their demon Jew thoroughly humbled. Modern audiences are politically correctly conditioned not to appreciate Olivier's homage to a previous century's viewpoint.

Though Shylock is flawed grievously in many ways, it is less obvious that everyone on stage seems flawed as well, and this flaw is a direct result of anti-Semitism practiced not only by Shylock. And it is here that Shakespeare decides to try what was daring then and still is now. On the one hand, he gives the audience their gloating over the humbled Jew, and on the other, he holds up the play as a mirror against which they could look into their souls to measure the depths of or lack of their common humanity. Despite the cutting of some key scenes, the audience can sense that the entrenched anti-Semitism of the 16th century was so prevalent that it disfigures and reduces the basic decency of both violator and victim. Antonio, an otherwise decent sort, torments Shylock for no other reason than Jew-baiting. Even Portia, (Joan Plowright), who is presented as the near apotheosis of just womanhood indicates her own incipient prejudice as she warns Shylock about not spilling any Christian blood. And what of Shylock? Shakespeare permits him to speak in his own defense, and Olivier comes through in more than one scene, but behind Shylock's inner pain the audience of Shakespeare's day had to be manipulated into overlooking that Shakespeare had to walk a fine line between portraying Shylock as one sinned against but still ensuring that by the close of the play he would emerge as one ground to dust. Olivier manages to walk this delicate balance in a manner better suited to the 16th century than to the 20th.

As Shylock leaves the stage for the last time, Olivier as Shylock leaves the audience with the seeming mixed message that prejudice erodes the humanity of all it touches. This magnificently staged production manages to convince Olivier's audience just as well as Shakespeare's own.

The reviewers who label this play a "problem" are applying modern day sensitivities to a play written hundreds of years ago when Shylock's part made perfect sense to the English audience. This adaptation does seem to skirt the issues and water down Shakespeare's portrayal of Shylock, as have many theater productions.

But it is important to see this production as a modern work, yielding to modern mores.

Yes, Shakespeare probably was anti semitic, but remember, England had banished the Jews earlier, so he had probably not known a Jewish person. And Shylock's oft quoted speech asking if Jews do not bleed, etc. like Christians actually ends with him calling for revenge, not as touching when taken in full.

This is a play that should be seen, and a movie adaptation that, while problematic and not really true to the play, should also be seen.

Seen with open minds.

I totally agree with Robert Swinney, the version of this play with Warren Mitchell as Shylock is by far the superior production. What a pity that you don't present more than the one version.

If you are ever having problems with sleeping, i suggest you buy this video. The scenes with Portia, Anthonio, Bassanio and other such characters just left me snoozing in the Lounge chair.

Olivier is superbhe lightens the screen, his performance trul Olivier, original, cretive and inspiring. His performance and that of Jeremy Brett's(playing Bassanio) i thought delightful.

Joan Plowright was awful, her incapability to grasp even the 2 dimesional Portia astounds me, and gives me cause to wonder whether Olivier was Drunk the night there affair began(v.probably), i'm sorry if this causes offence to any of her fans but hey, C'est La vie!

When Olivier does his dance (Hitler in second world war) this is a wonderful bit of creativity from Johnathan Miller.
Buy it for Olivier and Brett's marvelous acting skills.